Second Time Around

9th August 201930th August 2019

Wicked Stepmother Strikes Again

My birth children have grown and flown. I am left at home with my beloved and charming Prince Charming and his part-time son. Try as I might, I cannot keep the wicked stepmother from surfacing. Much of the time, I think she’s right.

He’s a teenager. He has moods; his room’s a tip; he wants independence but can’t organise himself; he needs to be chivvied about schoolwork, clean clothes, the dishwasher, hanging towels, going to bed, getting up… In other words, he’s pretty normal.

Not My DNA

However, this is not MY child. If he were mine, then I would share some of the responsibility for his faults. Whether you’re a nature or a nurture believer, a boy’s mum is responsible for half his DNA and a good percentage of his behaviour patterns. I can criticise my own boys with impunity. This is different.

When I hint that Stepson is not completely perfect, I am criticising his DNA – both halves – and the parenting styles of his two conflicting parents. In his eyes, I am already a strange new arrival. I have taken away such of his dad’s attention. Worse, I have made sure that where his dad looks, he sees more astutely. I have filled the house with stuff from my old world and imposed strict laws about screen time and homework and using deodorant. All of these things make his life less comfortable. They also implicitly criticise his mum AND his dad.

Just Ignore It

The alternative is to live with the imperfections,and this is what I have been trying to do.

Turns out I can’t. I bite my tongue, look the other way, go out for a walk, phone a friend, weed the garden and then I snap. And it looks so petty. But the thing is, if a mum says you are grubby, you are eating the wrong diet, you need to rinse the plates before you put them in the dishwasher, it’s normal. If a stepmum does it, it’s wicked, petty, unnecessary and altogether wrong.

There must be other stepmums out there experiencing these things.

How do you cope? What should I do? Can I change the stereotype or do I just need to polish the shiny red apple?

8th August 201930th August 2019

The end of the beginning

Although I started afresh in so many areas, I didn’t end everything from my old life. Lots of things were good and essential, and will continue until they have run their course. One very significant era has just ended, and it feels like the end of the beginning… and then a new beginning.

I have three wonderful sons from my first marriage, who naturally accompanied me into my new life. One was already married when the split occurred but the other two have grown up, gone away to study and then graduated in the intervening years. Last month I went to my third child’s graduation ceremony and then, last week, he moved away to start a job and to live in a city that is ninety minutes away by car. Driving home after dropping him and his boxes in his tiny, shared flat, I had a range of feelings.

A Job Done Well

Firstly, I was relieved. All three boys have become healthy, responsible adults with friends, a job and a home of their own to rent. I have finished the main part of my role as a mother, which is of course to make myself redundant. I have negotiated pregnancies (three out of four with a happy ending, but that’s another day’s blog), given birth, provided food, read stories, rocked to sleep, cleaned grazed knees, prayed, guided, loved and blagged my way through almost three decades to this moment when my babies have flown.

During these three decades I have seen horrific reports of true nightmares: Jamie Bulger was callously abducted and killed; Madelaine McCann disappeared and never returned; children were senselessly massacred at Dunblane. Some of my own friends experienced heartbreak through the death or illness or accident of their children. I am very well aware that it is a privilege in this world to see all of my children to healthy and blessed adulthood. It is a tremendous relief to have traveled safely so far.

Empty Nest Nostalgia

Secondly, I felt a sort of sadness which, I imagine, is what people refer to as ’empty nest syndrome’. I saw in my mind’s eye, on that drive home, so many happy moments from the past: reading bedtime stories to a freshly bathed and pyjama-clad toddler; carrying a sleeping child from the car to his cot; sailing a dinghy to a picnic spot; welcoming a new girlfriend to the house; buying tiny shoes; opening the lounge door to see if Father Christmas has been…

And thirdly, I felt a burden of guilt lifted. I had launched them into life and could now sink or swim myself without worrying that I might crash them too. The move to a smaller house which came with my second marriage now only affects me and not so much them. The risk of my new business is less onerous now that they are taking their own risks and building their own homes and lives.

The Future.

I don’t have an empty nest. I have a new nest, which they are welcome to visit. I will adapt and rebuild mine as they adapt and build theirs. And they will always be welcome to call in and test the facilities, to swap inspiration and to share memories, food, conversation, hopes and dreams.

