Claudette's Blog

For years, stepmoms have been struggling to be validated and recognized as an important part of the children's lives. They do many of the same things biological mothers do, except give birth.

Through the strong dedication and work of Christy Tusing- Borgeld, Founder of National Stepfamily Day (which is on the 16th of Steptember), President Obama had included stepmoms in his Presidential Proclamation for Mother's Day.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-mothers-day

This is a major milestone for many women that do so much for our future generations. These children are not just children but they are tomorrows leaders and parents of future generations.

I wish to give a great round of applause to Christy and again wish a great Mother's Day to all women in the role of mother.

This is an article that I wrote for my members of Info Step, a newsletter for stepfamilies. I decided to share with you "What Is A Mother?" in honor of Mother's Day.

If you would like to read more articles like this one, you can sign up for my monthly ezine called Info Steps at www.coachingsteps.com.

Many women struggle with the idea of one day becoming a mother, when to become a one, if she will, how many kids, etc.

As little girls, we often played with dolls imitating our mothers, taking care of our "babies", playing house, pretending to cook, clean, and more. Play is where children learn to be adults and the kind of adults they will become. They also learn what king of role in life they will play through role modeling from the adults around them.

So what is a mother? Is it only the person that gives birth to you or is it more than that? There is strong debate in the stepfamily communities (and in other relationship communities also) about what it means to be a mother. Let me share my perspective and experience on this.

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A while back, in November, I wrote that I started reading my journals after 20 years of being in a stepfamily. I was amazed at what I read. This poor woman, struggling to keep her family together, to find an identity within this new group and to feel as if she belonged.

Nothing is more important to human beings as a sense of belonging. That was what was missing for me. I didn't belong anywhere and it was terribly hard. My friends didn't understand because they had no idea what I was going through. My family wasn't much help either because they weren't in my shoes.

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MILLIONS!!!

That's right. There are over 1300 new stepfamilies being created daily (just do the math). And it's not just when you get married that you become a stepparent. Steprelationships start when you are seriously involve with your partner and started to include the children, whether you are married, living together or seriously dating one another.

There are many stepmoms in the media as well as in our day to day lives. The good thing about all of this is that they look nothing like Julie Andrews from the Sound of Music or Carol from the Brady Bunch.

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Who am I in this family? Am I the mother, the friend, the aunt, the babysitter, the maid, the taxi driver, the whatever? What is it that I am really suppose to be doing in this family? Am I suppose to be involved or just watch? Do I say something or not?

As stepparents, we really don't have clear role models as to what we are suppose to do. What little models that we do have are based on media and those are not very realistic or helpful.

Recently, I was interviewed by Jacquelyne Fletcher, author of " The Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom" where we discussed role ambiguity in stepfamilies. This is probably one of the most difficult issues new stepmoms (and stepdads) face because we have no positive role models to follow.

Click here to listen what I had to share with Jacquelyne on the subject and see if this can be of help to you.

I'd love to hear your comments on this and let me know how you view yourself in your stepfamily and how it's working.

I'm sitting in my wonderful kitchen, which overlooks our backyard forest. The sun is shining on our snow-covered yard and that warms my heart. I love the first snow of the year (and this will probably be the only one, considering we live in VA). Everything look so pure and clean, so simple. It's very serene and peaceful.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to have my granddaughter and her brother spend the afternoon with us. I say her brother because he has a different dad that she does (who is my son) but he doesn't care because he calls us "Grand-mere" and "Papa" the names the kids call us by. We love these kids very much and welcome this little brother of our granddaughter with open arms.

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I watched the Dr. Phil show yesterday and although I didn't get the title of the show, I was glad to see two different scenarios in stepfamily dynamics. Not everyone will become buddy-buddy with their husband's ex but we really don't need to be the enemy either. We don’t have enough shows helping stepfamilies setting new standards of conduct. We are still trapped in the old ways of doing things when it comes to families. We believe that the way it’s always been in creating families is the right way.

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Holidays are a time for families to get together and remember the fun times they had. They laugh and share memories of past events. But for stepfamilies, especially new ones, this isn’t always the case.

Often,those past memories are shared with other people that are not a part of the new family. Sometimes,resentment, fear, anger, and loneliness is what comes up for stepfamilies. Stepparents (both stepmoms and stepdads) are looking at this time of year as probably one of their worst ever. But it doesn’t have to be and I’ll share with you a few tips that I shared with a stepmom recently.

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