I am the second wife and mother. And the truth is that I am always kind of comparing myself to the “original.”
For example, one really hot Spring Saturday afternoon, after attending three different soccer games for my three stepchildren, I found myself standing next to my husband on his ex-wife’s front porch, looking through her screen door.
We were there, as arranged, to talk about child care plans for the summer. I was hot, sticky and a puffy six months pregnant. She was coated in baby oil, in a bikini and a huge floating sunhat.
She never invited us inside. I’m convinced that she must have known that the screen acted like vaseline on a photographer’s lens, softening and smoothing any possible imperfections. And the sun, pouring in from the back of the house, was like a halo backlighting her curves. We stood on the porch, while she posed and pondered my request to be “hired” as the summer babysitter. I promised to enroll the kids in swim club and summer band and host loads of play dates and adventures, things a high school kid couldn’t manage.
The idea of paying me to watch the children during the work day infuriated her. She reached up and held the door jam, leaning into the screen, letting us know exactly how ridiculous my idea sounded. Then she would lean back with her hands on her hips. Then she would lean forward and grab the door jam, again, with the other arm. Each time she changed her pose and raised her arm, her bandeau bikini top inched down, down, down. Until eventually her perfect, pert little nipples poked out, practically piercing the screen door itself.
For me, it was like looking at a bloody open wound. I had a visceral, creepy crawly, skin shivering reaction. I yanked my husband’s arm and pulled him off the porch screeching, “We’ll talk about this later!”
They both thought I was a lunatic.
On the way home I was able to sputter something about her slippery swimsuit top. My husband just shrugged, annoyed, and asked, “What are you talking about? So what?”
Many, many months later, during one brave phone call, I told her that I was sorry that I freaked out that day and tried to explain my perspective. As a woman, I thought she would empathize and forgive my outburst.
Instead, the only thing I accomplished was cementing my image as an extremely emotional woman with extreme nipple insecurities.
Oh my god!!! I can't imagine!!!
ReplyDeleteYup, who wants that image burned on their retina. Not I!
Feeling your pain. And loving your blog!!
LBM xxxx
The swimsuit blog (or the nipple blog) was just like reading a post from one of the stepmoms in my online stepmom support group. The girls would have had a blast with that one, let me tell you, and the BM would have been the butt of many a joke. But, stepmom that I am myself, I could have predicted that the suggestion that she pay you for child care would go over like a grassfire fueled by 60-mph winds and you'd better wear your asbestos suit to that conversation.
ReplyDeleteSo did you buckle and take care of the kiddos all summer for free? That's exactly what most BMs would think you should do.
Oh my!! Welcome to stepmom blogging!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is not a pretty memory, regardless of which side of the screen door you were standing.
ReplyDeleteI regret that day. Especially when she tells me that, "No one in the neighborhood can believe that you made me pay you to take care of the children!"
But, yes, I did become the children's babysitter and I did get paid the same amount that the high school kid would have been paid, $10 per hour.
Since we shared custody on a very specific 50/50 schedule, I never asked to get paid while my husband was responsible for the children, naturally. And because the children were going to be away with their Mom for a few weeks, I was only asking to be paid for three weeks of childcare that summer.
10 weeks = Summer Vacation
5 weeks = Dad Custody
5 weeks = Mom Custody
2 weeks = Mom and Kids On An Adventure
3 weeks = Outside Babysitter Required
That summer established me as a babysitter and I continued that relationship, until the children were old enough that they didn't need a babysitter.
It was critical for me to have the meter running when the children were with me. It made a tangible weekly announcement of how many hours the children were with me when they were supposed to be with their Mom. I love those kids but any kids are a ton of work and I wanted her to do her part, too.
I wanted to motivate her to come home and money talks, loudly.
The other thing that this arrangement taught me was to remember my place. The fact is, I am not the Mommy. I was the babysitter, literally, and I said a million times, “Did you ask Mom? Is that OK with Mom? What would Mom say?”
Of course my favorite line was, “I’m telling your Mom!”