Their beginning is done. I look forward to seeing what the nest stage brings.

28th July 201930th August 2019

Starting Afresh

Having recently started afresh in terms of home, location, job and social life, I’ve decided to complete the set and start a new business too. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they used to say. It doesn’t make much sense now with contactless cards and all, but some of you will understand.

Weary of the Classroom

I was weary of the classroom, as were my pupils. Too many data spreadsheets, too much massaging of results, too many powerpoints, too much teaching to the test too much memory and not enough discovery. I was jaded and I had no desire to go into work in a morning and deliver a meaningless set of SATs rules to children who were hungry, emotionally starved, and had spent at least half of the previous might on their XBox or playing Fortnite.

Targets and Green Ink

I could no longer tolerate the blind acceptance of rituals with limited educational impact. I can’t pretend to believe that my generation was damaged by the use of red pens, and that this one is protected by green. I can’t put yet another target on the bottom of a piece which is a second draft and the pinnacle of the child’s achievement so far in life. I still want to teach but I cannot do it any more in a mainstream school.

The Investment.

Not having the luxury of an independent income, I needed a new career. My eye was caught by an advert on Facebook for a franchise which fitted my skillset and I started to investigate. It seemed a good investment. I had equity in the house. I could do it if I chose… With significant and enthusiastic encouragement from a husband who had seen his previously cheery wife turn into a bad-tempered crone in two years of teaching in an unhappy school, I extended the mortgage and took the plunge. Within a few months, I had chosen my region, bought the franchise, resigned from my job and started to look for premises.

Time will tell whether it was crazy or wise.

16th May 201930th August 2019

Spinning Straw into Gold.

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to spin straw into gold. It’s a thankless task and very unrewarding, financially and emotionally. In my case, the straw was small , uneducated children, aged 8-13, who were to be turned magically into well rounded, responsible, caring individuals who would eagerly soak up learning and drop fronted adverbials into their conversation at appropriate intervals, remembering to mark them off from the remainder of the sentence with a comma.

This should not have been a problem. I am a trained teacher, with a wealth of experience and a sound knowledge of my subject. I actually quite like children. And I am pretty good at explaining what they need to know and enthusing them to learn. However, I do need to start teaching where the child’s knowledge weakens and their curiosity begins. I can’t leap in at page seventy-three simply because it’s Spring Term Week Two and the curriculum demands it.

The children in my school were reluctant to learn. They had issues at home. They were hungry, tired, anxious, over-dosed on Fortnite and terminally bored. Their general knowledge was limited to the area within a five mile radius of their homes, and the contents of the latest most popular You-Tuber’s video.

School taught the youngsters to be bored.

So far, school had taught these youngsters to be bored. Individualism was discouraged; learning was restricted to the content of the specified curriculum; reading was for a test; writing was mainly restricted to slotting the correct word into the gap on a worksheet. Success was arrival at the end of the session with the minimum mental or emotional energy consumed.

I tried. I really tried to enthuse, to inspire, to engage, but I, and the other staff, were tied by the restrictions of a curriculum with very unrealistic expectations. The children were friendly and generally tolerant of my attempts to educate them, but they did not want to learn.

Disruption in the Classroom

Meanwhile, in every class there were a couple of pupils who, sometimes for understandable reasons, would disrupt, argue, shout, throw pencils/ books/ rubbers/ bags, swear, walk out, slam doors, insult each other or me, and generally make the place uncomfortable and unpleasant. Of course, these children need help and support and … education. But there’s no time or space for social and emotional education. Everything is tailored to an endless round of tests and retests. If you pass, you move on to the next test, but if you don’t you retake it. If you are poor at English and Maths, but excel in Art or PE, your chance to shine is removed, while you spend more time practising past papers of tests which you simply are not yet ready to attempt.

At last, after twenty years of hoping and believing schools would get better and teachers would be allowed to teach again and children would be encouraged to learn, I finally gave up. I handed in my notice in February, left my school at Easter and am now heading into the happy ever after. I have freedom, flexibility, choice… and no income!

