Sibling Anticipation, or "Mom, are you pregnant yet?" - Contributor Post

A few days ago, I had a rehearsal and Mom needed a nap, so I volunteered to take the monkey with me. He loves hanging out at the theater, so it was no problem to talk him into tagging along. In the car, though, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“Jerry, I just realized that I’m a really lucky kid because I have two dads: my step-dad, and my real dad.”

“That’s right buddy...you’re pretty lucky!”

“And when we have a baby, the baby will be lucky to have two dads, too!”

This kid is relentless. He’s been dropping hints about wanting a little brother/sister for a little over a year now, and recently he’s picked up the pressure like a closer at a used car lot. It used to be that he would just harass The Cricket about it, but lately he’s expanded the scope of his campaign. And, as you can probably tell, he’s not entirely certain how the whole thing works; he’s under the impression that since I’m his step-dad, if and when his mother and I have kids together, his real dad will be those kids’ step-dad. It makes sense, I guess, if you don’t know about things like divorces and custody arrangements. When you’re six, shit is simple.

So I did what I was always do when six-year-old logic leaves me speechless; I diverted.

“What do you think would be your favorite part of having a baby in the family?”

“Well, I could just teach it stuff...like how to make paper airplanes and play X-Box games. Oh! Jerry, did you notice that I’m getting better at making paper airplanes?”

Thankfully, the six-year-old logic is coupled with a tendency to randomly change subjects; I’m pretty certain it’s just a tactic to throw us off our balance, and I knew this wouldn’t be the last of the baby talk.

Sure enough, on the drive home from school yesterday, the tone became very serious as he said, “Jerry, I need to ask you something.”

“What’s that buddy?”

“When we have a baby, will we have a baby shower?”

He’s like a CIA interrogator, asking surprise questions and slowly chipping away at your resistance.

“Probably so, buddy,” I replied. “I mean, if we have a baby, that is. *If* we have a baby, we’ll definitely have a baby shower. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just wondering who I’ll invite to the party,” he replied innocently.

“Oh. Gotcha. Who would you like to invite?”

“I’m not sure. Being pregnant takes a long time, so I might know different people by then.”

You have to admire the tenacity, and the ability to visualize an outcome so convincingly, but where the hell is this baby obsession coming from?

Later that night, he was back at it.

“I think we should talk about what name we’re going to call the baby.”

“Well buddy, Mom and I have already talked about what names we would use if we have a baby.”

“Oh. Good,” he said, walking out of the room. “I just don’t want the baby to not have a name.”

Of course, all this talk of babies has me squirming. Divorced at 38, I’d pretty much written off the possibility of being a dad, and I was okay with that. Then I met The Cricket and I got an instant 4-year old son, and I settled into the Step Dude role nicely. I’m still kinda shaky, but I’m learning as I go and getting a little better at it every day.

Now I’m 41, and I’ll be honest: the thought of having a baby simultaneously exhilarates and terrifies me. I know I couldn’t ask for a better partner in the endeavor, but I have all these doubts about whether I would be up to the task. What if it turns out that I’m a good step-dad but a shitty bio-dad? What if I fuck it all up and my kids end up hating me? Or worse, what if I don’t like them?

But none of that matters to a determined six-year old. He wants a baby sibling, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to take no for an answer. So I expect I’ll be hearing more about it on the next drive to school. I know one thing for sure: if this kid ever decides to go into marketing, I’ll be first in line to hire him.

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Jerry Kennedy is (in no particular order) a fiancee, stepdad, writer, actor, director, singer, and web dude living in The Greatest City In the World, Sacramento, CA. His hobbies include reading, skateboarding, falling off his skateboard, drinking, karaoke (especially after drinking), and making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape. You'll find his irregular ramblings about life, the universe, and everything at http://jerrykennedy.com


 

Confessions of a Formerly Reluctant Step Dude -- Guest Post

I'd introduce Jerry Kennedy here, but he does a damn good job of it, himself. Look for more of him at Choosing the Truth.

