It was the end of the summer, my brand new husband’s youngest children (11 and 13 years old) had spent the whole summer with us. In the summer everything goes, you wake up late and eat ice cream at all times, and I was absolutely not interested in issuing directives to these adorable young teenagers who thought I was exotic and more exciting than their mom because I would bring them to the pool and 3D animation workshops.
Then summer was over and without so much as an official hearing or attorney’s letters (not even a phone call, for that matter) I found myself driving to school, checking homework, washing school uniforms, preparing lunch boxes. Man, I hit the ground running, and became a full-blown parent overnight.
I didn’t know much about kids in general and much less about these two. Without further due, without an encouragement speech, without a badge, I was a stepmom. I understood right away that the criteria to raise someone else’s kids here are pretty basic: being a grown up woman.
The first year the kids would get out of school and meet me at my office and we would drive home together. We would get home at 6.30 pm and until 11 pm I wouldn’t be able to get changed or take a shower, I was the very definition of disorganization. For dinner, I would prepare elaborate dishes that asked for my undivided attention (as they often involved ingredients I was not familiar with like meat or chicken) but no matter how hard I tried they were scarcely appreciated. I would check on homework, repeat lessons, review Pythagoras theorem. I would fall on the bed in a coma, each and every night.
At the end of my first year as a stepmom I realized two things that were a turning point for me: 1) being a parent boils down to two things: common sense (40%) and patience (60%) and 2) the housekeeper could get a raise and take care of the dinner fast and efficiently.
I survived my first years of step-parenting also thanks to the fact that the mother of the kids never stepped into our way of living and raising the kids, granted we respect the two main rules: no pork and no alcohol. My parenting methods are considered weird but not too dangerous (the kids have few genderless chores, which is certainly unheard of in most households), school is paid for, the kids are fed and clothed. The bare minimum is there.
Raising someone elses’ kids is no joke, and a wide difference in cultures and expectations doesn’t make things easier, but Senegalese kids are very respectful of adults, no step-kid would ever say “you are not my mother” and/or slam a door after a discussion.
Now the young offsprings I used to take to the swimming pool are young adults, I don’t prepare lunchboxes anymore because they eat directly from the fridge, I don’t review lessons with them (but I am pissed if they don’t get good grades). True, they accept my rules even though sometimes they don’t get them but all in all that seems to me like the sign of a pretty good parent-children relationship.
My experience as a step-mom in a country where they put a baby in your arms and walk away for the day (not only metaphorically) gave me a sense of light-heartedness in being a parent myself. You know how they say that children don’t come with instructions and bla bla bla? Even if somebody gave me those instructions, I would have been too lazy to read them, I would have only quickly checked out the symbol chart: this side up, handle with care, do not tumble dry.