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Celebrating Stepmoms at Practicingnormal.com
Mariet

Always Love your Stepmom

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Blood is not the only thing that makes you a family.  Family is who you love and if you are lucky, who loves you back.   Being a mother is a difficult job, being a stepmom is even harder.   You are mostly judged and very rarely celebrated.

Instead of judging let’s choose to celebrate the extra people in your children’s lives who love them.  There is a beautiful quote from Valerie J. Lewis in Blended Families An Anthology.  “Stepparenting is like working at a late-night convenience store – all of the responsibility and none of the authority.”

Please share these with all the blended families and send them to all the stepmoms you know.  Mostly they just need someone to see them, to acknowledge that it is a difficult job to do and to say thank you.

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Stepmom Ideas that must die from Practiicingnormal.com #parenting #stepmom #blendedfamily
Mariet

Outdated Ideas about Stepmoms and Blended Families

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I am a mom that sends kids to a house with a Stepmom.

I am also a Stepmom.

This gives me a unique perspective of the role of a Stepmom from both sides.

According to the TIME magazine’s article Amazing Moms of the Animal Kingdom, Meerkats live in packs of about 20, dominated by one mating pair that produces two to five pups in a litter, with up to four litters a year. In a group of meerkats with so many new pups, it is often the aunts and sisters of the group who care for the young. After 21 days underground, the pups emerge to join the foraging party, where they learn the skills needed to live in the Kalahari Desert.

If we lived in a society of meerkats every mother that is able to help raise your pups would be celebrated, but we do not live in a society of meerkats and raising kids is no longer the responsibility of the community as it was ages ago.

Being a stepmom is one of the hardest roles on earth.  You are always walking a tightrope with huge precipices on either side.  With practice to you turn into an acrobat, but there is some preconceived ideas about your role as Bonus/Extra/Stepmom that do not help and really must die.

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Mariet

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

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Spending time with your kids on Christmas is a privilege and not a right. Ask any parent who had to negotiate visitation rights for the Holidays.

I’m missing my kids. They have Read more

flowers butterfly lilac violet purple gardens misty fields gardening blooms blooming blossoms morning plants floral peaceful scenic nature dreamy
Mariet

Rules for Stepmoms (from a stepmom)

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Have a thick skin.

Do everything with a sense of humour.

Forgive yourself if you fail.

Fake it till you make it.

Sometimes you just need to take a nap and get over it.

Keep your promises, especially the ones you make to your kids – it’s important. Read more

Mariet

Things I wish someone told me before I became a Stepmom…

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I always thought the term stepparent comes from the fact that you as ‘step-in’ as parent.  The word actually comes from the 8th century word ‘steop-’,  which means orphan.

Our kids have never been orphans and I like my interpretation of the word a lot more.  I hate the word stepmom, mostly because of all the negative connotations that the word have.   In our house we talk about the Other Mom.  If I have to speak to someone I always refer to myself as the ‘Other Mom.’  So much so that The Littlest Mouse used to ask why she only has one mom.   ‘Other Mom’ or ‘Stepmom’,  we are all just doing the best we can.

If I could go back in time and tell my naive, younger self what to expect there is a few things I would warn her about being a stepmom.  I love being a mom and I love all my children but there is some things about being a stepmom that you never even think about before it applies to you.

 

1)   Disney hates you

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