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So I’ve been staring at this blank page for a week now, wondering why in the hell I thought it would be a good idea to request a spot as a guest blogger for Darlena. I mean, I’ve been a blogger for awhile now (my first blog post was published in May of 2009...did we even have the Internet back then?), but I’ve always written about subjects that I knew pretty well. Whether it was sales and customer service or my own journey of personal development, it was stuff I knew. But to contribute to a parenting blog? That’s a different animal entirely.

Parenting is brand new for me. I have no children of my own. Up until 2 years, 7 months, and 14 days ago, I was certain that I never would have children of my own. Recently divorced after 17 years of marriage (yeah, I’m that old), I was planning to live out my days footloose and child-free. And then it happened: I walked into my friends’ house for a birthday party, and I walked out in love with a single mom. You know what they say: “the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley...” Or at least that’s what Robert Burns would have said.

Anyway, the point is that I was suddenly in love with a woman who had a four-year-old son. Like really in love. Like stupid in love. And I decided that I wanted to be part of her life, kid and all. I mean, how hard could it be? I’d missed the really difficult parts (dirty diapers, random projectile vomiting, sleepless nights, crying fits, terrible twos, terrible-r threes), and everything should be a piece of cake from here on out. Right? Uh-huh...and jelly beans really *are* Easter Bunny poops.

So here, in no particular order, are some lessons I’ve learned about myself from stepping into the “step” role and living with the child I know as the Monkey:

1. I do, in fact, have a temper, and the fuse is shorter than I could have imagined. All my life, I’ve been laid-back, even-tempered, able to keep my cool in any situation. It was a badge of pride for me, like a super power; I was Guy Who Never Gets Angry. That is, I was GWNGA until a small, angry, red-faced person started shouting “NO!!!” at me at full volume. I’ll never forget the day I snapped: before I knew what had happened, the Monkey had lost every privilege for an entire weekend and, if I hadn’t had the good sense to walk away, would have probably been restricted to his room until he was 35.

This might not seem like a big deal to some folks; after all, I didn’t get physically violent or shout. To me, though, it was devastating. I felt like a major failure because, despite my outer appearance, I was *angry*. And over what? A defiant child. What kind of superhero was I? How could I go from Guy Who Never Gets Angry to Dickhead Who Takes Away Legos and X-Boxes For Life in under a minute? I have no idea, but for a split second, I wished he had more toys that I could take away.

After we both cooled down, we had a chat. I apologized for overreacting, and he apologized for yelling, and we decided on a slightly more reasonable consequence for his behavior. It’s happened a few times since, but I got some great advice from my coach (aka Mommy). She told me that when a child is upset like that, continuing the conversation is only going to fan the flames. So now, I walk away, wait until he calms down, then we talk. Don’t get me wrong: I still see red, but now I take it as my signal to stop. Ram Dass once said, “If you think you’re so enlightened, go spend a week with your parents.”  I think he meant children.

2. I don’t know anything about anything. When I first met the Monkey, he was a big fan of dinosaurs. That’s actually a bit of an understatement; dinosaurs were his life. One of the first conversations we had, he asked me if I knew what the biggest dinosaur was. I confidently said, “Brontosaurus!” I don’t actually remember what the right answer is, but that certainly wasn’t it. Apparently, science has learned a lot about dinosaurs since I was a kid, and I hadn’t been keeping up. When I would read stories to him at bedtime, he usually wanted me to read from his dinosaur book; it was full of dinosaurs I’d never even heard of, in spite of collection of Michael Crichton books.

And that was only the beginning. From planets (Pluto isn’t a planet?) to primates (WTF is a bonobo?), from comics (there’s really a villain called the Abomination?) to cartoons (how did I not know about Adventuretime??), I’m kind of a dunce. Or at least I’m a dunce when it comes to things that little boys find interesting. Living child-free for so long, I had no idea that so much had changed. I’m still woefully inadequate when it comes to dinosaurs and Marvel comics, but I’m learning...mostly by pretending to be Nick Fury sending him on a mission when I drop him off at school.