5th October 201818th August 2019

The food of love… or the love of food…

Prince Charming has a weight problem. I may have touched on this in a previous post, but it has become a bit of an issue. The thing is, when he is thin, he is so weary and tired that he loses his charm. But

he’d rather be grumpy than fat.

Let me give some background.

Shortly after we met, Prince Charming told me all the bad things about himself he thought I should know before making a major decision about living happily ever after with him. The things he was really worried about were pretty insignificant, I thought, and the things he didn’t rate were important, but that’s another blog. This one is about his weight.

So, I knew weight was a big issue for him and I knew he had a gastric band to help him to control it. He tried really hard to keep this from intruding on my social life or diet, and cooked wonderful meals for us both and any visiting children. So far, so good.

Faded Charm

However, after a year or so, his charm was fading. He was tired all the time. He was irritable. He seemed to be depressed. He didn’t want to go out or be active at all. His idea of an active evening was to change channels on the tv from time to time. If I wanted to go out riding on a white charger, I had to do it alone!

Now, second wives will sympathise here when I tell you that Previous Wife (and Real Mother of Stepson) had warned me about him. When she heard that there was to be a new Mrs Charming, she asked to see my ring and announce that she would congratulate me “but we were happy once, too. He changes.” At times, it niggled.

Food is the Food of Love.

It turned out, Charming was missing important elements from his diet: like iron and folic acid. His doctor discovered he was VERY anaemic. Showing him his blood test results, the doctor, suggested that he would die a premature and painful death (possibly at my hands) if he did not change his diet. This marvellous man gave Prince Charming a strict prescription of Sensible Eating which involved loosening the gastric band to allow steak, chips and baked goodies, but in sensible quantities. He appointed me guardian of the food cupboard and sent us home.

Now we are balancing a precarious tight rope. Prince Charming is enjoying a wider range of food than he has known for nearly a decade. He is full of energy, fun kindness once again. He wants to go out for walks and climb mountains. He is still cooking delicious meals, but is now – and this is the crucial point – eating them too. And life is wonderful!

BUT he is putting on weight. It was bound to happen and we were prepared for an increase. The initial rate has slowed considerably and we are hoping soon to see a sustained drop. But in the meantime, all advice would be welcome.

3rd October 201830th August 2019

After the Happy Ending.

The traditional tales don’t provide a template for the real story after the marriage. The stepmother is supposed to be deliberately evil. The real father is supposed to die or be so besotted he doesn’t notice her cruelty. And the real mother should be kind, beautiful and dead. Not so in real life.

There has been some progress in the new castle. Several weeks off work has allowed me to regain strength and energy. The pictures are now up on the walls, after some months of negotiation and trial. There are new plants in the garden and a large, rogue ash sapling has been cut down. I feel a sense of emotional ownership. Walking around the house, I see evidence of my influence and it makes me feel better.

Stepson has had three weeks away on a residential holiday and with his Real Mum. One of my boys has been staying. He and Prince Charming have been spending happy times together: whisky tasting, playing darts, sharing debate about all kinds of things. We have done happy family things, like playing pooh sticks and making pizza and baking cakes. It has been fun.

Darts seem to be an important ingredient of family harmony this week. A match is quite short; it’s interesting enough to watch without being prevented from doing anything else; you can play alone to practice or have a tournament to involve everyone. And there’s a lot of social learning to be done. We are past all that taking turns business of course, but there is the whole issue of winning and losing and taking part to deal with. Three of us are competitive but gracious losers. The fourth has yet to learn to lose without feeling significant loss of face. He blames the darts, the weather, the board, the rules, the furniture, the maths and anything else that might distract from the obvious fact that he didn’t actually win.It is kind of sad and we need to show him that taking part is also important and that sharing time together is what actually matters.

It seems that as the rest of us grow closer and create bonds of friendship, this one is becoming the Odd One Out. We don’t want to slow down out fresh growth and relationships… but does our bonding have to leave one child behind?

3rd October 201818th August 2019

Beauty and the Hungry Beast.

Prince Charming had turned back into The Beast. He had become grumpy and irritable, weary and boring. He wanted to spend all his time slumped in front of the telly and the only thing he had the energy to charm was his mobile phone.

