When Stepparenting Gets Hard

Because step parenting is such a sacrifice in so many ways. You're walking into a pool of hurt, a divided family, and you are going to get some of that spilled on you. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson, and I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. Well, today on Family Life Today, we get to listen to Ron Deal from his Family Life Blended Podcast, which comes out every two weeks. And if you're not listening to it, you need to subscribe because it's really, really good content.

And so practical. Yeah, and we get to listen to a conversation Ron had with what I think a lot of blended families feel. I know I felt it when my dad got remarried. Where do I fit? How do I step into this family? I'm thinking, especially just myself, if I'm a stepmom and you have a family already established with your new husband and he has kids, you're wondering like, what's my place?

Where do I fit? And the day Ron interviewed Lori and Jerry Short, Lori stepped into a family already established. She's single with no kids, comes into this family, and her analogy of what that felt like is very true. Lori, the opening line to the introduction of your book says, my stepson gave me permission to write this book.

I thought that was great. And by the way, there's a picture of the three of you, you, Jerry, and your stepson, Jordan, in the front of your book. I think it's on the wedding day, right?

It is. And that picture embarrasses my stepson greatly at this point. How old was Jordan when that wedding day picture was taken? He was six years old. Okay. Jerry, how old is he now? He is 17, almost 18 here.

All right. So it's been a few years since you guys married. You say in your book that becoming a step-parent is like standing on the edge of a pool, wondering how far you should go in. Tell me about that.

What was that like for you? Well, that analogy for me came from thinking about what it's like to stand on the edge of a pool when there's a bunch of people in it. And certainly when you are becoming a step-parent, what I say in the book is that the pool is essentially full when you get in. And that can be cause to pause and say, how far do I really want to get in? And I know that because step-parenting is such a sacrifice in so many ways, you're walking into a pool of hurt, a divided family, and you are going to get some of that spilled on you at some point. So I know that it's very tempting to say, I'm not going to give my whole heart to this because it's going to be broken.

And as C.S. Lewis wisely says about love, your heart is always broken. And it's only valuable the more you give of it. And that's really the mystery of step-parenting is that God provides what you need, but you do feel at that moment when you're starting, do I want to get in here? And I kind of talk about how if the children in the pool are young, they're waving at you, wanting you to come in.

If they're older, and I just think that step-parents of teenagers are so brave, they could very well be ignoring that you're even there. And that is a hard wall to break through. And yet the whole premise of the book is I believe that unconditional love, if you can give it, and if you can persevere in it, it will make a dent.

It will change that child, whether you see it years from now or immediately, it will make a difference. Jerry, where were you in the pool? She joined the picture and in those early phases. I mean, you're in the pool. We're going to go with that analogy, and it's a good one. You're already in the pool. She's now approaching it.

How does that work? Well, of course, I wanted her to dive right in and be a part of that, and I've seen the fruit of that every moment. And also, her background, too, of youth ministry and everything like that, I've seen the fruit of that as well in the relationship, just kind of understanding kids even more. She has been, I want to say, the ideal partner to come into this relationship, and I've seen that so many times along the way.

And that's maybe that outside voice looking in and seeing things that you don't see. Well, I will say, though, I thought for sure when Jordan was a teenager, those would be my best years. I didn't know what I was doing when he was six years old, and I even talk about in the book that I went over to my friend's house who had a child the same age just to see if we could be together because I had no idea what to do. But ironically, Ron, the teenage years have been my most challenging with Jordan because it's been in this season that he's really understanding his situation, and we've gone through a lot because of that. So it's ironic, but I thought because I was a youth minister, oh, I'll know exactly what to do once he's a teenager. But I experienced what every other parent did that was in my office, crying on my shoulder.

That's what I did. That's exactly it. You know what? It's interesting you brought that up because I flagged a section of that last chapter where you have a dialogue with Jordan, and there was something that jumped out at me about how in the teenage years there was a kind of a switchback that is pretty characteristic of teenagers with step-parents. If you come into their life when they're very, very young, you tend to be mom or dad, and they treat you well, and there's a lot of love and shared, and then the teenage years hit, and sometimes the kids pull back a little bit. So here's the way that little dialogue went for you. Lori, you said as you look back, you're talking to Jordan, was it hard having two moms?

