You're Not a Wicked Stepmom, You're Just a Mom!

Should a stepmother ever feel aggravation, resentment, or jealousy towards her stepchild?  Of course!  All mothers have those feelings at some point towards their children, step, biological, adopted, or whatever.  I used to wonder if it were wrong for me to sometimes feel this way about my stepson.  I thought I was being a bad mother or even a bad person for feeling this way towards a child.  His father would tell me “Just wait until you have your own kids.  I bet you won’t act like that then.”  But he couldn’t be more wrong!  Knowing that I am not my stepson’s biological mother, I curb my negative feelings towards him because I don’t want to put a wedge between us, give him reasons not to accept me, or have him give horrible accounts of my actions to his biological mother.  If he were my own son, I wouldn’t need to guard myself as much.  Feelings like this are inevitable in mothering and parenting in general.  Any child who is talking my ear off while I am trying to read, work, sleep, etc. would aggravate me, regardless of my relationship to him or her.  It is normal to feel a bit of resentment when you realize the money you were saving for your new outfit will have to go towards school clothes for your son instead.  It is natural to be jealous of that childish innocence, freedom, and lack of responsibility.  I really used to beat myself up when negative feelings towards my stepson would arise.  I would think that subconsciously, these feelings mean I want his father all to myself or that I wish he would go live with his mother instead of us.  In reality, none of these feelings meant any of that.  I have all I need of his father and I love the fact that his son lives with us.  After reading the writings of Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Born I now know that I am not the only mother who has these feelings and that I am not a bad mother or a bad person because of it.  I am a real person, a real mother, who has real feelings and emotions.  In her book she gives very explicit accounts of her and other mothers’ negative feelings towards their children and how bad they felt because of these feelings until they realized these feelings are totally normal and how to deal with them.