Years later, photos will pain me again. But since I’ve toned down my expectations when it comes to blending, I’m not as upset as I once was, at least on this day.
Boyfriend’s eldest child has just moved into residence at a fabulous university. We are all so insanely excited and happy for her. I watched as she busted her ass to earn the grades she needed to get in, and Boyfriend and I are giddy on the long drive to visit and check out the campus and her room.
Boyfriend and Bonus Daughter’s mom helped her move into residence just before the start of school, a few weeks earlier. I wasn’t invited to come along when she moved in. I was fine with it. It would have been awkward for everyone, and on such a milestone day I wasn’t going to chance ruining it by making an appearance. But on this day, I am wearing a T-shirt with her university’s name scrawled across it. I remember feeling so proud of her when she found out she was accepted. I wonder if she knows how proud of her I am. This is what love must be. Love is really giving a shit. Love is wearing your Bonus Child’s university colours.
It’s a typical dorm room. Boyfriend’s daughter has decorated the walls around her bed with numerous photos dangling off a long string, like Christmas lights. There are photographs of her many friends, both old and new. There are photographs of Boyfriend and her. There are many photographs with her biological sister and Baby Holt and her boyfriend. And, of course, there are photographs of her with her mother.
There is not one photograph of me. There is not one photograph of Rowan. Despite giving her a $500 cheque as a graduation present, and despite my history of feeling slighted by pictures (or lack thereof), this really doesn’t bother me as much as it would have a few years ago. The truth is, I’ve long since lowered my expectations and realized that just because we’re not shown in pictures doesn’t mean we are non-issues in the girls’ lives. I’ve learned to realize that my perception of what it means is different from theirs. To me, I’m left out. To me, my daughter is left out. To them, I just wasn’t included in this particular photo montage.
Still … if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, how are we supposed to know it fell? Does it even matter if it did? If there isn’t a photograph of me and my daughter in Boyfriend’s daughter’s dorm room, does that mean Rowan and I simply weren’t there all these years? I know it would be fruitless to say anything to Boyfriend. Nor do I want to ruin this special day, and his daughter is practically an adult. I meet Boyfriend’s daughter’s friends, see the campus, and we enjoy a nice meal together, as a family. When Boyfriend and I are leaving, I hug her goodbye. I’m tired but I’m happy. I’m glad and relieved that she’s having fun and has met great new friends. I give a shit, apparently. Genuinely.
Like I’ve said, Boyfriend’s daughters and my daughter didn’t exactly gel as much as I had hoped they would, as they grew older alongside each other. Although their periods have synced, their schedules have not. Maybe it was just plain bad luck that, as the children got older, aside from spending a week vacationing together, Rowan and Boyfriend’s daughters have been ships passing in the night. Rowan’s social life and family life keep her travelling locally and internationally with her father, often. And Boyfriend’s girls have friends, boyfriends, and part-time jobs near their mother’s place, so it’s easier for them to stay with her, and that is where they, as they get older, prefer, or need, to be.
Boyfriend doesn’t think the lack of bonding is because they’re rarely around each other. He blames age difference. When Boyfriend’s daughters were starting to get into fashion and boys, my daughter was happy still playing with her stuffed animals, which she believed were real, or at least she liked to pretend they were.
Our first blended family vacation, before Baby Holt was born, showed that the age difference did actually matter. Not so much as gender, though, which I know affects the families of many of my friends who have blended and have kids of different genders.
“Every fucking weekend, it’s the same. My boyfriend has two boys and I have one boy and one girl, so my daughter always feels left out. The boys are rowdy and into sports and video games, and there’s no way they want to do what my daughter likes to do, which is reading or shopping, and more often than not we end up doing what they want to do, simply because we are outnumbered by males,” says one of my friends. “I have to pay extra attention and do things alone with my daughter so she doesn’t feel left out. But she does. I know she does. And it breaks my heart. It feels like I’m choosing everyone over her, but I’m just trying to make everyone happy. That’s fucking impossible, I’ve learned. I keep trying anyway.”
Even though I have a hard time remembering what I ate for breakfast, I have an amazing ability to remember the numerous code words my daughter and I came up with when Boyfriend and I were dating, and after we all had met and hung out, for how she’s feeling when we are all together. It’s easier for her to have code words for her emotions, which she only shares with me:
Mango = Feeling left out.
Apple = I just want to be with you.
Banana = I’m just sad and I don’t know why.
Pineapple = They are making fun of me.
Pear = I’m feeling jealous.
My daughter manages to work these code words seamlessly into our conversations when our blended family is together. “I just feel like some mango,” she will say, for example, at the dinner table, to which I’ll respond to everyone, “I just have to talk to Rowan alone for a second,” before I whisk her away from the rest of our family so we can chat and deal with how she’s feeling. Often, she just needs a pep talk, a reminder that I love her and that even after we’ve blended, it’s still me and her, and will always be me and her, first and foremost. I’m unapologetic about this, even though it will and does cause friction between me and Boyfriend.
Basically, I have been telling my daughter, without actually saying it, that it is us … against the world, which, yes, includes the rest of the family.
There’s no shame to my game when I say my daughter will always come first. I give precisely no fucks if everyone in my blended family knows that my daughter is the light of my life and can do no wrong in my eyes.
