When WOW took on a whole new meaning

My friend Mandy recently shared a humorous blog post about the difficulties of parenting and I found I could really relate to the blogger's feelings about her parenting experiences - both negative and positive. One of Mandy's other friends commented on the blog with "Isn't it amazing how just reading that someone else has the same struggles as you makes those struggles just a little bit easier?" Oh how true that is. That's why I have been devouring books about step-parenting and being the wife of a widower in the last two years!

Writing about our experiences also helps us make our struggles just a little bit easier. Journaling and blogging is therapeutic because it helps us pull our anxieties, worries, feelings and confused thoughts out of our heads so we can make space for other things. It helps us process our experiences -- frustrations and joys -- and work through them. It's like a dialogue with ourselves, which is really helpful when we don't have other people to talk to who understand or who we can trust.

Having trusting friends during our life-changing or transitional periods is crucial to our mental well-being. I am fortunate to have many good friends, a great mom and a sister who are good listeners, and caring daughters whom I can trust and who understand, to a point, what it's like to be a divorced woman, a mother to a young child later in life, a step-mom to kids of several ages (child, teenager, young-adult), to live in another woman's home, and to have their own children leave for college and miss them terribly. However, I don't have close friends who are WOWs -- Wives of Widowers as my books tell me -- so I'm kind of alone there and have to depend on books and the internet to get guidance on that part of my life when I'm feeling alone or frustrated.

I often want to blog about my experiences here on Dishman Hill -- as a therapy for myself, to help others understand what life as a WOW is like, and as a resource for other woman who are grasping for supportive stories about others who feel like me -- those who feel they've been dropped out of an airplane into someone else's life, who have been expected to hit the ground running and who are not allowed to stumble. But in a small community where everyone knows everyone I feel like it's an invasion of my family members' privacy to do so with complete candor. I wear my heart on my sleeve for everyone to see but Craig is much more private. He often tells me I should write a book about our romance but that romantic, almost fairy tale-like story, was preceded by and has been followed by a reality that includes many joys, but even more struggles, and I would feel dishonest by not including the whole story, not just the pretty parts, in my writing. I don't think he would be as comfortable as I am with sharing the whole story.

One of the "Stepping" books I'm reading now states, very clearly, something that really resonates with me and something I wish I would have read before joining the family. Other women I know might benefit from it too. But I wonder how others -- Craig and his kids, and his late-wife's family & friends (especially those who seem to judge me/us frequently) -- might feel about it.

"We are stepmothers for one reason and one reason only: we love the father of these children. In the fullness of time, we may also grow to love the children, but that is not our first priority. Next to caring for ourselves, loving our man and strengthening our marriage are of the primary importance because both increase our happiness and create a secure foundation for the children involved. As the poet Rilke emphasizes, love is not easy. And love that comes with a ready-made family is even more difficult. Therefore, we need to faithfully make time to rekindle our love and remember why we married."

"We all want our marriages to thrive. To insure that they do, we need to make a conscious commitment to the challenge of nurturing our union. While children can bring us closer, they can also create divisive chasms. It is in the best interest of all to first build a joyful and stable relationship with our husbands and then invite the children to join in. Children crave the security and modeling of a companionable and cohesive partnership. Your unity as a couple, as well as your commitment to yourself as an individual, will be a tremendous boon in helping the kids develop into caring and self-confident adults."

With the above statements in mind I want to honestly relate them to my own life and ask others who can also relate to comment if they feel comfortable. Adjusting to living in a home full of children who are not mine, especially with one whom I feel should be living on his own by now, has been my second greatest challenge and frustration. Living in a house built, furnished, decorated and organized by another woman has been my third greatest challenge. These two combined have a huge impact on my first greatest challenge -- building a solid relationship with Craig -- because they affect my whole being. They put a huge burden on my schedule, my energy, my comfort, my efficiency, my mood, my creative spirit - and most of all time to take care of myself, nourish my relationship with my husband, and meet the needs of my own daughters.