3. Being a step dude is one of the coolest things ever. In the beginning, I was super reluctant to have the Monkey see me as a parental unit. He had an amazing mom and a dad who was an engaged and active participant in his life. He had no need for me to be anything other than his mom’s boyfriend. Besides, I was certain that any child who viewed me as a parent would be irrevocably damaged; I was afraid of the responsibility, afraid of the commitment, and afraid of the attachment. I was so awkward about it, in fact, that at one point he started introducing me to his classmates as his brother. I think that was even more confusing to his classmates, who always looked at me like “Seriously? That old fucker is your brother?? No way!” Kids can be so cruel.

Eventually, though, as it became more and more clear that this was a family unit I wanted to be part of, my reluctance subsided. I became comfortable with being called the Step Dude and, eventually, “my stepdad.” I certainly lucked up: I get to be an active participant in the life of an amazing child, even if he is sometimes headstrong and grumpy and yells at me. It’s all worth it when, in one of his lucid moments, he looks up from what he’s doing and says “Jerry, I love you.” Four simple words that have melted the frozen heart of a soulless, old curmudgeon to the point that I’m now looking forward to someone calling me Daddy.

 

Guest Blog: Blend the Families; Keep the Love

Today, I am lucky enough to have a phenomenal mommy blogger from Accidentally Mommy guest posting for me. She is a happily single mother of two, and she's got some advice on how people can raise a loving blended family.

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Buzz words.  We've heard many new words and phrases pop up over the last decade or so, particularly in the parenting world.  "Lactivist."  "Intactivist." "Babywearer." "CIO." "Bloggers."  They are not all so austere sounding, though.  "Baby Mama Drama."  "Baby Daddy Drama."

Blended families are not a new concept.  So why is there so much focus on them all of a sudden?  What has changed so much to make people dub the negative that goes along with the uniting of two pre-formed halves of a home a "drama?"

There are a lot of theories.  Personally, I go with the conspiracy - they're all Mel Gibson clones.  From Mars.  Because Pluto isn't a planet, it's a dive bar.

I kid, I kid.

Blending families together outside of the KitchenAid in today's American society is uniquely challenging.A resurgence in stay at home parenting has caused many a custody battle, based on the fact that the parent choosing to remain in the home can theoretically provide a more comprehensive and supportive home environment.

In addition to that, the internet era is a blessing and a curse.  Bullying each other via email, besmirching the other half on facebook... even anonymized blog posts pointing out how the evils of the other half have hurt and damaged the family dynamic are commonplace.  (I confess, the last is one I myself am guilty of.)

It's not all bad, though.  Well, not in most cases.

Photographs, videos, even live feeds can be set up to provide a more united front for the children at special events.  Skype enables mom or dad to read bedtime stories when they are the "off" parent.  

Cellphones put the other home, including siblings, at the touch of a button without any fear of denial or disapproval from the "on" parent.

But what can be done to really BLEND families?  How do we make two intricate storybooks that contain all of the best literary devices and more into one cohesive tome?

We don't know.  I don't know.  That is the bittersweet beauty of it all.  The journey is always morphing and changing, revolving around the raw emotions of two to four (or more, for the Poly's out there,) adults, and the raw emotions of the little people we're blessed to have in our lives.

The key to surviving it all for me is a skill that I have instilled in my children since birth: adaptability and an open mind and heart.  Step parents aren't always wicked, and the red-headed step child isn't always covered in cinders.

We recently took our first family vacation with all three children, and none of the ex's.  Just us, the kids, and the beach.  We had our hiccups and our moments of fretful worry, but I did what I've always told my children to do, and it worked.  Faith, Trust, and Beach Pixie Dust made it all worthwhile and enjoyable for everyone, including Blueberry Nights.

Just remember, in times of darkness AND light: Love propagates love.  No matter the drama that may exist between the adults, the love shown to the children will eventually penetrate both homes, softening the stoniest adversaries and reinforcing the already strongly bonded homes.  Like raising them in general, this aspect of parenting doesn't come with a manual.  The best we can do is lay down our own tracks, in directions we hope that our children would be proud to follow should they need to in their day.

You can see more of her family adventures over at Accidentally Mommy. I recommend it!

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