(Life stories and professional advice)
More than two people have to get along! A fact is easy to adopt; real Little Others take more time to love. When they feel it – are hostilities inevitable? How can the new stepfather or stepmother cope with a life-long challenge sooner?
Story I. – Step to Mother, Step to Father
“Today I’m first meeting my daughter. I’ve seen her many times on photos; I know she likes grapefruit juice and dreams of a pearl necklace “for the wedding”. I’m bringing her a pearl necklace. She is six, her wedding is a long way off.
Mine is in three months. It means that my hellion schoolboy will get a sister. Thus her father and I, overleaping long cautious talks on when and how many kids we would want, are having two. That’s for starters.
- Too many parents
- Where is our Nastya? – Daddy peeps behind all curtains while I’m putting off my boots awkwardly, cautious not to drop the necklace. Like a devil out of a snuffbox, a rosy-cheeked girl in one sock jumps at me.
- Sonya! Hi! I wanted to scare you! Are you scared? – she asks with hope and excitement.
- Hi, – I say. – And here is your necklace.
- Gee, it’s the special Necklace for the Wedding! Thank you! Thank you! Is it from the Princess? She doesn’t need it yet, does she? Has she married the Prince?
I begin to conceive the secret of a happy marriage. Meanwhile Nastya leads me to the rooms, to show her treasures. Among them, there’s her father’s photo with his ex.
- And this is Daddy kissing Mommy!
- Nastya! Why did you take out the photos! You needn’t show them to Sonya, they won’t make interest to her! – the Father’s ill at ease.
- Why, very interesting! Look, isn’t Mommy beautiful?
- Sure, Nasten’ka, Mommy is beautiful. And you are beautiful, too. Would you show me pictures where you are tiny?
Nastya brings the album, and we sit down to contemplate countless photos of the baby at all angles. “Patience, only patience!”
Nastya’s parents parted “positively”, having found their marriage dull, monotonous, and uncolorable. They take care of Nastya by turns. Mostly she stays with Father, and then asks, “When are we going to Mommy?” From Mommy she longs back to Daddy’s. She’d be glad to unite them, but despite her tender age, she understands that my advent makes this plan almost inexecutable.
- So Daddy, will you marry Sonya? – Nastya asks next day at dinner. – And my Mommy wants to marry you, too.
- No, Nastya, your Mommy doesn’t want to marry me, – Father says. – We’ll find her another bridegroom.
Nastya has a very caring Dad, she loves him dearly, but she wants more warmth, and it’s required “in kit” with a mother. To be part of such love, she’s ready to forgive me that I’m a newcomer, and tries the word “Momma” on me, watching my reaction.
- Who’s the Daddy now?
My own son already knows the Dad-to-be, and they succeeded as friends – this friendship records a jointly-cooked dinner, a launch of a kite, joint ownership of a radio-controlled model car, and several homework sums done. But he’s not as easy about calling Nikolay “Daddy”: his own Dad, on another emersion out of booze, gave a direction: “Don’t you regard an alien chap as your father. Promise?” After a time on tenterhooks, the son came up to me:
- So Mom, am I to remain without a father?
- Why? You’ll possibly get one.
- You mean Uncle Kolya? He is good. But he is not my own.
- You see, people happen to become own even if they haven’t initially been, – I started a philosophy lesson. – They love each other more and more, and this weaves as if a thread from heart to heart, that ties these people into one family.
- And must I call Uncle Kolya “Daddy?”
- Of course not. You call him the way you like.
- I shall think. And is it true that many children have not-kin Fathers?
- It’s true. And they are often happy together. Your cousin has a step-father, for instance.
- Does Dan’ka? Really? Uncle Sasha’s not his kin? Then get married, it’s all right with me!
- When Kids Meet
So the Moment of Truth comes, when we decided to get our children acquainted. They already knew almost everything, – but, bumping into each other in a narrow corridor, got terribly embarrassed and started asunder. Shyness didn’t last long – half an hour later they turned the apartment topsy-turvy, and in two more hours they managed to fight twice, peace up thrice and quarrel four times. We had to go for a walk straight ahead: the indoors became too tight.
