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Taming the Mommy Tiger

This article fromย StepMom Magazine is too good to not re-post. In the arena of parental alienation, I have been doing my research into many areas, including blended families.

One of the most common issues I see presented is the battle between a stepparent and the natural parent.

This article has great insight, by Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.ย 

Taming the Mommy TigerOne of the most common questions I hear from women who marry or partner with men who have kids is,

โ€œWhatย should they call me?โ€

While thereโ€™s no one right answer, I do concur with the overwhelming majority of experts and women in theย trenches who know from first-hand experience that there is, in a broad sense, to which there are rare exceptions,ย a wrong one: Mom. Or mommy. Or mother. You get the idea.

Iโ€™m not big on oversimplified adviceโ€”thereโ€™s way too much of it out there for stepmothers in books, which tend toย gloss over the point of view of the woman with stepchildren, as if sheโ€™s got no right to have one. Thatโ€™s just wrong,ย and thatโ€™s why I wrote a book from a stepmother-centric perspective. But when it comes to this particular issue,ย unless the planets are aligned just so (and weโ€™ll get to that, to the factors that might make it easy and OK for hisย kids to call you and think of you as mom), it is best for all parties if you acknowledge the specialness of your bondย with his kids of any age by coming up with a word other than mom to define it.

โ€œHey!โ€ youโ€™re thinking,ย โ€œThatโ€™s not fair! Iโ€™m just like a mom. I do lots of heavy lifting. I do X, Y and even Z for thoseย kids!! And sheโ€™s (fill-in-the-blank with neglectful, or a terrible mother or unloving and selfish and disinterested in ย her kids, or even an alcoholic/drug addict/liar).

So, why is she the only one to be called mom?

Does just giving birth to them make her the only mother?

Yep, it does.

Whether we like it or think itโ€™s right or wrong, we will likely beย able save ourselves a lot of grief and aggravation by acknowledging aย simple truth. In our society, motherhood is romanticized and idealized, andย mothersโ€”no matter how badโ€”are put on a pedestal by the world in generalย and by their kids in particular.

Sometimes, you may have noticed, the more problems the mother has, the more fiercely protective of and attached andย irrationally loyal to her the kids are. It can make your head spin, especially if you know youโ€™re a better parent than she is.ย Whoa, there, Step-mom!

Thereโ€™s a reason step-family expertsโ€”from the National Step-familyย Resource Center to the last book you picked upโ€”are virtually unanimous inย their advice,

โ€œDonโ€™t try to replace their mother, and donโ€™t ask them to callย you mom.โ€

While youโ€™re at it, when they ask to call you mom, as flattering asย it is, as much of a victory as it feels like, as much as you feel you earned itย and deserve it, your life will probably be a whole lot easier in the long run ifย you point out,

โ€œI love you very much, but letโ€™s think of something else for youย to call me, since you already have a mom.โ€

Again, there are exceptions, butย they are few and far between.

Why are the experts and so many of the women who have been there suchย killjoys about the kids calling you mommy?

Because they know what theyโ€™re talking about. First, thereโ€™s the reality ofย the loyalty bindโ€”a feeling that kids get, often because their moms
encourage itโ€”that loving or even liking you is a betrayal of her. They
suspect that bonding with you will actually cause their bond with her toย wither and die. What could be scarier for these kids than loving you andย calling you mom, mommy or any variant of The Mother? Sometimes, kidsย feel and fear this even without their moms doing what too many moms doโ€”ย badmouth you and your marriage.

If thereโ€™s anything that provokes a woman with stepchildren, itโ€™s a mom whoย doesn’t want her kids to get too close to dadโ€™s new wifeโ€”and tries to assure it wonโ€™t happen by telling lies or saying inappropriate and underminingย things about their step-mom.

โ€œIf it weren’t for her, your dad and I would stillย be together,โ€ such women might say to their kids. Or, โ€œYou donโ€™t have toย listen to her or be nice to her. Sheโ€™s not in charge of you.โ€

If there is anything that provokes a mother, itโ€™s the feeling that someoneโ€”ย someone married to her ex-husband in particular, whether she instigatedย the divorce or notโ€”is competing with her for her childโ€™s affection. โ€œI loveย them like theyโ€™re my own,โ€ you might say to her in a conversation, trying toย set her at ease. But the words have the opposite effect, making mom feelย encroached upon and threatened.

But why? As I researched my book, โ€œStepmonster,โ€ I reviewed what sociologistsย and anthropologists had to say about stepmothering worldwide and about wife/ex-wife conflict across cultures. What quickly became clear was the followingย simple truth: In our society in particular, many women find the idea of sharingย their children with another motherlike figure incredibly threatening to their coreย identity and their very sense of self. And when they have to do it, they lose it.

Many are the stories of crazy exes and vengeful biomoms (can we please justย call them moms or mothers?) who undermine the stepmother/stepchildย relationship as if their very lives depend upon it.

Why are these women so angry, so dead set on keeping their kids from bondingย with stepmom? Sociologists Linda Nielsen of Wake Forest University, Stephanieย Coontz of Evergreen University and the Council on Contemporary Families tellย us that, unlike many Caribbean, Native American, and Pacific Island culturesโ€”where children have a number of parent-like figures who care for them and mayย have several mother-like โ€œauntiesโ€ who look after them in all senses, such asย feeding, clothing and even disciplining themโ€”middle and upper-middle classย Caucasian American women are dramatically more likely to have been raised inย a โ€œone-mother only mentality.โ€

That means these women have been taught from an early age that motheringย means one woman and one woman only doing the heavy lifting mostly, if notย entirely, on her own. They are less likely, in a broad statistical sense, to haveย had fictive kin, aunties and even extended family involved in their upbringing. Inย their view, mothering comes from one person, and one person aloneโ€”period.

