Talking about step-mom is a difficult thing.

Over the past four years, I have conducted polls, interviewed people, and discussed step-mom with numerous people. Progress has been made, but perhaps that progress only accounts for the strides I have been able to make with my book. I'm not so sure that the "progress" actually involves an evolution of thinking in people on the topic of step-mom. But, this is WHY I labor over the completion of my book.

I want YOU to understand me, my struggle, my plight. Don't we all? Isn't understanding and SIGHT what we all fight for? Freedom to exist and persist, to thrive--acknowledged and recognized by the sight of others as they truly SEE us. However, I may not ever get you to understand me, and that's okay. Because, I think that step-mom needs to understand herself, too. She has been mired in a mirror, frame, and language of misunderstanding for so long that she has become inscrutable to herself.

If you have been reading along with my posts for all these years, I hope that you continue to do so. But, I wanted to write this post in effort to accomplish two things: to articulate the oh-so controversial nature of the topic of step-mom, a controversy I have witnessed first hand as I have tried to entreat people on the topic. My pursuit of her has been revealing. AND, I want to formally announce that The Calling of a Step-Mom book is coming soon!

Conversation only effects/affects as it continues, so please tell me what you think. Share your thoughts, and know that I thank you all for journeying with me.

Humbly Pressing On,

Alex

P.S. Next week I will post an excerpt from the upcoming book. Tune in so you can be the first to read these revolutionary musings.

The Calling of a ZA Step-Mom

TWD is doing something so important, so crucial for stepmothers and black woman all at the same time.

I am a proud Richonner. I love Rick Grimes and Michonne as individual characters--always have, always will. Yet, I absolutely adore Rick and Michonne as a couple, as lovers. They will forever be the best and greatest OTP ("One True Pairing" for those of you who may not be down with the acronym). Interestingly, this blog post is NOT simply about Rick and Michonne. This is about how the show writers and Danai Gurira, the actress who plays Michonne, have crafted a strong, fierce, bad ass heroine who is WHOLE, well-rounded and nuanced. And, the bonus is that Grimes family 2.0 is doing the right thing for depictions of step-families.

Let's go all the way back to season 3, specifically the episode entitled "Clear." Rick, Carl and Michonne go on a run wherein they have a dangerous encounter with Rick's old friend, Morgan. Carl says he wants to go out to get a crib for his baby sister. He can't go alone. So, Rick opts to stay behind with Morgan and Michonne accompanies Carl.

This is the first time Carl and Michonne have time alone. Unbeknownst to the viewer and Michonne, Carl wants to retrieve a photograph of his deceased mother. However, the place where it is housed is overrun with Walkers making it difficult to retrieve. Desperate (and perhaps short-sighted due to his youth/age), Carl wants to run back inside, which would surely be a death sentence. Carl tries to argue with Michonne, pleading with her that she doesn't understand, etc. Michonne says, "No more bullshit. You wait here. That's how we get it done." And she proposes a plan that entails her being the one to go back in for the photo while Carl stands at the door as a distraction. He cedes to her. The plan works. Carl thanks Michonne as she hands him the photograph and he explains how he wants his sister to be able to see her mother (His mother, Lori, died giving birth to his baby sister, Judith). The pair make it back to Rick and as they're preparing to go back to the prison Rick asks Carl how things went with Michonne. Carl tells his dad that he thinks she's one of them--meaning that she might truly belong to Team Family. Carl trusts Michonne.

I love that this was the beginning of Carchonne (I sorta fancy hybrid ship-names). Their foundation is one of trust, understanding, respect and now love. Even though Carl's plan to retrieve the photograph may have been a bit misguided there was and is great dignity in the reason why he wanted to do it. Michonne saw that. She shut Carl down and asserted her authority as the adult only when she knew that him running into a crowded room of undead was dangerous. But, she assisted him; she helped him. And, she did not judge him nor make him feel stupid. She risked her own life to help this young boy pay respect to his family, and that's when I knew that Michonne would be a fabulous step-mom. She cultivated her OWN relationship with Carl not the other way around--the alternative being that she try and force a "relationship" with Carl simply because she is now romantically interested in his father. There is a natural, organic familial intimacy between Michonne and Carl that has been growing since that moment.

Other examples of this intimacy can be seen in season 4 when Michonne reunites with Rick and Carl after the downfall of the prison. She agrees to co-parent Carl, agrees to be a stable, supportive adult-figure in his life. Michonne knows when Carl is upset and she is also one of FEW people who can make him smile. The two go out on another run together and Michonne ends up confiding in Carl--sharing with him details about her life with which she had never shared with anyone else. The info she relays is tied to pain, grief and loss. Yet, it flows from her quite easily when she's talking to Carl. He receives it and promises to keep her secret safe.