Did you feel any conflict about balancing us both? After a little bit of silence, Jordan says, I think it wasn't difficult until later on. At first it was easy because life is simple, and that's that small kid point of view. Yeah, life is simple. Once I got into sixth grade, it kind of started getting difficult because it was sort of like a conflict of interest, especially because you guys had a lot of different rules that were different than the ones that I had at mom's house, very different expectations.

It was two completely different households. And then you say, okay, I want to ask you about that later, but I was referring to loyalty that you might have felt towards your mom. Did that affect your relationship with me? And Jordan says, yeah, you were always kind of second to her because she was my mom. So that was always a thing. If she set a rule and you set a different rule, I tend to follow hers.

All right. So I think we see in that this dynamic of becoming a teenager, he's got his own worldview, starting to think differently about life and circumstances and you and your place in his world. There was a natural loyalty that existed with his mom and just different rules. Did you feel that being second thing that he referred to? Because we raise him, he's with us most of the time. He has been with her seven to eight weeks each summer up until COVID. It was really his teenage years and technology advancing the way it did.

So now there's FaceTime, there's group chats, there's all of that going on. And he never made me feel second in terms of my discipline, which I feared. I feared that I would one day say something he didn't like and he would say, you're not my mom and it would just kill me. But I prepared myself for that because I know how hard it is to be a parent of a teenager anyway, biologically or otherwise. They go through a lot and being a youth pastor, I heard so many parents in pain through those phases.

So I was prepared and that has not happened. However, there have been many times, one of which I referred to in the book, where I have heard from his room peals of laughter on a conversation with her and all kinds of warmth and fun. She's the friend, the pal, the one that he can just chat with on the phone, the one who has to discipline him and do some of the harder things is, in my caricature perspective, the wicked stepmother. And so I think because I'm a four on the Enneagram and very emotional, it's been more internal for me where I felt these things that I haven't necessarily articulated to Jordan, but I've definitely felt them. And Jerry and I have the kind of relationship where I could cry on his shoulder quite a bit about that. But that has been the painful parts of this is that, gosh, I raised you, but you're not my biological child. It sounds like when you hear him having those moments with his mom, that the longing of your heart is, man, I wish I could be in the middle of that.

Yeah, absolutely. I can't even tell you how many times Jerry and I would be laying down next to each other, holding hands, and I'd say, I wish I could just put him in my tummy, you know, because I never did have a child. And that was our choice at the beginning not to pull out all stops. I'm sure we could have done more to make that happen biologically, but we just felt very strongly that God had given us this child to raise. He was the right age for us, and he needed us. And so in a way, I accepted that as God's call in my life. This is going to be the mom that you are.

It's not the package that you prayed for, but this is the package I've given you, and there's going to be a reason for this. And of course, all of this is because of that embracing of that call. So those are my little sadnesses, and I know Jerry has felt those as well with his stepkids.

This is Family Life Today, and we're listening to the Family Life Blended podcast with Ron Deal, and he's interviewing Lori and Jerry Short. I thought that was great, what Lori said, because she said this is what she prayed for. But God had given her something different, and it was her calling.

I think we can all relate to that, like, oh, wait, my experience isn't what I was hoping for. But when we can turn it and see it as God's calling, that takes us to a different place. Yeah, whether you're in a blended family or any state in life, there's that moment you have to decide, am I going to accept the life God's given me? And it's beautiful that she got to that point, but as we know, there's probably a lot of stuff swirling around the middle of that family. It's so complex, and it's complicated. And that's why I thought the pool analogy was so perfect, just because, oh, there are a lot of different people in the pool, and you're trying to figure out where do I fit in.

And I just like the way Ron always gets really practical in helping families know this is what you can do. So let's go back to the pool. I want to go back to the swimming pool analogy just for a second, because I feel like that's such a good analogy. So Jerry's in the pool on day one with Jordan, and Laura, you're approaching the side of the pool trying to decide, do I go in the deep end? Jerry's saying, yeah, dive in, come on, let's go. By the way, I'm aware, at least from Jordan's point of view, biological mother is also in the pool.

There's a pool of hurt, there are other family members that are connected to the pool or sitting on the side with their toes in or something. So how do you find room, Lori, and where do you step in for it? If you were talking to somebody who's just beginning that journey, what are their first steps?