This exclusive, exclusionary view of mothering is deeply ingrained for many ofย us and results in a mindset that there can be only one mother. Further implied isย that if one mother isnโ€™t doing it all on her own, sheโ€™s a bad one. And being a badย mother, in our culture, makes you a bad woman and a bad person. Thereโ€™s noย separating those categories in our thinking.

Coontz, Nielsen and other sociologists point out that Caribbean, Pacific Island,ย Native American and African American children are more likely to haveย โ€œallomaternalโ€ and โ€œallopaternalโ€ figures in their livesโ€”โ€œauntiesโ€ and โ€œunclesโ€ย who contribute to their well-being in numerous ways. They also tell us this isย likely to be the case in immigrant and lower-income groups, where extendedย family living arrangements and a belief that โ€œit takes a villageโ€ prevail.ย In contrast, for many of us in the U.S., itโ€™s nuclear family bonds uber-alles.

Whyย do so many ex-wives go nuts when their exes remarry and their kids get aย stepmother? In large part, it may be because they are programmed to do this.

Understanding this might help those of us with stepchildren understand how anย otherwise sane-seeming, high-functioning woman is capable of demonizing usย in irrational ways. It takes hard work and commitment to overcome this socialย programming, and our collective hats should be off to the mothers who manageย it. As for those who donโ€™t, we will do everyone a good turn, perhaps mostย especially ourselves and our step kids, if we use this knowledge to avoidย provoking the mommy tiger by insisting on our โ€œrightโ€ to be called mom and toย share what she considers to be her exclusive mom privileges.

These often include parent-teacher conferences,ย doctorโ€™s appointments and conversations with kids about topics like reproduction, sex and drugs. In all of theseย areas, ask yourself just how dreadful it really is to have to concede to her irrational-seeming wishes you just stayย away or remain uninvolved.

As many therapists and stepfamily coaches ask their clients,

โ€œDo you really want to goย to every parent-teacher conference? If it provokes your husbandโ€™s ex so tremendously, might it be wise to sitย back?โ€

Sadly,our well-intentioned impulses to be involved in his childrenโ€™s lives might be read by mom, owing toย her social programming, as territorial and aggressive.

Does that mean you have to skip the Winter Sing, the graduation or the gymnastics meet every time, be excludedย and shut out? No way. But if there is a high conflict situation with a Mommy Tiger, it makes sense to ask yourselfย exactly which battles are worth having and when it might be more fun to skip the science fair and go out for a nightย with friends.

And then there are those rare exceptions. I know a fewโ€”and perhaps you do, tooโ€”women whose step kids callย them mom and who have a highly involved, maternal relationship with the kids.ย Hereโ€™s the planetary alignment that might favor a kid calling you mom and thinking of you as one or another one,ย without blowback:

1. His or her mother is out of the picture. Not as in deceased. A child whose mother has passed away will likelyย need to preserve her memory and her nameโ€”motherโ€”just for her, no matter how badly that child may want andย need mothering from you. But out of touch and out of sight for almost all of the time might make it easier and less
fraught for you to take on a mom role and name. Remember, though, although she may be out of sight and out ofย touch, she may not be out of mind.

2. He or she is young enough and open enough to forming an attachment so the mommy thing will not inspireย tremendous ambivalence or confusion.

3. His or her mother actually encourages a warm, closer relationship between you and her childโ€”and means it.

One woman I interviewedโ€”Iโ€™ll call her Sarahโ€”was nine months pregnant when her husband, never reliable, leftย her. He came back when the baby was 3 months old and left again three months later.

Sarah knew her ex, givenย his yearslong pattern of abandoning her and others, would never be part of her childโ€™s life. She also found out that
a court was very likely to support her barring contact should it come to that. So, when Sarah eventually decided toย remarry, she and her partner thought long and hard about what her 2-year-old girl should call her stepfather. Givenย all of the factors, they settled on daddy.

However, they decided her new husbandโ€™s son Zachโ€”whose mom was
sufficiently unreliable and irresponsible to have lost custody of himโ€”had a mom, however imperfect. Having andย being a mommy, Sarah and her husband knew, is uniquely fraught in our culture. And they suspected that lettingย Zach call Sarah mommy might cause problemsโ€”resentments, confusion or ambivalenceโ€”down the line. Theyย were probably right.

And five years later, Zach and Sarah, whom he calls Sarryโ€”a variation on mommy that isย different enough from it to set everyone at easeโ€”are doing just fine.

โ€œIn our societyย in particular,ย many womenย find the idea ofย sharing theirย children with ย another ย mother-like figureย incrediblyย threatening toย their coreย identity andย their veryย sense of self.ย And when theyย have to do it,ย they lose it.โ€

ยฉ 2011 StepMom Magazine
Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., is a social researcher and the author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothersย Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do (2009).
She is a regular contributor to Psychology Today
(http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stepmonster)
and blogs for the Huffington Post and on her own web site
(www.wednesdaymartin.com).
She has appeared as a stepparenting expert on NPR, the BBC Newshour, Fox News andย NBC Weekend Today, and was a regular contributor to the New York Post’s parenting page.
Stepmonster was a finalist inย the parenting category of the 2010 “Books for a Better Life” award.
A stepmother for a decade, Wednesday lives in New Yorkย City with her husband and two sons.
Her stepdaughters are young adults.

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Erased: To cause a feeling, memory, or period of time to be completely forgotten:

The only thing greater than my love for him was the pain of losing him