Life has changed drastically for me since I moved from my beautiful, quiet, roomy old home on West Madison Street 2 1/2 years ago. But life changed drastically for me a year before that, and a few years before that, and I survived: A career I loved vanished, a daughter left the nest, a young person I loved died, another job was lost, my husband chose to leave our family unit to love another, I had freedom to find myself, another job was lost, I met my true love, another daughter left the nest, then I abandoned the nest to help rebuild one, but found other birds there resisted rebuilding, I lost myself and I struggle daily to find me again. It's been wonderful, it's been horrible, it's been fun, it's been exhausting, I've grown, I've regressed, I've laughed and I've cried. I know there is a lot of work ahead but I know I'm up for it and I know in the end I will look back and know it was the greatest experience of my life.

I invite other women who have had similar experiences to share, either as a comment on this blog or privately to me at julie.dishman@gmail.com. We might be a help to each other.

Mamas, don't let your cowboys grow up to be babies.

In case you are too young to understand the reference in my title, it's a spin on the old country song, "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" which warns mothers of letting their boys grow up to be tough, stubborn, lonely cowboys who like smoky pool rooms, old trucks and guitars. Through the years I have noticed it seems that many well-meaning moms have taken this song to heart and have instead pampered the dickens out of their little cowboys and cowgirls and have let them grow up to be, well, babies.

We all look at our new babies, girls and boys, those beautiful little faces, those miniature helpless bodies, and we vow to love and protect them, hug them and hold them, as long as they'll let us. We want them to feel safe, secure and loved so we show them our love and protection through our acts of service, gifts and affection. Because we love them so much we want to make life easier and more comfortable for them. We don't want them to feel physical pain and emotional hurt and we don't want them to suffer. We don't want them to do without the things they desire. As they grow we continue to see the faces of our sweet babies - in their toddler, child, teenager and young adult faces - and we continue to shower them with our acts of motherly love.

But sometimes we go overboard and continue to give and do, even when they can get and do on their own. Instead of protecting and loving them we coddle them. We do everything for them, we give everything to them, we protect them from everything. We cook, clean, pick up after them, run them around town, indulge their every whim, buy or give them everything they want, need and ask for.

And guess what? Most kids who are coddled grow up to be adults who expect to be coddled. They are often spoiled, lazy, self-centered and rude. They make bad roommates, spouses, coworkers and adult children. They don't know how to take care of themselves, let alone another person, or cook, clean, find jobs, or pay their bills. They don't know how to take responsibility for their own actions and they don't know how to do for others. They expect the world to be handed to them instead of working for it...because that's all they know.

In my experience as a parent, step-parent and college academic/career advisor I have seen evidence that parents who provide the opportunities for their children to learn how to take care of themselves, to struggle a bit, to get frustrated, to work hard, to feel loss, etc., create the most well-adjusted, responsible and productive young adults. On the other hand, those who attempt to make life less difficult for their kids actually make life more difficult for them, and themselves, in the long run. While we are doing everything for them, giving them everything, we aren't letting them learn how to do it themselves. Then when they can't do it for themselves we have to continue to do it for them. We basically disable them with our misguided love.

Don't get me wrong, everyone deserves a little pampering or a reward every once in a while, but when we constantly pamper our kids, or constantly over reward them, we teach them to expect that kind of life without working for it. Unfortunately what they get from us has little meaning to them because they get it all the time, or too easily, without any effort on their part.

Kids need to learn to take care of themselves and not to expect others to take care of their every want, and they need to learn the skills it takes to fulfill their own needs. They need to know what it feels like to struggle and sacrifice something in order to obtain something they want. They need to learn how to solve problems on their own and pull themselves out of a hole. They need the room to make mistakes, feel the consequences of their mistakes, and figure out how to correct what ever it is they did wrong. That's how they learn and grow to be responsible adults. I think we, as parents, do them a disservice when we try to make life too easy for them or when we try to protect them from pain -- pain of not having, pain of losing something, pain of trying hard but still not getting it.

We should always give our babies, then children, then teens, then young adults what they need, but not everything they want. They need love, they need security, they need shelter and food, they need access to an academic and social education, etc. At different ages and stages of development they will need different things from us and the larger world. As they grow their ability to meet those needs on their own should gradually develop and our response to their needs should diminish. As responsible parents we should learn what they are capable of doing on their own at a given age and adjust what we give and do for them appropriately. We should also teach them the difference between their wants and needs and who is responsible for meeting both at different stages of their lives.

Our children will always need our love. We can best show our love by allowing them to grow up to be independent, responsible, productive adults, and we can only do that if we quit treating them like babies. Believe me, their partners will thank you someday.