Step Mom

Kaylee called Lia her step mom.


The girls were all in the living room coloring. I responded as always, "Kaylee, please don't call her that. Just call her Lia, OK?" They went back to their coloring and I assumed the conversation was over. Then Anna said "Yeah, our mom doesn't want us to call you stepmom either."

Oh.

Snap.


I was embarrassed that her innocent statement had hurt my feelings. To begin with, I had never asked them to refer to me as 'stepmom'. It's not as if it is a desirable title. "Stepmom", to me, does not conjure any warm, fuzzy images. I think Cinderella screwed that title up for all of us. But I was upset at the idea that I could be considered in the same group as Lia. I always felt that she belonged in the "miserable, lying, cheating, ho-bag who stole my husband and destroyed my family' category while I fell in to the " wandered into this situation long after the divorce" category.

I did realize that no matter how you feel about someone...love, hate or ambivalence. No mother really wants their child to refer to another woman as any kind of mom. It actually makes sense to me now. Even if Lia and Ryan had ended up married in a way that made me not hate her guts, I still wouldn't want my kids to call her 'stepmom'. She hasn't earned it and neither have I.

Mom is a title you have to work for and it ain't easy. You earn it by praying, worrying and loving a baby for months before it's even born. You earn it by walking the floor all night long when that baby has an ear infection. You earn it by reading that same, dumb book night after night because it's your child's favorite. You earn it in a million different ways that you never get any credit for.

You don't earn it by marrying that child's father.

So I am content to be 'just Rachel' and if my kids need any help coming up with alternative titles for their stepmom, I have a few suggestions :)