Step With Care

In a perfect world step parents wouldn't exist. Everyone would grow up in one home with two doting, loving parents who naturally love each other as well. There would be no holiday schedule. No every other weekend. No differences in bedtimes and behavioral expectations. 

However we live in a vastly different reality. A world where not every relationship ends with the proverbial happily ever after. We live in a nation where we have the right to part ways with a spouse and take a second (or third) shot at that happily ever after. But what comes next is rarely black and white. This time around you may be a Mom or a Dad instead of the single and fancy free individual that met your first spouse. And what happens once you find someone that not only loves and accepts you but your child(ren) as well? 

Enter the world of steps. Your children now have a new title of their own- step kids. And the new person you brought in to your ready made family? They now carry the step title as well. So how do we exist in a role that was created by the destruction of a family? How do we exist with these titles that aren't the natural ones we were born with? Being a sister, a dad, an aunt, a grandfather, a daughter... those titles are all given to us within the natural order of the world. But add a step to the mix and suddenly its a whole new set of rules, boundaries and expectations. 

Being both a step daughter and a new step mother myself I'm still learning. But the most important lesson I've learned thus far came from a seemingly non related quote by none other than the wise Dr Seuss.