I’ve been a stepmother twice. This is what I’ve learnt

Our benchmark family, the one we’re born into, sets standards and expectations for all the other families we journey through later in life. My benchmark was complicated. I grew up in Canberra in the 1980s with my white mother, receiving disparate letters and phone calls from an absent black father whom I equally feared and yearned for. Back then, this mixed-race, single-parent, only-child dynamic was unusual, and I spent a lot of time trying to explain our family to strangers who couldn’t quite figure us out. Mum and I were often seen as lacking, somehow less than whole.

From Greek myth to Disney fairy tale, stepmothers have had a bad rap. Credit: Stocksy

No one understands the privilege of acceptance better than those without it, and as a kid I swore that when I grew up, there’d be less confusion. I’d have at least two kids. They’d be the same colour as me. Their father and I would be in it for the long haul. We’d be impossibly perfect and star in toothpaste commercials.

The one role I did not anticipate filling was the first one I got: Stepmother. Cue foreboding music. From Greek myth to Disney fairy tale, we’ve had a bad rap – with many a defamatory adjective used to describe our supposed cunning. Evil, wicked, akin to both beast and supernatural figure alike, the “role” is shrouded in suspicion and contempt.

Though “serial stepmother” sounds murderous, my two experiences of being a step-parent changed and challenged what I thought family was all about. My first experience I see only in retrospect. Hideously unqualified, the report card would likely have read: “Tries hard but lacks skill. Distracts others.” My debut performance was the result of a chance encounter at a film-school conference in Helsinki, where I fell in love with a fellow attendee from Belgium who was 18 years my senior. In this case, he came with two extraordinary daughters: Tyche, 10, and Noriko, 14.

Having previously been in a stepfamily for many years, these beautiful girls were already seasoned veterans, and I was a rookie without a playbook. It was a little bit like falling in love, dancing around the edges trying to figure out the rules of engagement.

I felt hyper-aware of my presence in their space, knocking nervously on the bathroom door: “Anyone in there?” Fumbling through kitchen cupboards: “Where’s the cheese grater again?” This was their home, their dad, their country. I struggled with the persistent belief that my presence took something away from them.

The cultural barriers were felt in small domestic transactions. Do I kiss you goodnight? Can I call you schat (a Flemish version of sweetie)? Having maternal instincts but no authority is endlessly frustrating. I also felt a burning insecurity when everyone spoke in Flemish, convinced they were secretly criticising me with a code I’d never fully crack.

Over the years, we collected a European passport of memories. One vacation to the Czech Republic stands out. I remember us walking into a supermarket together in a small remote village. Everyone stopped and stared like we had just been beamed in from the future.

We had the girls every second weekend and I remember how Tyche would often sit crying on the couch in her dad’s embrace come Monday morning. I always watched with a strange pang of longing. They knew each other in a way I never could.

After six years, I realised that I wanted children but not with the girls’ father. I took my frustrations out on everyone, found fault for the sake of it. What I should have said was that I didn’t belong. And when I finally returned to Australia for good, I convinced myself that I’d meant nothing to the girls, because leaving them in the way that I had was too much for me to bear.

I was suffering mentally and physically from such a huge rupture in my personal life – and my main coping mechanism was to disassociate from what and who I’d left behind. I relocated to Melbourne and took in my new independence.

I convinced myself that I’d meant nothing to the girls, because leaving them in the way that I had was too much for me to bear.

Intrigued by internet dating, which was a novelty at the time, I filtered out “men with children” and went on a few blanched-asparagus dates – bland and forgettable. One guy – Andreas – had not disclosed whether he had kids, but he sounded fun so I took a gamble. We emailed each other for a while and I admit my heart sank when he said he had a six-year-old daughter, who he acknowledged might be a game-changer for me. I could have ended it there, but I’m an eternal optimist. Fifteen years later we are still together.