What would you tell them to be watchful of and wary of, and what would you tell them not to do? Well, there's so much in that question, Ron, but yes, all of those people are in the pool, and the exes are in the pool. And I think that's the first thing that I want to say to step-parents is that when you are marrying your spouse, you're not only marrying their children, but you are marrying their past in a very real way, because you are going to be negotiating with these people all throughout your child's upbringing. And like I say, you can either open your door and put out the welcome mat or have your door shoved in, but this is going to be part of your little family. And I will tell you, if there ever was an ideal little family, and that's why I put that picture at the beginning of the book, oh, everyone thought, oh my gosh, they're so cute, and look at this little threesome. And it's really not a threesome. It's all of the other people that are in Jordan's life. And that is what is so important for a step-parent to know, is that your child's health depends on your openness to these other people that have to be a part of their life.

In order for them to be healthy. That has probably been the most challenging, is because certainly getting in the pool involved a relationship with somebody that probably would have preferred I wasn't in the pool initially. However, I know there has been some gratefulness along the way. We haven't had the kind of co-parenting relationship that some families have. I talk about this, I know you do too, Ron, that there's lots of different models. I'd love to say that we vacation together and we're all one big happy family. Not going to happen. I know that that happens.

Different swimming pools. It's wonderful when that happens. For us, that wasn't a reality. I think a lot of people have said to us, you are so lucky that they were not even in this country.

It was literally what you say figuratively. The child has citizenship in two different countries and that was absolutely true for Jordan. When he left here, he went to a different country, a different family, a different set of values, a different everything.

Getting in the pool was trying to make sense of a pool of people that really weren't all on the same page. Not to mention all of the step kids that Jerry had and this pool of lots of different dynamics I think actually helped us because we weren't just dealing with one difference, me being a step parent and one divorce. It was actually Jerry was a second spouse.

Now she's married to a third spouse and I'm a first spouse. We have these kids that are from different combinations of people. Plus we're both step kids, both of our parents are divorced and we're saying we want to do this differently. We want to be committed. We want to have a marriage that's committed. We want to have kids who love us and who are healthy and whether they're related to us biologically or not, this is what we want. That was my desire, getting in the pool.

It's been more complicated. I think also too when she talks about jumping in the pool or how much to go in, that's when you have to really look at the child too. I was thinking of what Jordan says in that last chapter about don't go in there trying to replace the parent.

You need to become a friend first. So looking at that child and what stage they're at, the age and everything like that is crucial to how to approach and how much to jump in. If you throw a cannonball on a teenager, it's all over. Good luck with all that.

It's all over. As I'm listening to you and keeping with the title of your book, to be grace-filled as you go into this pool and consider all the other characters that are connected to it, you have to be inclusive. You have to be open, I think is what I hear you saying. You have to consider them and know your place in light of who they are. I guess the alternative would be to be possessive and try to be in control of the relationships as you want them to be and try to marginalize the other people connected to the pool. I'm sure you guys would say that would be a catastrophe. Absolutely.

It would be, and yet it's a huge temptation. I will speak as the one parent in the mix that never had a biological child that I deal with that in myself, and I'm pretty honest about that in the book all the time because from day one, Jordan has wanted me to cuddle with him. I'm the one he asked for when he was little. It was clear to me that I was stepping into a wound, but it filled my mommy heart with so much joy, and hearing even in the interview that he said, Well, you were just a mother figure at that time. Oh, that was like a dart in my heart, even though I know that's not fully how he feels.

But it is true, Ron. You have to make room. You have to make room for that other parent in the child's life. Jerry, Lori in her book says step parenting is a marathon, not a sprint, and the first few years will demand you accommodate people's grief and feelings. I'm wondering, Jerry, from your point of view, what kind of grief did she have to accommodate?

Well, for sure the obvious one is when Jordan's mom moved away to Australia. That grief, that abandonment, really, that he's probably only really looked at and dealt with over the last maybe couple years and has seen the effects internally of what that was like. So Lori had to step up and absorb that, and there were times when it was funny when he would get really sad about a dog that we had in the house with his biological mom when we were living there. I mean, he was close to the dog, but it was like every sad thing that would pour out of him, he would put on this dog, Kaya, and he would just weep about Kaya. And I'm like, you weren't really all that close to that dog. So we kind of pointed that as a way that he would release some of that grief, some of that unknowing stuff that he was feeling, and it would come out as that.