I was wondering if I had accidentally married a Frog. The laughter and romance, roses and wine were dim memories and I was feeling like an Old Married Woman. I was starting to have sympathy with the hags of the world.

Anyway, I could see that Prince Charming was ill. He insisted he was fine but if this was fine, I’d rather go and live with the ogres in the swamp. Then one day he announced that he’d been to see the doctor and the doctor thought he might have ME or a sort of mini bi-polar. This was NOT the fairy tale ending (or middle) I had ordered and I was very troubled. It’s all very well to promise ‘in sickness or in health’ but I had definitely expected to get a whole lot more health before the sickness kicked in.

Trapped in Turmoil.

All of this coincided with my six week holiday; the time when I do not have to go to work and can spend my days at home in my castle, being charmed by my prince and cleaning away the cobwebs of life. Instead, I was trapped in a tower of turmoil, with a grumpy beastie. Something had to change. I knew what it was, but I needed to persuade him…

The Weight Issue.

Have I mentioned that Prince Charming has a weight problem? He had a gastric band fitted about seven years ago and, being an all-or-nothing type of hero, he had it as tight as the nurse would make it. Some days nothing would go through. On a good day, he survived on a home- made avocado smoothie and determination. Oh, and gallons of fizzy pop. His mood was directly related to the amount of pop consumed in the previous two hours.

None of this made me feel any better. I was sure he needed food; he was sure food would make him fat. I wanted him to loosen the band and be human; he preferred to stay grumpy and hungry. It was a stalemate. At last, we went together to see the doctor and the doctor spoke sense. Grumpy recognised the words of wisdom and agreed to loosen the band.

The Love of Food.

That weekend was wonderful! After seven years, Prince Charming could again enjoy crusty bread, bacon, a crumpet, steak, and chips. Just watching him was a delight! His smile very quickly returned and he ate like a well-behaved lion, rejoicing in every mouthful of protein he was given.

That was a month ago. He did put on some weight and is now more cuddly than a perfect Disney prince should be. But he is strong and healthy, energetic and hopeful. He is once again charming to live with. And he is taking sensible steps to contain his weight. The Beast is back under control.

20th August 201830th August 2019

Playing Pooh Sticks.

Now, I admit that Pooh Bear is not really a traditional tale but he is part of the great canon of English Literature and an essential element of family life. I am not talking about the Disney version with its exaggerated behaviours and over-bright colour. I mean the original Winnie the Pooh books with their line drawings and their delightfully differentiated characters and their gentle humour which appeals to adults as well as children.

Anyway, although I am a firm believer that bedroom activities should remain private and not be discussed on social media except in the most general terms, I will just share the fact that Prince Charming does enjoy a Pooh Bear story at bedtime sometimes. We will draw a veil over the fact that he frequently falls asleep before the end of the chapter, despite my best rendition of the characters’ voices – in the style of Alan Bennett, who was born to play Eyore – and simply move on to the main point of this post.

It was a warm day in early August. Son Number Three was with us and we were all a bit bored and lethargic. Son Number Three suggested pooh sticks and Prince Charming responded with a completely blank face. Either he had quietly been taken over by a zombie apocalypse, or he had no idea at all what pooh sticks might be.

Eagerly, Son Number Three and I explained the basic level version of pooh sticks. The facial expression changed from blank to incredulous. We made the unanswerable argument that you should not knock a project till you have tried it and the three of us set out within minutes.

On the way, Prince Charming was reluctant. He didn’t see the fun in this at all. Son Three and I busied ourselves with finding suitable sticks, offering him excellent specimens in a spirit of sportsmanship and generosity which he did not initially appreciate. However, seeing our enthusiasm, he began to take more notice and before long the competitive element had kicked in. By the time we reached a suitable arched bridge over a stream, he was snapping twigs and weighing for comparison with the rest of us.

The stream was slow moving, which meant we had to be quite creative about making the sticks travel. Soon we were merrily debating what level of remote propulsion was permitted and leaning perilously far out over the parapet to check on the progress of the contenders in each race. There were several ‘last races’ before we eventually headed home, happy and invigorated.

