I was in the DC area the weekend before last to celebrate my stepson's high school graduation and movement on to his next adventure (short answer: college; short version of the long answer: whatever comes next for him). On Sunday the whole gang gathered at The Kid's house for a barbecue/party: Daf was there, and my former in-laws and their kids too; also represented were the bunch from The Kid's mother's side of the family (her mother, brothers, and their wives and kids). A few favorite teachers and friends were also part of the festivities, as well as the girl he took to the prom.
There have been times that I've worried about The Kid - with a father who has been divorced twice, and in and out of several serious relationships since divorce #2 (me), and a mother who married a man who'd also been divorced, and me, the stepmother who is no longer married to the father who stays in the picture in this nebulous pseudo-stepmother role (and who has been in and out of a few of her own relationships since the split w/his dad ...), it has seemed that The Kid was coming out of the gate with some warped relationship role models. I wondered if he'd be OK.
For a while I wished that I had put a dollar into a jar every week of his life so that when he'd come to the age when he'd start to blame his parents for every fucked up thing in his life (cause don't all middle class kids do that eventually? even kids with more 'normal' family configurations ...), I figured I'd give him the jar and say: We all loved you and did the best we could ... here's some money so you can go talk to a therapist and work it out.
But sitting among that group of people, I thought, nope, The Kid's going to be just fine. Although there were times in the early days of his life/his parent's split when no love was lost between The Kid's mother and his father (daf), and there was also a time (in the early days of my relationship with daf) that I was known by The Kid's mother as The Bimbo (and that's just the main player's we're talking about), somehow - because we all love The Kid and want the best for him - we have become a new sort of family. For better or worse ... a blended, extended, upended family .... but a family nonetheless ... and all because of The Kid. There have been times that I've gone down to DC for a weekend and had dinner with The Kid's mom and stepfather. We get along. We actually care about each other. We put whatever challenges that we might have had aside because we all wanted the best for The Kid. And he is a good kid. A person of the teenaged variety with many of the things that that entails (variations on a theme of teenager ...), but a good kid.
And since I didn't actually save up those dollars in a jar, if he ever comes to me saying that it's his parent's fault that he's screwed up, I'll accept that we probably had something to do with it ... and I'll also remind him of this story. That on the day before his graduation from high school, a group of over 20 people (who, at one time in their lives could have come up with plenty of reasons to never speak to one another) spent the day laughing, talking, hanging out and loving The Kid, and in some ways, each other. We did the best we could, and we loved him hugely. (and that's pretty damn good.)
The Kid sounds very well loved; that will be with him always, the ground beneath his feet.
Congrats to you both.
Posted by: patry | July 03, 2006 at 11:33 AM
Hey, this makes my undefinable family sound almost 'normal.' :) That's the thing...when you do it for the kids, it all somehow works out okay. Doesn't matter how screwed up the adults can be...as long as the lines of love for the kids are open and clear, things don't have to make sense on paper. ;)
Posted by: Marilyn | June 30, 2006 at 09:19 AM