Now that I’ve changed jobs to work closer to home, Jill and I have been getting together for a weekly lunch. This has been great and I look forward to it every week. Mostly we yak about girl stuff — relationships, hopes, fears — but it’s also a chance to sneak in a few logistics and household things. What’s great is that it’s 90% girlfriend talk and reminds us both that we are far more than just the other woman player in the game of moving the kids through their lives.
The other day we stumbled on something interesting. I’ve noticed — and I could be wrong — that the preponderance of internet blogging and commenting about this whole step-moms/bio mom issue is being conducted by the step-moms of the world. The bio moms simply don’t seem as caught up about it.
It came up when I was talking with Jill and saw how visibly and profoundly upset she was about how step-moms are generally perceived at first glance. She’s been to school functions where she introduces herself and people immediately shut down or voices drop in a tone of commiseration. It’s like it’s a disease that she caught and everyone is trying to be kind about it. Gently moving away from “it” and talking about other things.
And I got what she was saying and thought, man, if people treated me like that I’d definitely be vocal about my outrage too. I got it. That SUCKS.
Now, it’s true, over time that initial reaction has changed as people in our circle have gotten to know Jill as a person. Being a great human being helps a lot in that regard. But what is it about this thing we have, collectively, about step mothers?
I have a theory. And this comes from what I’ve been dealing with in my other relationship a lot over the past two months. I think this collective thing about step moms is a manifestation of shadow, that ugly scary part of us that we can rarely see in ourselves, except as reflected in others.
Usually shadow is discussed in terms of romantic relationships, and I’ve been working out all sorts of interesting things with this guy I’ve been seeing as we continue to explore the dance we dance with each other. Shadow in romantic partners is usually manifested in weird anger, sarcasm, the maddening and mesmerizing push/pull of attraction and repulsion, fear and dependency, anger and jealousy. My shadow will cause me to project all sorts of ugly characteristics upon him, thus enabling me to either detach, or find fault, or express anger that I’m too scared to approach directly.
The thing about shadow work is that you almost never get to confront your own directly. Shadow is a tricky, peripheral character, which is really only captured by reflecting on someone else. Shadow appears in personal relationships, in the relationships between countries, in politics (don’t get me started), in our culture. And I think that, for eons, we have collectively thrown a lot of shadow onto the archetype of the step-mother.
Think of how the step-mother is portrayed in literature and film. Sorry this is getting rough, but let’s open this up a bit. What’s the word that almost always precedes “step-mother”? Right: wicked. It’s true. Or evil. You have Snow White, Cinderella, the amazing Susan Sarandon in Enchanted with her twitching tongue and hideous cackle. It’s very noteworthy when a step-mother is seen as a whole person, as she is in Juno. Otherwise, she’s a shadow character — manipulative, sneaky, undermining, catty, jealous and self-centered.
Where does this come from? It’s so pervasive we don’t even think about it too much. But when you suddenly become that character, it must be just unbearably enraging to have that entire collective stereotype painted all over you, like a big red letter S.
I think it’s because we as a society, can’t bear to attribute many of these shadow qualities to another group of women who also share in them equally: mothers. I mean — can’t mothers also be manipulative and sneaky and undermining? You freaking betcha they can. In spades. Can’t mothers be jealous and self-centered? Ah… duh. These are not qualities that are only owned by step-mothers. These are shadow feminine qualities. And for some reason it’s easier to dump them on the minority (not so minor a minority any more) than to own them, as all women, ourselves.
The painfully fascinating thing about shadow, is that the shadow qualities that annoy the heck out of us in the Other are usually the qualities that are most prevalent in ourselves. Yup. You heard me. And this goes both ways, whether you’re a biological or step mom or in any way dealing with another woman in the raising of some children. Take a look at the things that annoy you the most in the other, and then — if you’re feeling very brave and have a cold margarita nearby just in case — turn the mirror around. See if you’ve got a little bit of that yourself.
Yikes.
This is not for the faint-hearted, my friends. The work is to take responsibility for our own shadow and quit projecting it on others and getting all wrought up about it. This is tough tough work. A lifetime of work. And it takes a huge amount of humility and grace to get through. I can recommend books that are amazing in opening this world of the psyche up and that explain it all far more eloquently than I just have. But it’s important, I think, to add this to this discussion and to this blog.
We’re all in this together. We’re all human. We are all women who share many of the same characteristics — both good and bad. Let’s all shoulder our share of the responsibility for the bad, and celebrate the good that also exists.
We are, collectively, engaged in the most important job on the planet: creating the future in the shape of our children. The history of how we got to where we are doesn’t matter. The past cannot be allowed to unconsciously script the future. The fact that we look upon the step-mothers of the world like they’ve caught a disease is shameful for all of us. Let’s take responsibility, keeping that margarita handy, and see what we can do to change that.
A comment to the “Wicked Step Mother” post I wrote awhile ago has been disturbing me for the past few days. I already replied within that thread, but I feel that this topic requires more open discussion.