This experience made me realise that the Prince of Charm has not had any of the simple pleasures of family life we take for granted in my family. He grew up in an isolated, rural location on a farm. His parents were busy and his next sibling was ten years older. There were no neighbouring children. His own son was kept away from him by Real Mother, and there was none of the father-son rough and tumble which both people need. He needs to be taught how to play.

14th August 201830th August 2019

My Wand is Broken

I need a magic wand. I need to wave it at the house to make it larger. I need it wave it at the bank balance to add a few thousand pounds. I need to wave it at my charming prince to encourage him through a low patch in the business world. I need to wave it at myself to give me some energy to face the new academic year. I have been waving it around pretty vigorously but with little impact. I think it may be broken.

I staggered to the end of term and parked my professional broomstick in the corner of my classroom, leaving it there to gather some dust while I came home to the new castle to settle in better. The pictures are not quite all up yet and negotiations continue. It reminds me of the scene in ‘When Harry Met Sally ‘about the wedding present wagon- wheel table. There are two previous lives to fit onto the walls and as yet not many new memories to put up. It is hard to find enough wall space to accommodate all the photographs of children, pictures of parents, certificates of achievement from assorted offspring, hand-embroidered tapestries from deceased mothers and the pictures and ornaments we each simply like for no very good reason.

The pictures have been hung where there are hooks and little sticky pads have been posted where hooks need to go. Then they have been rearranged … and rearranged. Two rooms are fairly sorted and the rest remain in flux. Precious pictures take it in turns to be propped up on the floor of the landing, waiting to be assigned a definite location. It is amazing how much sentimental value can be attached to a simple print of a holiday destination which only one of us has visited. And as for anything depicting a person now departed, or made by their hand …. The word sacred doesn’t even begin to cover it.

All advice gratefully received and if anyone knows of a good wand repairer, please post a reply!

1st July 201830th August 2019

Even witches grow weary

I am tired of this step-parenting now. This wicked witch business isn’t as much fun as the stories suggest.

First of all, I had to move to a new kingdom where everything is strange and unfamiliar. I don’t know where the broomstick shops are or where to go to buy toads and cauldrons. I have to get to know a whole new set of courtiers and citizens, and learn to understand their accents and fit in with their ways. I left my lovely castle, where I was totally at home; my real fire; my utility room; my garden with its herbs and precious plants. And I came to this foreign castle, with its unfamiliar customs and its strange pictures on the wall and its oppressive heat and its adorable but irascible prince.

Worst of all, I took away my own children’s castle too. I thought they were ready to move on to their studies in their chosen kingdoms but I now realise they were not. Perhaps I was not.

Anyway, now I am about to change the decor of this new home. The wicked stepmother strikes again, changing the treasured memories of the stepchild, invading his childhood home with pictures and ornaments and photographs which mean nothing to him. Having been the wicked mother, I am now the wicked stepmother too.

This morning, Prince Charming and I went to the storage unit to bring back the pictures I had brought back from my old home. I found pictures my eldest had painted over twenty years ago, in pre-school. I found my second child’s cushions and pictures in a box; and the SATs paper my third-born had written as a ten year old. And I knew that the old kingdom was well and truly gone…and the new one is still strange.. and my old life won’t really fit here. Wicked witches cry sometimes.

So now, at home (my new home), I have taken most of the pictures off the walls and over the next few days and weeks, Prince Charming and I will sort them and rehang them. Perhaps we will buy some new ones for our new, joint life. Perhaps we will sell our two castles and buy a new one together.

Whatever happens, I will have abruptly ended my children’s childhood and uprooted them to a new and unwanted region, where they feel out of place and unwilling to settle. And I will have invaded the stepson’s castle and made irreversible changes to his lifestyle: eating at a table; limiting screen time; marrying his father but not being his mother. And actually, I do resent his presence here now because my own children are NOT here. I don’t want to chat to him when I should be talking to them; I don’t want to see his clutter around because it reminds me that theirs is no longer there. My children are grown up and gone, and I am not ready to be a mother again, second time around. It is harder than I expected. I don’t particularly choose to be a wicked stepmother, but it seems I cannot avoid it.

Meanwhile , the real mother is lurking in the shadows, making everything more complicated. But that is another blog.