Sue
Callen lives in a small town in Washington State.
She tells me she loves her life and as the words leave her lips, I
can tell she is telling the truth. She
starts to talk about her children and her eyes sparkle.
“I’m
nursing the baby and my daughter comes up and smacks him right on the
head. Shocked, I asked my
daughter, “What are you doing?”
“The
baby’s biting you, Mommy!” she cried. “I
want him to stop!”
Sue
starts to laugh. “Amanda is
two, almost three, and we have had discussions about nursing.
I nursed her until she was fifteen months old!
She knows full well what the baby is doing.
Her jealousy was a surprise to me.
I expected sibling rivalry, but not such an obvious display.
I found it amusing until I looked into Amanda’s eyes and realized
she was really hurting.”
This can become
even more complicated when a new child is added to a stepfamily.
Allegiances are already being tested by the very nature of the family
unit. Children from both sides question who really loves them best
from the moment the word "divorce" is even mentioned. Add
another child? "But what about me?" a child secretly
wonders.
I had the longest pregnancy in
history—for three years my new bonus family waited for our daughter to
be born, and in those three years, my husband and I did our best to
prepare our children (two from his previous marriage, one from mine) for
our new little addition.
We talked about the baby before it was born.
We encouraged the children to express their feelings about the
baby. My best friend let the kids help plan the baby shower.
They attended the baby shower.
We bought books and read to the children about adding a child.
We thought we did everything right, but it became apparent that we
didn’t anticipate everything.
I wrote my first book
about a year after my youngest daughter was finally born. My
family had been weathering the ups and downs of family blending for about
five years, and the older kids and I decided to collaborate on a book
about divorce for children. We
called it, My
Parents Are Divorced, Too. A
Book About Divorce for Kids, By Kids.
To write the book I interviewed my oldest children (remember, two
bonus, one biological). I
asked them what bothered them about their parents divorce, and rather than
say “I don’t know” or shrug their shoulders, because we were writing
a book they were committed to honestly answering my questions.
go
to page 2
Some
of
this article was borrowed from Midlife
Motherhood, Jann Blackstone-Ford, published by St. Martin's Press.
Jann
Blackstone-Ford, M.A. is a certified mediator who specializes in
divorce and family issues and the director of Bonus Families®, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to peaceful coexistence between divorce parents
and their new families. She is a wife and mother of two children, plus
the bonus mom to two bonus children. Jann has written many books on the
subject of divorce and parenting including, My
Parents Are Divorced, Too , Custody
Solutions Sourcebook, Mid-Life
Motherhood, and Ex-Etiquette
for Parents: Good Behavior After a Divorce or Separation.
