I bet you know someone who has been remarried. I am my husband's second marriage. In fact, according to US Census Data, 17% of the country has married more than one time. These remarriages result in over 4 million stepchildren in the US! For those who don’t want to do the math, that means that almost 5% of the population of children are stepchildren. By the way, that is higher than the total state populations for 28 of our 50 states. I must say that this number was much lower than I thought it would be considering the divorce rate, but I guess many are not remarrying or never had kids to begin with.
Where it gets interesting is when you look at age breakdown. A little over 7% of all children between 12 and 18 are stepchildren. That means that stepparents and the 3% of adoptive parents combined are present in the lives of 1 in 10 middle and high school students. Stepmothers like me are influencing children at the most important and challenging parts of their lives – their teen years.
The teen years are amazing. You see the kids you knew at such a young age blossom physically, emotionally and attitudinally. And when I say attitudinally, I mean the attitude you think I mean. Although teen years can be the most difficult for parents, I find it is an opportunity for stepparents to shine. These are the years when they don’t want to tell their first mothers or fathers the truth and because most parents have the “not my son” mantra playing over and over again in their minds, it may be harder for the first parent to see their children’s tricks than it is for stepparents.
Recently, my daughter was caught texting with a boy who was much older than her, staying up until all hours of the night communicating with him, and lying about it. Her phone was taken away for a long period of time. Needless to say, she was not happy about it. I kept my eyes open, monitored her email accounts and waited for her to get her hands on another device. I know the determination of kids today when it comes to accessing technology. It is relentless.
Her Dad said, “She would never try to go online. She knows the trouble she would be in”. Her Mom reprimanded her and called it over. I wasn’t buying it. She started to act too quiet. She wasn’t using her email from what I could see, but interestingly, she wasn’t complaining about it either. It was because of this that I knew she was satisfying her digital appetite somehow. So on her way into the house after school one day, I asked to see her backpack. She said, “Okay, let me just run up to my room and change real quick.” I said, “Okay. Give me your backpack first.” Sure enough, I found an iPod touch that did not belong to her in the front pocket of her backpack. Of course her Father and I exploded and she was grounded for even more time. We also called the parents of her accomplice who was so grateful we alerted him and was wrestling with the technology sneaking issue too.
As much as finding her work-around for the grounding disappointed me and her Dad, it did not surprise me as her Stepmother. Stepparents have a keen radar because we see the kids as people. Humans. Not aspirational apples of our eye. Not the babies we want them to be forever. We don't picture them in diapers or on our chest after first being born and certainly do not ascribe to the near perfect vision first parents have of the type of people they think they have raised. Teenagers screw-up. They are imperfect. Many are devious, some are compulsive liars and let's not get started on the sexually active who have done things their parents haven't even tried. Many teens are indeed all of the things parents don’t want their children to be – cue image of woman sticking fingers in ears saying “I’m not listening. I’m not listening!” Stepparents are ready and more willing than some first parents, to admit the shortcomings of their teenage stepchildren. We may be the best ally first parents can have in the uphill climb of raising a teenager.
So let’s give it up to the stepparents raising 7% of our US teens because stepparents don’t get the proper recognition we deserve from society - manufacturers don’t send “I love my Stepmom” mugs down the conveyor belt, tattoo parlors aren’t stinging the arms of grown men in our honor nor do we even get a good selection of holiday cards from Hallmark (and boy do we deserve more than a card). But the fact is that 1 in 10 kids are being raised by us and raising teenagers isn’t easy for anyone. Despite that, we volunteer to live in six years of chaos. That makes us either crazy or the most unselfish people on the planet. Fellow stepparents of teenagers, take a bow because even if it isn’t much, as a fellow stepparent, I applaud you.