There are many other examples and moments I could include that speak to the depth and strength of Michonne and Carl's relationship (Judith as well), but it's crucial for me to seque into why Michonne's love life makes me giddy. What matters so much in this world is that Michonne is a black woman who ceases to be all the stereotypes that film and television would typically have her be. She's not just the friend. She's not just a fighter. She's not perpetually stoic. She's not an overt caricature of promiscuity. She is simply a woman who has fallen in love, a woman who is allowing herself to be vulnerable and to love AND be loved. Rick Grimes loves Michonne and he loves her well. She deserves this love. Moreover, she supports her man. She strengthens him and builds him up. She fortifies Rick when he's lost and he breaks through her barriers and softens her. Michonne used to look for ALL the answers on her own--wandering by her lonesome--but now she DESIRES to share her journey with Rick. They want to have a way, a path that is truly their own, TOGETHER.

Rick and Michonne got it right. Their relationship in and of itself is beautiful. But, the healthy dynamic shared between Michonne, Carl and Judith stands out. Michonne isn't just the help. She isn't a glorified babysitter. She is a woman giving and receiving love and respect. She has the kid's best interests at heart. She fights for them and protects them. She offers advice and guidance, lacking in all things typical of the pervasive evil step-mom paradigm. Watching the interactions of Rick and Michonne and their step-family gives me hope and insight into my own life, which is an uncanny mirror for that of Grimes 2.0. So, if there's anything that I hope people will take away from some of the themes and characterizations presented in TWD it would be the fact that love conquers and prevails. And, oftentimes, love can come in packages that we haven't imagined for ourselves. Love transcends social constructions, such as race. 

Me and my family at Walker Stalker Con Charlotte, NC 2016

Can you think of any other television shows that have done a good job of portraying step-mom and step-families? Women of color? And, perhaps I'll pursue this in another blog post, I'd like us to think about and TROUBLE the notion of what it truly means to empower women of color in pop culture. It is true that there are more roles for minority actresses, but more roles being offered and more exposure does not guarantee that such roles are nuanced and devoid of stereotypes. This is why I applaud Scott Gimple and Danai Gurira as much as I do.

Also, even though it's difficult for my little Richonne-heart to believe, I acknowledge that many people do not champion Rick and Michonne's romantic relationship. I will not use this blog post to delve into an analysis of why, etc. Yet, I implore everyone to use the depiction of Rick and Michonne's relationship and family as a new, current lens for viewing and reading step-mom, which is the main purpose of my blog.

Let's discuss!

On this Mother's Day...

I haven't posted in awhile. Not because THIS isn't important, but because it IS IMPORTANT. No, it is not the most important thing. Of course not. I would be hard-pressed and bring much grief upon myself if I were to think so.

"Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Here, Lewis is discussing marriage, beginning from the premise of falling 'in love'.)

But, there is a word God has put on my heart and I would/will be consumed with Holy Fire if I did not share it. What is the important thing is that we think rightly about roles and the people in them. We each are flawed and ruined, though we can find favor in God's grace. This Mother's Day, every Mother's Day, is for every single woman who despite her flaws and insecurities and trepidations chose and chooses to stand up and be a parent, the best parent that she can be. That's it. It's about grace and love and forgiveness. Bio-Mom is not better than Step-Mom, and Step-Mom is not better than her. We are not better than Adopted-Mom or Lesbian-Mom or White-Mom or Black-Mom. We are all MOM.

If you are Mom and you are trying--you are mom.  Everyday I try endowed by the grace God gives me. He has honored and blessed me. So, I pray away bitterness and contempt and jealousy and dissensions.

Thank you to all the parents who have worried and prayed and paid...and I'm not just talking about money.

Thank you. 

And to the children, whose lives I was elected to influence, I hope you know simply that YOU ARE LOVED, first by God and after that know that you are loved and seen by many. And this matters. Yes, it does. Because this world is cruel and cold and calculating. But, LOVE--adults and children--is not dead.

"Being 'in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this QUIETER LOVE [my emphasis] enables them to keep their promise." C.S. Lewis

Let's take this further. God is speaking always about this/that LOVE; love as a force, an entity, alive in our hearts as we entreat vulnerability and sacrifice.

"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:2

"Let all that you do be done in love." 1 Corinthians 16:14

The Rock and the Hard Place

"It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place."

Photo taken in Blowing Rock, NC April 2013, Family Reunion

     

     I'd wager a guess that most of us have heard and/or used this phrase. Never a good place to be, is it? Typically I prefer warm, soft, and fuzzy as opposed to rock-hard. And who wants to be stuck or trapped?