The walk went well until my son proclaimed that now Uncle Kolya shall be his Dad, and Nastya – that I shall be her Mom. Children said that almost simultaneously, stopped still, harked, and suddenly Nastya threw a real tantrum on the theme, “This is my Daddy and no one else’s!”
- Nastya, a Daddy can have several children, – the father interfered. – And you are going to have an elder brother. Isn’t that great!
- I know why she cries, – in some unusually mature voice, the newly-initiated “elder” said. – She thinks, Uncle Kolya, that you’re going to be all around me only, and love her less.
All the way since, the children remained silent, till we were approaching home. Having digested the new information, they declared almost in one voice:
- Now we have common Mom and Dad. And we are brother and sister.
But the problems just began. So did the joys, of course. Now we have to do everything equally for both, as they jealously watch out how many times each of them was kissed, who got what gift. And even who was ever carried on arms.
- Sonny, you’re a grown-up already! Lifting you would break a spine! – I’m trying to bring my sulking child to reason.
- I want to be little back again! Little ones are loved like this! – he wags his head at Nastya astride Father’s neck.
In some ten minutes, unexpectedly to all, Nikolay sits the boy upon his back; grabs his hands and rotates, making a merry-go-round out of himself. Everyone shrills, falls down right into mud, everyone is happy.
Only that Dad’s back is aching for the fourth day. The load has doubled. More troubles now, and more warmth, and more jealousy, more talking and sleepless nights. Exactly twice as much.”
Story 2. – Wife to Stranger
While dating Marina, Guennadiy did speak about his son: “yes, missing him”, but took no hurry to introduce them to each other. It was understandable: as long as the outcomes of relationships are unknown, how can man get his child acquainted with all his women.
After the wedding, Guennadiy and Marina agreed that they shall host little Misha on Sundays. Looks quite normal from aside. The problem is that Misha and Marina can’t find common language. As meetings turn out taking more than Sundays, the problem becomes more acute. The new union is in tension.
Says Marina:
“My husband loves his son dearly and this is wonderful, but he takes him so often that the fellow seems our permanent resident. That’s not what we have agreed upon, and I’m just not ready for this situation. I took attempts to intimate that I’d like to spend this only day off, Saturday, with Guena tête-à-tête, but he tries to dedicate all his time to the child nevertheless. We stopped accepting invitations from friends, too, on the grounds that he wants to be with the son.
Every other weekend Guena takes the boy to the parents of his, and since Misha doesn’t like me much, the guys don’t want me join. When Misha is visiting, I become an odd one out in my own home. This weekend we planned to go for a walk, then suddenly I hear: “Dad, let’s not take her, let’s go just the two of us.” And it turns out pretty cool with my husband.”
Marina is only 25, they are just married, and she isn’t ready yet to dedicate 100% of time to children. She wants romantic nights and some social life together with her husband. But Guena doesn’t want to flex the patterns he finds comfortable. This incites the woman’s jealousy towards her beloved man’s child.
Marina:
“I understand that his love for me and his love for the son are oranges and apples, lying at different tables, but this nasty bitterness is overwhelming me. I feel unimportant, needless. Cats are scrabbling my heart when my husband holds Misha’s hand, not mine, when he kisses his son and doesn’t kiss me. I think Guena doesn’t want to show his tenderness to me in front of the child. My reproaches did no good: now this company shuns me as if I were a stranger. Guena pities his son and tries his utmost to prove that “Daddy is with you”. And though I’m apparently my husband’s wife, I have no rights to him in Misha’s presence. I’m so ashamed of myself, but I don’t know how to harness these feelings.”
Says Olga Koval-Zarubina, Family Consultant:
- To any normal man, a child is sacred. Plus, absence makes a heart grow fonder. And it’s great that fatherly love takes so much space in his heart. This means that he will have as much affection and tenderness for your whole-blood baby.
