Jilted Stepchildren -- Life with 3 Teens

on January 28, 2010 at 7:42 AM

teenaged girl It's hard enough raising one teen -- but three?! Welcome to RAZmom88's wild and wonderful life.

We Don't Say the Word "Step" in My Family

Or "half" or "biological." Even though I have two teenagers the same age who are not twins and people sometimes wonder how that could be.

Ryan is my legal stepson and Andrea is my daughter from my first marriage. When my husband, Bryan, and I married, Ryan was 3 and Andrea was 2 and a half. Zack, now 15, is the child we had together.

Neither Ryan nor Andrea remembers a time when we were not a family. They do know their biological parents, and have a relationship with them. Andrea once told her stepdad that he was her real father because he was the one who took care of her every day.

Ryan came to live with us full-time when he was 8. His biological mom loves him, and sometimes I wonder if she isn’t braver than I am. Other times I think she is selfish because when things got hard she "gave him away." I could never give my child to someone else to raise. She knew we could give him a more stable family life, and that a young man needs his father to help raise him into a strong man. I will be forever greatful to her, and because of her I have a wonderful son.

I Ignored My Stepson

My relationship with Ryan hasn’t always been so smooth. Before he came to live with us, I was jealous of him. He had everything money could buy. As I think back, I was very mean to him. Not physically abusive, but I ignored him. I wanted Bryan to love Zack more than Ryan. It’s so hard to explain and even harder to admit.

I can’t say exactly when I truly started to love Ryan as my son. When he was 6, he started calling me "Mom." I remember the day his biological mom was at our house and we were sitting in the kitchen. Ryan yelled, "Hey, Mom!" and she answered. But he replied, "Not you, my other Mom."

In a typical relationship, the child loves the parent because the parent loves them first. I love Ryan because he loved me first. I have had to apologize to him so many times and thank him for loving me. Even at times when I didn’t deserve it. When he was in high school, any time they announced his parents, I was announced as his Mom. That was his doing. Even when his biological mom was there.

Daddy's Little Girl

Bryan and Andrea’s relationship as father and daughter was a little simpler. I had full custody of her. Her biological dad lives in another state, and she visits him as I believe she has the right to know him and make her own judgement about their relationship. She is crazy about her stepdad, and she truly is his little girl.

Then there is the relationship between the three children. They love each other. A real family.

I have some harsh feelings about biological parents and the way they judge stepparents. I also have some pretty strong feelings about people like myself, stepparents who don't accept stepchildren. All children just want to be loved, and the more people that love them the better. I do not want another child to go through what Ryan did.

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What are some of the issues you've had to face with stepparents, stepchildren and biological parents in your blended family?

Previous journals:

No Chores for My Kids

Driving Tests, Borrowing the Car

Dating Older Women

My Son Smoked Pot

Laptops and Lung Cancer

Too Young for Love?

Abusive Homes, Faith

Shopping and Sleeping Arrangements

About the author Cynthia Dermody

is The Stir's Managing Editor who has trophies in her home for her skills at the Irish Jig. She makes cupcakes with as many fattening ingredients as possible, doesn't comb her hair for months at a time, and was probably a faerie in a former life.

Filed Under: life with 3 teens, teens

Comments (8)

Peajewel

on Jan 28, 2010 at 8:02 AM

The whole "step" thing is a tough thing to go through for all involved. You rarely feel the same way for another child as you do your own, or those born to your own! My Father died when I was only two and my Mom married again when I was 11 and he had a son that was 3. He always treated him different than he did us. Also, my son's birth Father took off when he found out I was pregnant and never had anything to do with his own son. Even though my current husband worked hard at raising him and loved him the best he could, he did not and does not treat him as he does our daughter.

I would like to add one thing, having a Father is a good thing for a boy, I agree but it is not a "need". My brother grew up without a Father and so did my son and they both grew up to be strong and wonderful men! I am not trying to be disagreeable, I just want to make that small point :)

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Cafe Jenn

on Jan 28, 2010 at 9:27 AM

Thank you for sharing this. It couldn't have been easy to do.

on Jan 28, 2010 at 10:23 AM

P.S. -- I also wanted to tell you that the fact that you DID fall in love with your step son is amazing! He is lucky to have you for his Mom!

MomIWant

on Jan 28, 2010 at 3:08 PM

WOW - I think it is incredibly wonderful of you to share this with us. Not many would be so honest about the raw emotions involved in blending a family. Personally, I have both good and bad experiences... my father remarried a woman with 4 daughters and basically forgot my existence when I was 3 years old. I never really had a father in my life because his wife didn't believe that his past should interfere with his present. I had my daughter a year before I began dating my husband. We married right before her 3rd birthday and right after our son was born...I will never forget her climbing into his lap and asking him to be her Daddy. After agreeing, neither have ever looked back. She is aware of her biological beginnings but her father is her father and DNA will never take that from either of them.

I believe unconditional love is a gift and the foundation of family no matter where the egg and sperm came from.

Momof3cuties

on Jan 30, 2010 at 10:04 AM

Thanks for sharing something that's so deeply personal. I am sure that it was not easy to share all of that in the way that you did. I grew up as a step-child. My mom tried to make me "fit" into the family by making sure that I used my step-dad's last name so as not to set me apart from my mom, step-dad & 1/2 brother. However, simply using his last name as my own could not possibly do the trick. I grew up always knowing that I did not "belong" in that family bc my step-dad never let me forget for one moment that I did not. The fact that you fell so in love with your step-son in spite of your feelings in the beginning say a lot about him & about you. You were willing to open up your heart to him. That's not easy! My two oldest are now step-children, however, my husband never says, my step-sons....he says my sons. People he works with, etc. have no idea that those boys are not biologically his. The boys call him Mike but both have readily admitted, he has been their dad for the last 7 years. It takes a very special person to be a step-parent & an even more special person to not think of a child as a "step-child" but as their child.

Now, I will say that as much as my husband loves my boys,it's not the same as the way he is with our daughter. I wish I could say that I never notice the difference but I do

Guinhyvar

on Feb 1, 2010 at 11:24 PM

My experience with being the extra mom to two Bonus Sons has been... interesting. I get along wonderfully with my elder son, and not so much with my younger one. I call him my Extreme Teen, and I honestly think that if I disappeared off of the planet today, he wouldn't miss me, but rather, the things I do for him (cooking, laundry, rides, lunches...). He's a tough one.

lstrzyzy

on Feb 19, 2010 at 8:12 PM

I have to say this post touched me deeply. My father and mother divorced two days after my 8th birthday, and my father married a woman who believed that he had a new family- him and her. Therefore, I didn't see my father again until I was almost 15, after he divorced her. His current girlfriend isn't my favorite person in the world, but I appreciate the fact that she encourages him to spend time with his family, not just her. He had another daughter before I was born, and I am constantly having to explain to people that know my mother that she is my half sister, but I truly believe that she is my sister, no "halves" about it. The reason that is is because my mother accepted her as her own daughter from the beginning (my sister was 7 when my parents married, my mom was 16 when she was born) and has been more of a mother to my sister than my sister's mom. I know my sister's other siblings, and we consider ourselves a wonderfully blessed dysfunctional family! :) I enjoy being able to go out to breakfast with my sister and her mom, my mom, my father, our brother, and her siblings, as well as all the children (my niece and nephews). I appreciate that you fell in love with your stepson, because I'm a part of a blended family and wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you!