So we always waited to hear the Kaya cry come out of him every once in a while. I do think that's insightful. I do think kids kind of displace their feelings onto something neutral, something safe. Rather than directing that directly at Lori or taking it out on her, which is what some kids do, some listener right now is going, oh, yeah, that's what my kid does. They take it out on us when it's really pain about the other household or something going on with the other parent. But we are the easy targets because we're the ones that are here, number one. And number two, we're the ones that are stable. Kids will lean harder on a stable tree and they won't step on a twig that's about to break.

I mean, they know the difference. And so in a way it's a backward compliment when kids kind of give you the grief that really belongs somewhere else. All of that to say it's hard to bear up onto that sometimes.

It's true. That was kind of the relationship that kind of occurred between my stepdaughter and myself and how that kind of crumbled. She took down a lot of her anger. I mean, I contributed to it for sure when everything was splitting up and my anger and everything. But for almost three years she didn't speak to me. I had people say that I was the safe one to be mad at. She wasn't really mad at her mother who ended up moving away and leaving her back here as well.

But I was the safe one because she knew that I was stable and unconditional about my love for her. I will also tell you that as she's gotten older and now 30 years old, her perspective on the situation has helped us so much to affirm everything that we believe in and know and that Jordan will know so much more when he's an adult. I think a stepparent has to say that to themselves every single day of their parenting.

You are not at the end of the story. And your child is doing things now that are not representative of the truth or what he or she will one day feel. And you just have to know that so you're not tempted to talk about the other parent or talk about what's wrong or talk about things that really the child shouldn't have to internalize because the child will always be loyal to their biological parents no matter what they do or say. And you just have to hold on to God and hold on to the fact that some day your child will have a different perspective. And Jerry's daughter doesn't even fully share our faith perspective, but she understands so much more now who Jerry is and was in her life and has filled us with her affirmation and love and told us many times, Jordan will know someday.

And she's just been great. I love that advice. Tell yourself your story with this child is not yet over.

We've been listening to the Family Life Blended podcast with Ron Deal where he interviewed Lori and Jerry Short. What a great ending perspective of tell yourself your story with your child is not over. That is so important for every parent to remember.

I think that really takes trusting Jesus and keeping our eyes on Him. Yeah. And here's the thing. We just heard a little clip. I mean, that wasn't the whole podcast.

You can go listen to the whole podcast. Go hear the ins and outs and the end of that story. But I tell you what, it was a beautiful picture of God being in the middle of the chaos of a family, this one being a blended family and meeting us and meeting our kids every step of the way.

And that's true even when you don't see the end of the story yet. You know, coming from a blended family myself, I know the complications and the craziness that can happen when you take two families and blend them, when you have step kids and step parents and biological kids and biological parents. And it's always a helpful reminder to know that God can continue to work in the messiness of blended families. We've heard just that from Laurie and Jerry Short and a great reminder to know that God works and we can see redemption and continuing restoration happen in our families when it's difficult for us to view right now. Laurie Short has written a book called Grace Field Step Parenting Help and Hope for this unique and loving role that is available in our Family Life Resource Center.

We encourage you to check that out. You can go to familylifetoday.com to order your copy, reserve one, or you can call us at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY to reserve your copy of this incredibly unique and helpful resource. And speaking of blended families, Blended and Blessed is coming very, very soon. The uniqueness of this year is that it's a one-day live event happening on April 2nd in Houston, Texas, but it's also a live stream event for step family, couples, single parents, and dating couples with kids.

The beautiful thing as well is that you can attend live, you can stream it anywhere in the world in English or in Spanish. So we encourage you guys to log on to familylifetoday.com. You can learn more about the Blended and Blessed conference that's happening.

We're going to have speakers like Ron Deal, Kathy Lip, Gayla Grace. Join us for our sixth annual Blended and Blessed where this year we will explore the beauty and challenge and art of living in the midst of a step family, creating what we could call a family masterpiece. For more information, again, you can register at familylifetoday.com or you can give us a call at 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And that's going to wrap us up for this week. If this content today or any of the Family Life programs have been helpful for you, we'd love for you to share today's podcast with a friend or family member. And while you're there, it can really advance the gospel effort of what we're doing at Family Life if you'd scroll down and rate and review us as well. We hope that you have a great weekend. We hope that you're able to gather with your family and worship at a local church. And we hope you can join us again on Monday as pastor and author Garrett Kell is going to be talking with Dave and Ann Wilson about what it means to be pure in heart. He's going to encourage us in healthy and empathetic community in the context of wrestling with sin. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.