Both Guena and Marina deserve sympathy, but they brought their feelings to desperate shifts. The wife ought to try again and explain what she feels and why, and ask the husband to do the same. Only without mutual accusations. A compromise would help, like sharing every other Saturday with Misha. If this doesn’t work, she could describe the grim prospects of the relationship.
The woman also must talk with the boy himself. It’s clear that he feels not always welcomed, so he doesn’t seek the company of Dad’s wife. Marina has to assure Misha that she loves his Father, though she can’t substitute his Mother, but they can simply be friends. Having told that, she should step back and wait till the child initiates contact. And if she finds common language with the child, it would be the best way of “regaining the husband”, for this manifestation of her love would make him double grateful.
As for jealousy, it’s quite a natural feeling that accompanies love. Husbands can be jealous even of their own children when those take the wife’s previously undivided attention. People have to learn getting over the minutes when they have to share the love of the Beloved, with dignity.
ADVICE TO “BEGINNER PARENTS”
Says Vadim Hrechka, Gestalt-therapist:
1. It’s vital to spend more time together. This helps to build bridges to the child’s world, and to stop fighting for the time that your beloved one is spending apart from you.
2. All children are sensitive to make-belief. If you want to be taken for an “own”, this is the way you must yourself perceive the child.
3. Try to assume the position of the child’s equal. Parents would always love their children. Don’t try to underscore being more important. Doing so, you’ll get an enemy, nourishing hatred since childhood.
4. Don’t insist on being called “Mom” (“Dad”). It’s not going to happen till the child feels ready, and even if it never happens, this doesn’t mean that the family fails. Everything depends on the relationship between the adults. If they love each other without hypocrisy, children grow to believe them, and feel comfortable in the new family.
5. The child naturally fears that the newcomer’s gonna take Daddy (Mommy) away. It’s very important to trace this fear and show that there’s no danger to the connection between the child and the parent, and that the newcomer would only add love, not deprive the child of due attention, nor compete for it.
6. Be patient and reserved. Don’t apply other methods of educating or punishment than those practiced by the child’s own parent. It’s better to sustain the Father’s (Mother’s) line of behavior towards the child. If you spot any “glaring unjustice”, discuss it in the child’s absence. Otherwise you appear attacking the parent’s authority, which does no good to child-rearing as well as to relations between the adults.
7. Where there’s an own child and the stepchild, it’s not acceptable to always take one’s own child’s side, nor to over-praise, or condone to, the step-child while demonstratively disciplining the own one.
8. Don’t eliminate exes. People can’t be “ex-parents” (annulled parental rights are a rare exception to the typical pattern of divorced families. – N.O.). The child needs to be explained that, we have a new family now, but the “former” Mom (Dad) is also important.
9. Remember about different genes and background. Whatever further upbringing, a stepchild inherits the own father’s (mother’s) capabilities, inclinations, sometimes values. What if, for example, you excel at crafts, and your stepson fails to batter in a nail, “scribbling verses” instead? What if those verses are of talent? Anyway they make value to their author. This Child Is a Different Person. Accept him for who he is, don’t remodel him to mimic you.
10. Admit that, for some span of time, you’ll be an “alien” anyway. Give the little one time to get used to you and to learn trusting you. How? Both of the couple need to tell and show how much they love each other, how wonderful it is to be together; to open their lives to the children, and then the children would respond with same. This is an exacting task, irreplaceable with walks and gifts.
In any case, a rebuilt family is predestined to a half-year-long crisis. It’s a natural consequence of an outside person’s emergence into the life of a child. Imagine how difficult this situation is to accept. It urges the child to develop a mature attitude, and this may be a painful process. The world where such radical change in one’s life could have happened feels a rather suspicious place to the young mind.
A relapse may occur at teen age. Even after a dozen years of happy family life, – an adolescent may hurl out something like, “Who do you think you are, to intrude into my life and space, you stranger?” – even if he used to Dad the stepfather. This requires mutual forgiveness.
Peace to your homes!
Sincerely,
© Comrade Natalia
(translation from “Gazette a la Kiev”, authors: Sonya Leshik, Anna Zolotareva)
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