     Of course, in true "The Calling of a Step-Mom" style, I began thinking about what this phrase means for step-mom. After mulling thoughts around a bit, the light bulb of epiphany turned on. The trickiness of being STEP is that we are forcibly being placed between the rock and the hard place.

Many people, especially biological/birth parents tell STEP two things:

1. Being STEP is practically the same as being the birth parent.

OR

2. Being a step is not the same as or as hard as being a (biological) parent.

Why is this problematic? Because these two things--options--are the ROCKS.

Step parent Sample Scenario:

I'm so frustrated today. Teenage SK is acting out, being moody and making me feel as if everything I say is an issue. At bedtime, there are no hugs or I-love-yous. There never has been. I feel disconnected and a bit sad.

Sample Address to Step-parent via Rock #1:

STEP, what you are feeling is no different than what parents feel in general. Having a teenager comes with ups and downs, so just suck it up; biological parents must come to terms with their growing child as well.

Now let's filter the same step scenario through Rock #2.

What you are feeling doesn't compare to what bio parent feels. You do not have the same capacity to love this child. Imagine feeling distance and a change in connection between bio and child. STEP, you have no idea how it feels to experience the drama that is growth of child.

Alright, where to begin?

Response number one lands step in a place where she is robbed of lamenting the challenges specific to being step-mom. Various psychological studies support the fact that the ambiguous nature of being STEP and the "outsider" effect the role often spawns incites depression and anxiety in a large number of women in the step-mom role. http://www.theguardian.com/eduction/2010/mar/23/stepmothers-psychological-effects-research This particular article is written by Lucy Tobin, psychologist and step-mum. For some reason unbeknownst to me, this particular link may be broken. I will correct it soon, but in the meantime I suggest you Google it :)

The bonding and gelling many parents experience and establish with their kids is non-existent for step, he or she is coming into a ready-made family with hopes of being able to bond, while daily facing the task of balancing acclimation, attunement and sensitivity to the kids needs, marriage, interactions with extended family, etc. So when hormonal teenage SK lashes out, step doesn't have "she used to hug me every night" and "she drew me a picture that says I-love-you-daddy" feel good memories to fall back on. Oftentimes, seemingly normal interactions simply feel like REJECTION. All in all, there's just a dynamic to being step that is other and distinct from biological parent, not that either one is better or worse, just DIFFERENT.

Response number two places step outside the bounds of emotional reception and sadly achieves the very thing I alluded to above: that being step is lesser, not enough, deficient,  sub-par. Instead of steps and bios being different but sharing space on the same plane, the second response situates step on some other plane, a plane that pales in comparison to bio-plane.

Being sandwiched between these two rocks is the hard place! Either the functioning of step is reduced or it is eclipsed. 

Being step overlaps in experience and responsibility with parent while also being wholly different from it. My book is all about delving into the HARD PLACE, acknowledging it and establishing the fact that step need not be stuck or trapped there. The existence of steps has excavated a new site, a new PLANE. One in which we must acknowledge and discuss intelligently. For the goal is to bring about knowledge that empowers all participants of blended families and step-families to see, value, and acknowledge one another--particularly all the adults to the benefit of the child or children. 

Remember, The Calling of a Step-Mom, is not "Woe is me" languishes. Yet this writing is "Here I am. Here we are. We are people and all that comes along with being a person," in light of being obscured and seemingly ambiguous.

If you understand any part of this post, please respond. If you have never thought about these things before and are inspired by this post, please respond. 

Humbly Pressing On,

Alex

Seeping into the Background

Are you are step - parent who has ever worried about being reduced? Reduced to less than who you are as a person, less than what you embody on a day-to-day basis?

Oftentimes I think people read these step - mom blogs and think, "This person surely is bitter."

Ewww, bitterness, that's the bad label--no one likes a bitter person. But, I just had an epiphany! Sometimes that air, that tension, that emotion, those tears welling up, those lips and muscles quivering with frustration (or any number of emotions), is much more than the manifestation of bitterness.

Very few persons embody roles characterized by and imbued with overwhelming ambiguity and an almost amorphous quality. As STEPS we often have to hold our tongues, bottle our thoughts and SEEP INTO THE BACKGROUND.

Isn't balance one of the hardest states to attain? Aren't many human beings currently seeking it? Balance, the great quest, the great conundrum,  and a thing/a state NOT necessarily born in many of us. In my role as step I'm constantly evaluating, speaking up, active in my love for my step - kids but ever mindful of my status, my non-status, my "I'm not their blood relative." 

Sometimes I am certain of what I think,  what I feel, but it does not serve my status well to give voice to such thoughts most of the time--tongues we twist, tie and bite, vying for that illustrious BALANCE.

