about “winning” the affection of their child. A step-parent will ! Regardless of parental credentials, a biologic child accepts parents as they are, basking in their parent’s attributes and learning to “protect” and defend any parental flaws. For a biologic parent there is no examination to pass, no report card to be signed, no external scrutiny to be worried about. In many ways, biologic parents are given a “free pass” with an anticipated successful outcome as the bond between natural parents and their children becomes stronger every day, with each adapting to the others’ personality traits, strengths and weaknesses, talents and shortcomings. This bond breathes, growing together and apart in a rhythmical, genetically-orchestrated interdependence. This bond may be so tightly formed that a new step-parent may despair of ever finding an opening into this inner sanctum.
Once again, experienced with children or not, your job is a challenging one. Your strongest resources will be your own self-esteem and self-knowledge. Strategy #1 is to take the time to learn about you.
Martha’s Story
Martha walked into our counseling office unannounced; she had never been a patient of ours before, but heard that we had experience helping with family situations. “I have a mess on my hands” she cried. “I love my new husband but I have no idea why I thought I could be a step-mother to his children. I don’t know what I’m doing and I think they know I don’t know what I’m doing!”
We allowed Martha to express the same sentiments in various ways for the next fifteen minutes. It was apparent that she very much wanted to be a wife and step-mother, but had no experience with either role. The courtship and wedding seemed so romantic that she never stopped to imagine how the rest of her life would play out. After only two weeks, she suddenly doubted her ability to give advice, parent, set boundaries, keep her marriage fresh, go to work, make the dinner, and care for her own elderly parents. In her state of mind it was clear that she was not only overwhelmed with the day to day realities, but that she had begun her new role based upon a faulty foundation of low self-esteem and insecurity. We knew that Martha was going to be just fine, but first she would have to spend some time on introspection and clarification. With our coaxing she was willing to take some deep breaths on the spot. She also accepted our word that with some information and application she would master her anxieties and gain the necessary confidence to make her original dreams a reality.
Martha was about to discover that before she could become a confident step-parent, she needed a grasp on successful adulthood—a condition that hinges directly upon the contents of her emotional suitcase. As her suitcase was “emptied” through identification and resolution of past experiences, her worry, anxiety, fear and faulty perceptions could be released. Like Martha, we hope that you will take the time to open your suitcase and begin sifting through those issues that are causing you anger, insecurity and any other obstacles that stand in your way as a successful step-parent.
Who Are You?
In our practice, one of the questions we like to ask is, “Who do you think you are?” This question renders most people speechless for a few moments, as they fixate on adjectives to describe themselves best. Certainly our clients think they know who they are. Yet almost all of them quickly discover that they do not know themselves that well . Believing (or wishing) that they are one person, they later find out (or secretly know) that they are quite another. Only those introspective individuals who have made the time to “research”—directly addressing and living with—the eternal and often illusive question, “Who am I?” can really have a deeper understanding of themselves.
Martha believed she was incapable of handling more than one project or issue at a time, because her mother always “rescued” her when things became overwhelming. Since her mother died (one year before we met her), Martha had stumbled through her life, intellectual y advantaged but emotionally stifled. It was as if when her mother died Martha’s ability to cope died as well. After taking a Personal Inventory like the one we offer you later in this chapter, Martha became acquainted with herself for the first time. She saw that, while her strengths were always present, they were overshadowed by her mother’s concern that Martha might not make the right decision. Consequently, she allowed mother to make all her decisions. Martha soon understood that stumbling and even falling were a necessary part of life. We learn from our experience, and those falls are what propel the next success.
Shaping Self-Esteem
How could someone who wakes up with themselves each day not know their own strengths and weaknesses? As we retrace a common sequence of how self-esteem and self-understanding is created here, we hope you will see aspects of your story. At the same time, realize that this sequence is applicable to the children you are embracing, both your biologic and your step-sons or daughters.
During children’s formative years they take their cues from their parents—whose comments may range from their offspring’s exceptional intelligence to their clumsy stupidity. These comments serve to reinforce a child’s already self-centered preoccupation with themselves and their needs; or, in neglect or emotional abuse, the comments may infer laziness, ignorance and an inability to be valued. There is nothing to contradict these opinions and, therefore, whether Mom and Dad are disappointed by their child’s presumed poor behavior, or astounded by their child’s advanced learning skill s, the child is willing to adapt these opinions as their own.
Self-esteem is born in the nursery. From one extreme to the other, a child may be considered an unconfident, non-motivated burden to the family, or treated as a precious gift swaddled in a blanket of exaggerated accolades that insulate the simple, real truths of his or her essential beauty and uniqueness. These parental beliefs, once adopted, begin to shape the pathway toward adulthood. Neither belief can survive without contamination from the outside world. Either way, the perfect identity of innocence is marred by harsh comments or embarrassed compliments, until the confusion of what a child believes they are is overshadowed by what others believe.
Even among the most self-assured children, it is not long before school mates and teachers begin to reshape the perception of perfection. Day by day, character flaws are identified and illuminated by other children who find it amusing to belittle others for a quick laugh. Thus, inhibitions are borne and, suddenly, spontaneous dancing becomes a careful walk, while emotions are quietly placed behind a blank mask. It doesn’t take much humiliation for a child to quickly recognize that to avoid being the brunt of jokes it is necessary to follow and mimic those children who have been deemed “popular.” Until maturity, children will shed their identity in order to preserve their dignity, always striving to remain above the invisible place where unpopular souls are forced to live out their school days as outcasts.
Think back on your own experiences. If you were popular, you know it only took one misstep to thrust you into the pit of the misfortunate; if you were among the unpopular, you may not have dared focusing attention on yourself by participating in class, or by joining an after school activity. Rather, it was often much safer to begin the emotional carpentry of building protective walls against the whispered insults that echoed in school corridors. The ages from five through eighteen or twenty are often so harrowing to many young adults that they feel as though they are treading water in the deep end of the ocean, barely able to stay afloat, always worrying about drowning.
Whatever allowed you to be fun-loving and carefree as a toddler may have been long discarded for self-preservation during the adolescent and young adult years. While some, of course, had the nerve, or dumb luck, to follow their dreams and develop their identity regardless of the opinions of others, those people are few and far between. The rest were more likely to muddle through, allowing life to pull them along, rather than vice versa.
In retrospect, the challenges faced from ages twenty to thirty can still send shivers down the most stoic spine. Ready or not, life thrusts its way in, often uninvited, with