Becoming a step-parent this time around was a far more considered and cautious experience. The context was vastly different, which made some things easier and others harder. I’d been raised in Australia with English as my first language, whereas Andreas had migrated from Germany a decade earlier. When I met his daughter, Ishika, for the first time, it felt different. I knew what to say and how to be. Thankfully, she accepted my presence in her father’s life.

With her Malaysian-Indian heritage, Ish also had brown skin like me. Visually, we made sense. When shopkeepers assumed I was her mum, we’d share a furtive smile and choose not to correct them. Ish allowed me to mother her, and for all the years I’d spent in therapy trying to fix and figure myself out, it was nurturing Ish that probably helped me the most.

This is not to say it was easy. I resented Mother’s Day, which felt exclusionary rather than all-encompassing. Andreas always spent time on a considered gift for his ex. Despite their issues, he was grateful that she was a very good mother to his daughter. On the contrary, there was little acknowledgment of how much time and care I was offering, both emotionally and practically. All the nights reading with Ish in bed. Or organising activities for the school holidays. And yet love like this was assumed, rather than celebrated.

The one role I did not anticipate filling was the first one I got: Stepmother, writes Cath Moore.

Three years later I became pregnant. I was incredibly excited, but I also lamented the fact that Andreas had already gone through the process of expecting a child. I also felt Ish’s fear of rejection. I tried as much as possible to help her feel pride and ownership over her new role as big sister. I remember the day she came to the five-month ultrasound and we learned she was going to have a little brother. “This is the end of the world!” she said jokingly, but I knew she’d been hoping for a little sister and I felt I’d let her down.

My contractions began on the day Ish turned 10. I willed the imminent arrival to take it slowly so they could have separate birthdays. He held off until lunchtime the following day.

I will never forget the moment Ish met Felix: the look of utter amazement on her face. We all see them as full siblings with a slightly different family tree.

I remember my mum came to a bring-your-grandparent-to-school day because none of Ish’s biological grandparents lived in Australia. I also wanted her to show off Felix to her friends, most of whom had siblings.

Throughout her teenage years, I struggled to understand what Ish needed from me. The goalposts could change overnight and suddenly I’d done too much or not enough. At times Ish felt very known to me: how things would begin and end, what sat beneath her words, how I could offer comfort. I now realise that sometimes it suits Ish to talk through things with me because I have an objective distance her parents may not.

Giving birth or adopting a child provides a certain legitimacy that often eludes step-parents. However, as I get older, parenting becomes less about holding on and more about letting go.

Even though we are related by blood, I still find my son a wonderful mystery. Because of Felix’s pale skin and straight light-brown hair, Ish will always look more like my biological child than he ever will.

Sometimes I still don’t feel like I have a family-membership card. They are all kin, but I only share blood with one of them. Sometimes I retreat into self-imposed exile, throw a tantrum like the spoilt only child I can be. However, at other times it is imposed upon me with careless words and divisive coalitions.

Though I found a stronger sense of self through raising Felix and Ish, it also reminded me of who I had lost. Tyche and Noriko were no longer an extension of their father but young independent women, and I slowly tried to repair my fractured relationship with them. Despite my fears, we were able to restore our close connection. Felix refers to Noriko and Tyche as his Belgian sisters.

In fact, Felix pockets family like Pokémon cards. “Who are they to me?” he often asks. He’s especially enchanted by Ish’s mother and closest cousin. I tend to feel a little fatalistic about bringing these disparate families together. Without one, I may not have found the other.

Giving birth or adopting a child provides a certain legitimacy that often eludes step-parents. However, as I get older, parenting becomes less about holding on and more about letting go. My stepkids have challenged me to revise the mythologies I created as a child, and to heal parts of myself left untended. All the children I have mothered have helped me search for a clearer and more compassionate sense of myself and to see the power in forgiveness.

Edited extracted from Family (Text Publishing), edited by Alaina Gougoulis and Ian See, out April 18.

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