Sometimes we seep into the background because our hand is forced by the ambiguity of our status. "Mother" and "Father" take the foreground, no matter what--despite inadequacies, bad decisions, and foibles of character. Yet, there are STEPS who, equipped with those same inadequacies and foibles (like every human being), approach their step-kids with the utmost respect, appreciation and care, but their moves of love and patience towards the step-kids are trumped by biology. STEPS reduced to second-class, sub-par inhabitants of the home merely because attached to their title is that infamous prefix, STEP. 

At the end of the day the process of SEEPING is tiresome, sad and frustrating...that is all.

If you understand what I mean, please respond.

Humbly Pressing On,

Alex

Misplaced Modifier

"I can't work until 6 o'clock on Wednesday, remember? I will need to pick up the kids by quarter to 6."

"Oh, yeah, I totally forgot! Can't leave your kids waiting...you're a great mom!"

In my stepmother mind:

Yes, that is correct. I certainly have to pick up the kids but they are not my kids--even though I have interactions with them that mirror interactions I would initiate with my own progeny.

I go out of my way to say "THE kids" as opposed to "MY kids." The difference is subtle yet difference still remains. Some people might protest and charge me with being absolutely ridiculous: What difference does "the" or "my" truly make? On the other hand, several bio-parents might be thinking, "Damn right! She better say 'the' kids; they're not hers!"

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the STEP language game.

There's a subtle yet powerfully effective double standard weighing on the shoulders and mouths of step-moms everywhere.

Scenario #1:

Mom, Judy, is sitting on the bleachers at Timmy's soccer game engaging in a bit of girl talk with the other moms. Judy proceeds to say that Timmy needs to be a bit less like his father and quit procrastinating with getting his homework completed after game time. A ways down the bleachers, step-mom Jane comments on how stepson Tommy probably needs to devote a bit more time practicing soccer so he can improve at goalie position.

Mind you, I have created fake names, but the framework of the scenario is indeed a real one. I have witnessed Mom Jane's comments be received back within the circle of parents with understanding and camaraderie. Even if one or more of the parents think Mom Jane's comment off-putting, her statement is still one that CAN be made. On the other hand, step-mom Jane's constructive criticism of Tommy is admonished. She is met with the statement, "Um, he is not your son; you shouldn't be so rude or critical." (Moreover, most steps probably wouldn't say anything at all. The STEP language motto becoming, "Keep your head down and your mouth shut!")

Incredulous? Disbelieving? Sound ridiculous?

As soon as I say, "Oh, my stepdaughter..." I immediately become marked and ultimately discredited in a certain way (the marking being polarizing). Then my statement is followed by a series of questions: Do you have any kids of your own? Do you want to have kids of your own? Are you planning on having any? AND I am thinking: So, can I finish talking about my plans with my step-daughter this weekend now? Or can I not talk about that until I pop out a baby? And what if I do not ever have kids of MY OWN? So what?

"That's my girl."
"He looks just like me."

Step-mom cannot say this, especially CHILDLESS steps; this language of possession as it concerns another human being(s) can never be broached by step-mom. What can step-mom say? What is her field of statements?

"She doesn't look like me."
"His mannerisms are nothing like my own."

WHAT CAN BIO AND STEP SAY ALIKE?

"I love her!"
"I enjoy his laughter."

I may not be able to claim my step-kids in a very literal sense of claiming: I was outside of their conception and birth, outside of their naming, and still I exist outside of seeing myself reflected back in their faces. Yet I love them and enjoy them and celebrate them. Language has coloured me evil, but my language NOW is LOVE. A pure love when considered that the deeds that I perform in honor of these children are indeed for them, having literally STEPPED into a situation overwrought with complexity, complication, and strife. A situation that requires courage, bravery, and selflessness.

Step-moms be encouraged in your magnificent ascent to LOVE. Love, simply. And for those who know step-mom, spur her on in her bravery in order that she may continue to thrive through a role that has long been entrenched in a site of isolation, limitation and misunderstanding.

Do you have any experience with the STEP-language-game? If so, please share your experiences for the edification of us all.

Humbly Pressing On,
Alex

A Call for Answers

Greetings friends! I have been very busy working on multiple writing projects--one of which is The Calling of a Step-Mom book. With this blog post I would like to do something a bit different from what I have done in the past. I would like to invite each of you to be active participants in my step-mom project. 

Beginning today, I am going to post a prompt which I will leave up for one week. I would like each of you to respond to the prompt either in the comments section or via email. Keep in mind that responses can be as brief or as extensive as you'd like for them to be. An answer may consist of a word, a phrase, or an essay with beginning, middle and end (I will never discourage someone from writing an essay). 

Week One Prompt: Who is Mother? In other words, what do you think of when you see the term "Mother?" (If you were explaining "mother" to someone who had no prior knowledge, what would you say?)

Be candid.

Humbly Pressing On,

Alex