Monday, December 05, 2005

An Evil Stepmother?

I have a stepdaughter who's 19. I've always had a fairly good relationship with her, although you couldn't call us close. We don't see her very often, which is Hubby's fault, not hers. He would take her for a day almost every weekend when she was young, but she got older and then he had the head injury, and it went from not very often to hardly at all. To give her credit, when we do see her it's because she sets it up. Hubby never makes the initial call. I don't call her because I don't feel it's my place to (she lives with her mother). Which is a cop-out, because she does have a cellphone, and truthfully it probably was my place to call her, at least for the period after the head injury, and if I had then I probably wouldn't feel awkward about it now. In my defense, I had alot on my plate then, but that's not much of a defense-she was in 7th grade, I was an adult. I do remember feeling incredibly guilty when I realized we'd missed her birthday that year.

Being a stepmother can be hard, and I realize that I've had it easier than most. My stepdaughter never knew her parents together (they split up when she was very young), so she never resented my place in her father's life. She never lived with us, so there were no discipline issues. I've been very careful not to overstep my bounds, and I've never tried to "mother" her.

Where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure. The reason it's on my mind is because she called last night to set up our Christmas get-together. Again, I do give her alot of credit for taking the initiative-it should not be her responsibility, and yet it seems to fall on her. I have alot of mixed feelings lately, about both her and myself, and I finally got up the nerve to explain it all to Hubby last night. Immediately afterward, he had a seizure, which means he won't remember any of what I told him. Which is very frustrating. So I will post it the basics here, worded very carefully so as not to completely alienate her if she someday finds this website.

I feel guilty because we haven't been able to help her financially as much as we should, especially with school. I'm disappointed that she graduated high school with no plans for future schooling or a job. I'm annoyed that several months later she asked for money for a SUV because she didn't like her car (at the time, she still wasn't working or going to school, and her car was newer than Hubby's). I was glad when she finally decided to enroll in a community college a year ago, and started working at a store in the mall. Again I felt guilty that we were not able to help her last summer when she really did need a car, because the SUV her mother bought her was involved in an accident. I'm angry that what we did offer then was implied to not be enough. And I'm embarrased because we had to revoke the offer because our financial situation changed. And I cannot understand why now she's taken on a job working in an adult store. She graduated high school as a Certified Nursing Assistant, and she wants to become a nurse. Wouldn't it be better to work as a CNA, especially since that's the field she wants to go into eventually anyway? What causes an attractive young girl to choose an adult store? Is it low self-esteem? Is the pay really high? And even if it is, is it worth it?

Then, I get mad at myself for judging her. Because that's not who I want to be. And over the years, I've tried really hard not to be that person, but if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that I have judged her. I judged her lazy when she wasn't working, and I judged her mother wrong for allowing it. I judged her materialistic when she wanted the SUV, and I judged her ungrateful when the money we offered to replace it wasn't enough. And now I'm judging her again, for working at the adult store. She would never know any of these things, because I've never let it show. I feel uncomfortable around her now, not so much because of the things she's done, but because of what the things she's done have told me about myself.

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 10:37 AM :: 0 Comments:

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