Claudette's Blog

Last Sunday, I was in Washington DC to see my oldest stepdaughter run a 10K run (I was told not to call it a marathon because real runners would let me know). It was a great day, the sun was shining and the cherry blossoms were beautiful. There were people everywhere.

This is our second time coming to this event to encourage Julie in her endeavor of running. We are so very impressed with her because, you see, Julie never did any physical activities at home. She was more of a book worm. She much rather prefered staying in her room and read than go outside and play.

As a stepmom, this was really hard because I believed that children should be outside as much as possible to get fresh air and burn of their excess energy. Julie's mom had a different approach to raising her kids and that included to let them decide what they wanted to do.

We both had the best intentions at heart yet our approaches were very different. My goal was to help my stepdaughter become more active because I felt that her weight was causing her self-esteem issues. At 12, she was probably about 50 to 60 pounds overweight. This was one area where her mom and I struggled a lot. We wanted to help her but our approach was too different and led to many heated discussions (mostly between my husband and I and then my husband and his ex-wife. He was caught in the middle).

I finally let go, because the stress and tension we were living in the home was not worth all that effort. I figured that if Julie wanted to do something about it, she would at her time. And she did.

She started realizing (once I stopped pushing her) that she needed to be in control of her life, to make her own decisions. Somewhere in all of this, running became part of her life. And the funny thing about this is that she really loves it. She has grown to be a beautiful young woman that will be getting married soon.

She has achieved so much and I am proud of her. In part, I am glad that she took the initiative and decided for herself what was appropriate. She developped her own character and strengths based on what was working for her. As her stepmother, the only thing I could really do was to be there if she needed me. She had too many people telling what to do and the last thing she needed was someone else to pull her in a different direction.

Julie ran her 10K on Sunday with her fiancee and was so happy to see that we were there to support her and be there to cheer her on. This is an achievement that I myself would not have thought possible for Julie and yet, here she is, a marathoner, a half marathoner and a 10K runner.

Sometimes, as a stepmom, we need to stand aside, and trust that the people in our stepchildren's lives are there to support and encourage them just like we would do. It's not always easy because our method of achieving theses goals can be very different. There is no way of knowing which road is best. We all have our own ideas as to way to do things. But sometimes, it's a good idea to leave certain things into the hands of those that in the end live with the consequences of those decisions.