I used to think if I’m gonna be a mother, I decide alone. Clearly, together with my Partner, and depending on what it would mean to my body. But basically, I never doubted to have this theme of the sovereignty of interpretation. That is no longer true. I feel like my heart is beating faster at the question of whether I have children.
I’m a stepmother. I can remember the Moment when I heard him for the first Time. At the time, I told a colleague from my new friend and his child, whereupon he said: “Then you’re a step-mom.” This struck me as absurd. The longer the girl was a part of my life, the more I was asked: “How does she call you?” I found this bizarre. You called me by my name, and I you in your. It didn’t need a term to define the bond between us. We grew together, even without a special word for each other more and more every day.
it was Just the beginning of the Situation for me, however, is often overwhelming. My husband and I have never had prolonged periods without the child. His daughter was eight years old when we met. I had the feels, no preparation time, although we have left time, of course, until I met the girl that lives alternately with their mother and their father, for the first Time. Still, she was there from the beginning. That was wonderful and scary at the same time.
overnight to the heart
Like that day, when the girl asks for the first Time, whether you can sleep at night with dad and me closed. While my friend dreams quickly under his blanket, she chooses as a matter of course on my side, snuggles up to me and falls asleep soon with her little head on my chest. A little awkwardly I put my arms around the delicate, warm nature, which is during the day, so loud and full of energy, and now, peacefully, his toothpaste breath in my direction, it blows. A violent love hits me without warning, only comparable to the Moment in the delivery room, as I keep next to my sister for the first Time, my nephew. Already there my heart has decided to let this wild girl move in with you.
But this love is different. I consider the trains of the girl and think of the woman who brought it to the world. With me nothing in common except that I the man love the one you once loved. And it is this child who has come unexpectedly into my life, and I suddenly responsibility feels like. Where this Moment takes, I can not suspect at the time, but that night I let myself in this relationship.
Maria Pfeiffer is an author and freelance journalist. She writes books and Blogs and produces Videos, and Podcasts on the topics of Famliie, feminism, and football. Photo: PD
What I did to gefremdelt from the beginning, is the outer view of our Federal government. I realized the family early on, as an open social concept, perhaps because the relationship with my mother is difficult. If I remember my Childhood and youth, there have been many women that have influenced me and loved. Therefore, the adage was always very close, that it takes a village to guide a child grow up. The children of my sisters and Girlfriends are very close to my life, I have always regarded that as a privilege. However, while roles such as are connoted as an aunt, or God, is positive, a patter to the new as a stepmother without being asked the most absurd theories to me. How often do I need to allow me the question why I’m raising the child of a Stranger, only “at the end empty-handed”. I tell parents laps from the life with the child, often comes the casual reply: “You are doing it voluntarily, get up, cook, be there. We have to.” When I hear this, I get the anger, the hurt. I would like to say to loved ones: “You’ve got to get voluntarily your children, or not?”
As the three of us together, to experience the teenage girl grown-up child, and I our most complicated Phase. While you can’t find anything to confuse our clothes, it makes me angry, and it sucks love my order. Because we are both emotional hotheads, we think of violent and ruthless. This is incredibly hard for everyone, even for your dad, with whom I am now married. At the end we learn in these conflicts, the most important lesson: We can’t lose each other. The dispute is a discipline that belongs to the family of life, but he can’t destroy us.
When I excellent my personal environment, feel me, parents usually than people without children – Childless, however, the group of the parents to expect me. Both Views are true as they are false. No, I have borne no child under the heart, Yes, in the last instance, mom and dad are for the poor child responsible. And yet I have lived here for ten years, a life with a child. I brought you to bed and your stories, with your homework done, for they are cooked, pigtails braided and you in my arms, cradled. The child may not be from me – and yet it has long been a part of me. This is an overwhelming, great feeling.
As you mom, dad and me grouped together, feels my heart, as if it was going to burst with love.
Nevertheless, little is heard so clearly to this role, to be able to how to let go. This is me hard at first. As a stepmother, there are situations in which I feel I must resign, because this Part has its limits. This applies in moments that connect you to your parents, such as birth days, if memories can be exchanged, in front of me. And it is reflected in the little things, like when we “Gilmore Girls” to start, you look at the series, but with your mother, because the two find their relationship again. This distance allow, I had to learn, as they had to my limits to understand.
From the outside is read in the role of stepmother is often a pressure to get a child of their own. When I would leave, instead of in my genes there is a gap in the System. The question “you don’t Want a real child?” feels to me extremely grip. Nothing is wrong with what I have. I’ve been dealing with this issue in great peace with me. I observed the little girl in the bedroom, the mother and the father recognized this and asked myself: Would I, a new person, half he, half I? I could be free of expectations to weigh how important the issue was for me, how important other things are – and the idea finally, with a light heart let go.
More Togetherness, less depreciation, please
I am a mother and I’m not there yet. Of course I recognize the differences between me and the Birth mom’s, but I wish you would see the similarities are also there. Sometimes it feels as if I alone would take away a step-with the term mother something to someone, and this is absurd, especially since not once I was there, and it is not wished for: the intelligent, loving girl who came to me one day with the desire, in a word, to introduce, to talk about me, or me to his friends present was. In order to have a word that describes this special relationship – this is really very nice. Because it is a very bulky, we call each other Steppy, and belongs only to the two of us.
When I for the first Time, a piece of paper to you with this word sign, does it feel a little festive. As the teenager is 16, she’s celebrating with a Party. That evening she asks a friend, to make in front of the colorful wall in the Club a photo of herself and her parents. As they are grouped for mom, dad and me together, feels my heart, as if it was going to burst with love. Such moments are usually almost casually, and that is exactly what makes them so meaningful and beautiful.
If I could wish for something, it would be more visibility for the role. Less friction with those mothers that have decided to carry a child, instead of about the love for the Partner in your life. More Commonality. Less Depreciation. I think I can emotionally understand what it means to be a mother and also, why mothers form a special circle. But “family” is not a static concept. Maybe it is time to expand the Definition of “mother,” softly. Because in the end we all want the same thing: that the children we love, well. No matter how you in our life to come. And that’s what matters.
Created: 10.03.2020, 17:13 PM
