We all had things to teach each other. For example, aside from stepping into a divorce complete with children, a visitation schedule, adapting to quickly putting children’s needs above my own, they also came with three, yes three dogs and 2 cats. They are Catholic and attended Church functions regularly. Their lives were driven by school and sports and they came from a big family, so they had fairly regular large family get togethers.
I, on the other hand, came from a very small family, and I lived with my dog. I was raised Southern Baptist but wasn’t a regular church goer. I ice skated as a kid but did not participate in team sports. I was raised in the Southern traditions and liked the blues and soul food. Etiquette and good manners were important to me. Things like saying yes sir and yes mam to an elder, sending thank you cards for gifts (even to my own parents) were as normal to me a breathing. My new group humored me but didn’t completely pretend to understand these things nor see their importance. The kids used to say I talked funny and still to this day I’ll use a phrase of some sort and my husband or the kids will say what?
Acceptance of each other’s family is key when you are trying to determine if your life together is going to work. I am from Alabama originally. Though I grew up in Kansas, I spent a lot of time down South with extended family and still most of my family lives in that region. The first Thanksgiving we were together we had the opportunity to fly in a small private jet down to Florida to get together with my family. You should have seen these kids, their eyes were as big as dinner plates getting onto that plane and they had never seen a beach up close. Their Dad hadn’t either.
We had a great time and I knew we would; but there was something very important to me that I also kind of needed to test out. See my Mother’s brother, my Uncle is gay. He is absolutely one of my very most favorite people in this world. His partner too, and they have been a couple for gosh 35 years, something like that. They have had one of the most successful unions of all the people on my Mother’s side of the family. To me they are just part of my family. I know this is hard for some people to accept and I can respect that, especially I suppose where children are involved. Understand that my Uncles have always been discreet, but they are obviously a couple. I discussed this privately with the kids’ Dad before we took our trip. Though I think it may have initially given him pause, he didnt let it stop him from taking the kids on the trip and all he had to do was meet them and he was immediately taken with them and at ease. This was very important to me because I could never be with someone long term who wasn’t accepting of my family. We decided to take the let’s see approach with the kids and the kids really liked them. After we got home, some time later, one of the girls, the deligate no doubt, came to me and simply asked, hey, your Uncles, are they a couple? I said yes they are. Her response was, yeah we thought so. That was that. Acceptance, and so readily.
This family liked going to Branson, they thought it was fun and the kids’ Grandparents regularly went there. I, on the other hand, used to make fun of people who went there. I thought it was kind of cheesy.
I grew up flying on planes since I was a little kid, my new guy could only fly with pharmaceutical assistance.
We each swung over a little in each direction and we took some vacations to Tablerock Lake, where I taught them that swimming in a lake where you can’t see the bottom ain’t all that bad. Heck once I did my first cannonball off the dock, it took a crowbar to get those kids out of that water. They took me to Silver Dollar City and Branson and I actually had fun. In fact we bonded and really started to feel like a family there in the Ozarks. They tried some of my cooking.
They introduced me to dinner time trivia games, I introduced them to a season of Amerian Idol. We’ve come to have our own unique things we now do as a family. The way we celebrate New Years, American Idol is a have to situation, taco night once a week; what’s important is that we were all willing to try…new things!
Lessons Learned
- You may come from very different backgrounds. It will take willingness to try each other’s ways without pre-judging, to bring you closer. Two way street.
- Discuss the more difficult issues beforehand, and how you want to handle them with the kids, no surprises. This builds trust between you and your partner. Don’t hide anything. It isn’t a good foundation for a relationship, takes way too much energy to sustain and they’ll probably find out whatever it is anyway and now you look like someone they can’t trust. They will probably surprise you with what they are willing to accept.
- Come up with your own regular family activities and traditions…be creative and have some fun! You’re creating great memories!
Good Step Mom
