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Dear care and feeding,
I recently became a full-time stepmom to a quick-witted, creative, and amazing 10-year-old daughter. Unfortunately, her mother has chronic mental health issues and has been largely non-functional for as long as I’ve known them. She lost custody a year ago because she couldn’t keep her apartment clean enough for a child to spend the night there, and she’s all but disappeared from her daughter’s life for the past six month. She calls her several times a week to chat with her for five minutes and takes her to see a movie about once a month. She talked about getting long-term residential treatment for bipolar disorder, anxiety, hoarding, complex PTSD, and PMDD, but didn’t follow through.
Well, last week the kid gave me a card.
It read: “Dear (name), I hope I can call you mom. My love, (child). My heart nearly exploded with love but an aftertaste of guilt quickly followed. I am so honored that this little girl loves and trusts me so much, but I know her mother would be deeply hurt if she knew. I responded right away, telling her how touched I was and that she could call me whatever she wanted. But now I wonder how much this could drive a wedge between her and her mother, and I don’t know how to do it. Is it wrong for me to accept this title, or do I owe it to his real mother to keep it sacred?
-The film Stepmother Didn’t prepare me for this
Dear mother-in-law,
If you’re not comfortable with your daughter-in-law calling you “mom,” you don’t have to accept it. But if that’s okay with you, and your only reservation is how his mother could feels, perhaps there is a way to recognize him without erasing his mother. Maybe something like: “I’m honored that you consider me a mom and I hope we’ll always be close.” I also hope you know that you will never need to choose between being close to me and being close to your mother, because we both love you very much. You can also talk to your partner about your concerns: what does he think about his child calling you “mom”? They may have their own concerns or ideas.
So many people have more than one mom/mother figure, for all sorts of reasons; In general, I think it’s okay to try to follow a child’s lead when it comes to defining the important people or relationships in their life. Your stepdaughter is old enough to know how she feels about you and her relationship with you. Again, you don’t have to accept a title you’re not comfortable with, but the connection she has with you doesn’t have to undermine the connection she has with her mother .
—Nicole
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