Step Parenting 101

I’ve been thinking about Father’s Day coming up in June, so today I’m giving you a short and sweet guide to being a stepfather. And, while this may seem like a fairly specific sort of thing that has the potential to alienate a large chunk of my readers and drive them away to other websites filled with less niche-related bibblebabble, I promise you it’s not. It’s good advice for any parent, step or otherwise. It might even be a little bit funny.

Step parents get a bad rap in pop culture and fairy tales, and we don’t fare much better in the blood-obsessed nuclear family fiction of the real world, either. In stories, we’re evil and heartless bastards who either care nothing for our stepchildren, or have the annoying habit of trying to bake them into pies all the time. In the mind of your average sitcom viewer, we’re bumbling fools and inconsistent sources of unsteady drama. We’re the extra bits tacked onto the the points of the Mom, Dad and Child triangle that make it stick out at embarrassing angles all the other shapes point at and laugh. In short, we’re not worth very much to anybody. That’s the stereotype.

In truth, however, being a stepdad or stepmom is noble sort of thing, if you tilt your head just right and squint a little. After all, we chose to add our stepchildren to our lives rather than hop in bed to roll the DNA dice and hope it lands on seven. We accept the children as they already are – and, when done properly, we take our place in a kind of familial tetrahedron, where the three points of Mom and Dad and Step Parent make up the base of the pyramid that supports the kiddo capstone at the top. That’s how it’s supposed to work, at any rate. If you’re experiencing something different, you might be doing it wrong. Then again, my experience has been with a toddler, which is a far cry from marrying into teenagers. Your mileage may vary. (UPDATE: I wrote this in 2010. It’s 2016 now, and the toddler is ten years old. Both hands. All ten fingers. And the only thing that’s changed is he’s even more amazing than he was six years ago.)

Still, in the interests of Education, here’s how to do it properly. I think…

The Five Rules Of Step Parenting

1.) If you are a step parent, you are not Mom or Dad – and you never will be.

Remember the pyramid and your role as a vital component of the three-point base. (Technically, it’s a tetrahedron, but I don’t want to melt your brain with geometry.) Or, if that’s too Dr. Phil-ish for you, try just not being a selfish bastard. Remember that the only reason you’re a step parent at all is because there are children involved. Try not to screw them up just because you think the real parent’s a waterhead and doesn’t deserve the title. Your kid is still going to love them in a way they simply can’t love anyone else. It’s probably down to new age gobbledeegook I don’t understand along the lines of cellular memory and crystals, but the biological connection is real. Regardless of why it’s there, it’s still there. It’ll always be there, even if the real parent is a great big jerkface. It simply doesn’t matter. Your kid will love them all the same, and it’s up to you to make sure it’s never an issue.

2.) Your stepchild is the most important person in the world.
And if he’s not, he should be.

Children should always take priority in any marriage, without regard to biology or fate. A lot of parents (step or otherwise) forget about this, but it’s important. When a child’s involved, you can love your spouse with all your heart, but if they’re both ever dangling from a cliff’s edge and you can save only one, you’d best pull your kid up and let your better half get the sudden and mortal education in gravity. In daily life, this means that everything you do is done for your child rather than yourself or your spouse. If you’re broke and can’t buy much food, the kid gets to eat while you get to starve. If you want a new car but your kid needs braces, you learn to love your ancient vehicle with the squeaky door and get used to telling people it adds character. If you startle awake one morning with the crushing weight of marriage flattening your internal organs, you don’t get to decide that you deserve better and suddenly start looking for a new sexmate to ease your suffering. You grow up and get over it for the sake of your kid. It’s really pretty simple.

3.) Let your stepchild decide what to call you.

You may long to hear a Mama or Daddy escape your stepchild’s lips when he’s addressing you, but forcing the issue just highlights your own insecurities, which you’ll probably end up passing on to the little guy. If he wants to start calling you Daddy, then let him. Likewise, if he decides to call you Humperdink Rumplefart, that’s fine, too. Trey called me BlahBlah for the longest time, and now he bounces around from names like Daddy Kris, back to Kris and on to just plain Daddy whenever he wants. It’s his choice. Unlike biological parents, stepmoms and stepdads have to earn the good names. Do things right, and they’ll come. At least until the kid’s a teenager, at any rate. (UPDATE: My stepson now calls me Papa. He decided that after hearing it somewhere and liked it because it rhymes with Mama. I dig it.)

4.) Accept that the law hates you.

Step parents have no legal standing when it comes to their stepchildren. We have all the responsibilities of really real parents, with none of the rights. All of the obligations, and none of the protections. For example, if my wife I split up, there wouldn’t be a custody arrangement for me. No visitation. No nothing. I’m just not an actual parent, and there’s no such thing as Step Parental Rights. Or, if my wife were to be killed in some freak household accident or inexplicably contract Ebola and die, my stepson would immediately go back to his dad’s, like something out of a bad Lifetime Channel movie starring Sally Field and/or Melissa Gilbert. It’s high and tragic drama, and it completely blows. I don’t like to think about it much, so let’s move on…

5.) You may be a second-class parent, but you don’t have to act like one.

The world may see step parents as inferior to biological parents, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Did The Brady Bunch teach us nothing? What about Diff’rent Strokes or My Two Dads? Hell, Luke Skywalker was raised by his aunt and uncle while his real dad was busy enslaving the galaxy and strangling people with the power of his mind. Real parents get all the glory while step parents get shot by stormtroopers, and it hardly seems fair.

Still, even though the law hates you and the rest of the world suspects you of being one Evil Step Parent move away from turning your children out into the cruel world like dirty little Dickensian street urchins, you don’t have to prove them right. Stop worrying about accidents of blood and what other people think; there are much more important things for you to take care of. See rule one for details.

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NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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You've been warned.