She had found her true love. He had children. They moved in. That’s when she began learning to be stepmom.
When Janie Emaus met her soulmate, he told her how much his children, a boy and a girl, meant to him. She loved him for that.
After their marriage, the children visited on weekends. Janie made them cookies, read them books and played games. She left the disciplining to her husband. She was a part-time stepmother.
One day, they came to stay. Janie was now a full-time stepmother. And disciplining became part of her job.
Her husband believed she could give the children the stability and love that their birth mother could not. She, however, had doubts. She was a mother of a toddler, but she did not feel like a “real mom.” In an essay for Woman’s Day, she wrote, “I was still learning how to juggle her demands with my own desire to remain sane.” Now she also had to handle the demands of two new children who missed their birth mother.
Caring for her stepchildren did not come easily. Sometimes Janie got frustrated. Her routine changed. Now she waited in car pool lines, went to doctor appointments and shopped for clothes. And still the children had not accepted her even though she spent her time taking care of them. She told Woman’s Day, “They wanted their ‘real’ mother. They ached for her love and acceptance and couldn’t understand why they were now living in our house.”
As Janie cared for them, they looked for opportunities to compare her to their “real” mother. Nothing she did measured up. Nothing she did was ever enough. Her stepchildren did not accept her, and they did not like her. Her husband told her to keep doing what she was doing; everything would be all right in time.
One day things did turn around for the better. But it was not anything Janie did. Her own daughter taught her a simple and profound lesson that changed everything and made them a family. Discover what Janie learned here.
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