Confessions of an Evil Step-mother

Oooh, here it comes. There's a site out there (and I'm sorry I don't have the link to it handy because I haven't bookmarked it even though I should have because I'm fascinated by it) called Secrets or something like that. People send their secrets on a postcard and they get posted. I think they even made a book out of some of them. Some of these secrets are pretty horrifying like the woman who wrote in to say that she'd given her cat bleach so that she had an excuse to go back to the cut vet. Yikes! But by and large the others are what fall into the realm of 'normal' (don't even get me started on the realm of 'normal', just accept it today, OK?). This got me thinking I have a secret and I'd really like to get it out in the light of day. Secrets can be awful things. And I don't mean the kind of secret like the last post. That falls squarely into the category of family tragedy that we try not to talk about in public. This one's different.

I am an awful step-mom. There, I said it. Honestly, I love the little buggers but I just can't stand them. They drive me out of my ever loving mind. And what's worse is when they are in my house my husband reverts to similar lunacy. I can't think of what makes me madder.

Here's what I hate about my step-sons:

1. They have almost no boundaries or regard for people around them.


2. They behave exactly as they please regardless of how it affects anyone else.


3. If you say something the response will most likely be "so?"


4. They are completely unaccountable and often find it funny that this upsets people.


5. They remind me of their mother who has often been the bane of my existence.


6. They cause my husband no end of grief from the guilt of not being with them.


7. Any attempt I have made to have a relationship with them has been sabotaged by their mother immediately following the visit in question.


8. When they do things to me that I find unacceptable their father's first response is to deny it and the second to defend it.

I could go on, but what's the point? I have another list as well, this is the one that keeps my head above water:

1. They were and are raised very differently than I or my children.


2. I am not their mother nor do I need to be.


3. If I can't get along then I ought just take myself out of the equation and let them and their father be.


4. This has nothing to do with how I feel about their mother and I really need to keep those feelings separate.


5. I do not have to do anything I don't choose to do.


6. The issues I do have need to be taken up with their father, my husband, and left at that. It's up to him, not them, to establish boundaries if I cannot.


7. They are just kids, people, human beings and deserve to be treated as such.


8. There are moments when I actually like both of them very much. Just strangely never at the same time.

I could go on, but what's the point?

It has made me stop and think though, what is this all about? Really it's about feeling like a victim. Like I don't have any control over what's happening to me or mine. It's about my own personal guilt for having someone else's Dad parenting my children on a daily basis. None of that changes that fact that to me, and here's the important part, to me they are just awful children. That's my experience and it's valid. They are just awful. To other people they are just fine. And here is where the worlds collide and guilt occurs.

You know, I bet there's another story about Snow White and Cinderella. Kind of the same way, after having read Wicked (Gregory McGuire and never mind the Musical) I can never not feel for the wicked witch.

There. I've said it.