I’m sitting here trying to think back to the first time I was involved in getting our girls ready for a social function. There have been several dances as you can imagine with two girls. I started from the basic premise that my role was not to step on their Mother’s toes, but to help however I could. There is no way their Mom will ever know the efforts I’ve gone to in this area. I always always have tried to put myself in her shoes. There are certain milestones in the life of a young girl and it was not Stepmom’s place to steal any of that from birth Mama. In no way in no one’s book would that ever be the thing to do. Having said that, there was a stretch of time where we knew their Mom was just making ends meet and she flat could’t do some things, so we helped out where we could and tried to back off and make sure she was still involved in other ways. She is doing well now a days in her career so that now she can do more for them and good for her and for them.
Once the girls entered Junior High, the school dances began. I remember the big dance in 7th grade. At that age you went stag and just hung out with your friends but you wanted to look good of course. One of our daughters had a couple of friends she wanted to go dress shopping with and her reluctant Father said she could. She knew his ground rules going in. He didn’t allow strapless, he didn’t allow spaghetti straps and he didn’t allow minis. Armed with that knowledge she went shopping and came home with……a short, spaghetti strapped number! Oh joy!
I was at work and it was the day before the stinking dance and she called my cell phone and I could hardly understand her through the sobbing. Her statement was something akin to Dad hates my dress, says I can’t wear it, my life is over, how can I ever show my face again and what am I going to do? Great. Our other daughter called me and said that though she had a dress she’s ok with wearing, she had no shoes, this is the day before the function mind you and they were with their Mom that night, wouldn’t be back with us till the night of the dance. Compound this with the fact that bless her heart, this girl has big feet. At the age of what, 12 she was wearing a size 10 shoe already. You try finding an appropriate fashionable black flat shoe in that size, it isn’t easy. I had one day.
I got home and there was spaghetti strap girl sobbing. She took me to the dress bag, opened it and said timidly isn’t it pretty? And it was. My dear little slightly hot headed and quick to react hubby, had he bothered to actually talk to the girl, would have learned the way this had all unfolded. The girls were all wearing the same dress by agreement. Interesting because I had that happen to me one year in Junior High; two classmates of mine showed up in the same dress as me and we were all horrified! Anyway, I understood the pressure to conform here, but also her Dad had his beliefs and standards and those weren’t going to change. I said honey, you know how your Dad feels about dress styles. She looked up at me with that face and I knew I had to think quick. I said maybe I can find a pretty little short jacket, like a bolero, that will look cute and also satisfy Dad so you can wear this dress. She looked at me full of hope and said really? Yeah, I said…I’ll see what I can do.
Our other daughter came to me gloating at the predicament her sister found herself in. Not an attractive quality of hers. I reminded her that she was about to go to the dance wearing house shoes if I couldn’t pull this off for her, so she should just hush. She did. They went to their Mothers.
I spent the rest of that evening and the next lunch hour going to every store I could think of and I came up with two possibilities of jacket, both cute as could be I must say. And two choices of black flats in size 10. Upon presenting my husband with our solution for her dress, he was satisfied. The shoes fit. I know they were grateful, though their expression of thanks was in no way proportional to the degree I bust my butt for them. My husband said nothing to me about all my efforts. Oh well, it was all good.
Roll forward to High School. Boyfriends have come and gone, so have some other dances; all presented some sort of challenge or drama. First prom approached and for whatever reason our girls’ Mother didn’t participate in dress shopping. Sometimes procrastination on her end forced action on our end. I mean someone had to make a move, right? In our town, we are very limited for stores that sell nice special occasion dresses. I took the girls to the place I thought we might have the best luck. Both girls found something they loved. Here was my dilemma. One, there was no way I was scooping this moment and getting these dresses without their Mom getting a look and giving her opinion/approval. The girls sent a photo to her to get her input which was minimal. It felt like, and this is probably crappy of me to say, but like she didnt want to pay for anything, so she didn’t participate. I arranged with the store to place a hold on the dresses pending their Mother’s approval. The girls relayed this to her. The next day she went down to look at them and loved them. She bought one. I called the store, extended the hold, went in that evening and bought the other. Fair enough! They both looked beautiful, another successful dance behind us.
Now we had winter formal to get through. One girl (spaghetti strap) had a “boyfriend” the other did not. Both were going to this dance both had to have dresses. The girls’ Mother provided both dresses this time, a beautiful cobalt blue number, which I had to have altered to avoid a potential wardrobe malfunction because she couldn’t keep it up over her chest, and a pretty slinky black dress that had one long sleeve and might have been a yard of material total and which rode up to just below the butt cheeks! My husband flipped out, but hadn’t seen it till she came down in it and the accompanying heels that were about 5 inches tall. Here again is where these two parents just have totally different ideas of what’s appropriate. Of course at the age of 12, our girls’ Mother bought them their first thong underwear…I’m going to stop right there on that. The girls were beautiful, all the parents of their group came to our house for photos on our stair case. Nice memory …short dress…shocked Father.
Now we are at the summer of the girls’ Sophomore year. We have one girl (spaghetti strap) who was involved with a Senior and invited to his prom. Our other girl was between boys. Spaghetti strap became an absolute prom zilla. I mean it, and I told her as much, come time for this girl to plan a wedding, I want to be far far away. First the color had to be right, and they agreed on pink, her favorite color. He wore a white suit, with pink socks, and a light pink shirt and beautiful darker pink pinstripe vest and pink tie. She ordered on line (risky). It arrived in time and needed just slight alterations. This girl was living full time with us at this point (more on that on separate post) and according to what she shared, her Mother was feeling extremely left out of this very important occasion. I mean, a Sophomore asked to a guy’s Senior prom was a pretty big deal! I again suggested that she appeal to her Mother to help her get ready, hair, makeup, nails etc. and this ended up working out and I think her Mom felt a lot better. Where I came in was all the angst this girl had as she sweated every tiny little detail. His boutonnière, which the day before the dance we both freaked out and remembered we had forgotten. Another plea to my florist this time, and mad dash but I managed to get her one. Her hairstyle, countless hours researching on line, then the shoes, oh and the tan! See she plays sports and had time lines where her jersey and socks hit. Not real cool looking in a strapless short formal! So I researched and found the best spray tan place we had, took her not once but three separate times to get it right. The day of the dance arrived, she looked beautiful, and he looked so handsome. Pictures, both Dad and their Mother…off she went, and I collapsed from exhaustion. I’m so looking forward to their Junior and Senior proms…ah yeah.
Lessons learned:
- Sometimes you make sacrifices and work so hard to help your kids through these important times in their lives. You won’t always be thanked out loud but you do what you’re supposed to do. They’ll remember.
- StepMom as buffer is an all too familiar role for me. Whether it’s with their Father or their Mother, being the Step Mother can be a unique opportunity. You’re the other parent, but as such, you are sometimes the one they can turn to. This is a big responsibility but probably one of the more rewarding parts of helping parent the kids.
- Girls will test your metal in a completely different way than boys will. Take your vitamins, eat your Wheaties and sip/gulp wine…it works for me!
Good StepMom