“Everyone sees how you treat Rowan,” Boyfriend says when I find myself defending my daughter for forgetting to clear her plate or shut off her washroom light or say “thank you” after Boyfriend makes a meal, or for allowing her to come into our bedroom and sneak into our bed. Of course I do tell her, after Boyfriend complains, to say “thank you” and to put her dishes in the dishwasher and to turn off the lights, but I still allow her to come say goodnight and walk into our bedroom, numerous times every night, as Boyfriend and I try to watch a series on Netflix.
“Rowan,” Boyfriend will say, after I ask him to press “pause” when she walks into our bedroom. “You’ve already come in here three times to say goodnight. It’s enough.”
I’ll jump in and say, “She’s just here for one more hug.” Then my daughter will crawl into bed, on my side, to cuddle with me. Boyfriend will get annoyed, because this is not a one-off. It happens almost nightly.
“You can cuddle for two more minutes,” I tell my daughter, trying to placate Boyfriend while also trying to placate my daughter. It’s a tightrope walk from hell, trying to make everyone happy while I’m stretching myself paper thin in the process.
What I really want to say to Boyfriend is, “She was here first. You’re the one who actually took her spot in the bed. So cut her some slack.” This is an ongoing source of tension for me and Boyfriend, who thinks that I baby my daughter too much, which is ironic, because I think he babies his children too much. Still, apparently, it’s obvious to everyone just how much I adore my daughter and how little I try to hide it.
“It’s so obvious to everyone that you favour Rowan,” Boyfriend tells me.
“Who is everyone?” I press, my back up, feisty and ready to fight.
“Just everyone,” Boyfriend says.
“Who is everyone? Give me names,” I dem
and. I’m not being bitchy. I just want facts.
“Everyone!” he says, sighing in exasperation. But I’m just as exasperated. I want to know names, and Boyfriend is either refusing to name names or is lying about everyone seeing that I “favour” my daughter. Either way, I don’t like the fact that I feel totally gossiped about, and apparently Boyfriend and his family talk about me and my daughter’s relationship behind our backs.
“Well, everyone can just fuck right off,” I say sarcastically. “She’s my daughter and I’ll raise her as I please. And remember, she’s younger than your children, so cut her some slack.”
Boyfriend may think that I’m the only one who doesn’t notice that I treat my daughter like my best friend, or that I’m oblivious to how I’ll do anything for her, but that’s not the case. Of course I know what I’m doing. I’m not a fucking idiot. I’m aware of the fact that I put my daughter’s feelings before anyone else’s. They don’t know what it’s like to be a single mother for years, and they don’t understand the unbreakable bond my daughter and I formed during the many years we lived on our own. So, yes, everyone can just fuck right off if they have an issue with how close I am with my daughter — that is, whoever “everyone” is.
The code words come in especially handy on our first blended family vacation, before Holt is born. Rowan is seven and still obsessed with her stuffed animals, so of course her carry-on is just a bag, busting at the seams, filled with nine of her favourites. It was a battle to get her to narrow it down from the fifteen she regularly sleeps with in her bed. Rowan treats her stuffed animals as if they are real. I don’t tell her otherwise. Of course, I tell her, they are real. Of course, I tell her, they have feelings. Just look into their eyes, I tell her! (If you do actually ever stare straight into the eyes of a stuffed animal, it’s kind of creepy that they do look as if they have a soul!)
On this trip, like all other trips I’ve taken with my daughter, Ellie the Elephant is one of the “chosen” stuffed animals that comes along.
For the longest time, Boyfriend couldn’t believe that I refused to tell my daughter the “truth” about her stuffed animals, namely that they aren’t real and thus have no feelings. That being said, let’s be real: my daughter has always known her stuffed animals, or her stuffies, as we call them, aren’t real, but she likes to pretend they are. They provide her with comfort, and she likes it when I play along, telling her that I can understand their language and they can talk to her through me. I want her to enjoy childhood for as long as possible, and if that means being complicit in perpetuating this “misunderstanding” about her stuffed animals, so be it. What is wrong with having an imagination, especially when you are a child?
Rowan brings Ellie the Elephant with us down to the pool. Suddenly, she races up to me, hysterical, tears streaming down her face, almost hyperventilating. My first thought is that she’s broken a bone or stepped on chards of broken glass. I am immediately frantic.
“Ellie! Ellie fell into the pool and now she may be dead!” she cries out. Tourists around us are staring now, and Boyfriend’s children are gawking at us, their mouths agape. They can’t believe my daughter is crying over a stuffed animal that she thinks is real and that she now thinks is dead because she dropped it in the pool by accident.
“Don’t worry,” I say, grabbing for a hug. “I’ll do CPR.” I proceed to give Ellie the Stuffed Elephant mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Yes, maybe you’re thinking that, at age seven or eight, children shouldn’t believe stuffed animals are real and most certainly shouldn’t believe that they have feelings or that they could drown. Boyfriend certainly does. But I remind him that he’s probably forgotten how a seven-year-old acts. His youngest daughter is just over two years older than my daughter. His eldest is four years older.
“My children never believed that stuffed animals were real,” he says. I look at him like he’s just murdered the Tooth Fairy and kicked Santa in the nuts.
Boyfriend’s children can’t believe what they were seeing. Rather than concern for Rowan, they seem embarrassed, and they’re stifling laughs at the freak-out over the “drowning” and my subsequent valiant attempt at resuscitation.
“See? She’s fine!” I say to Rowan as I wrap Ellie in a towel. “She’s breathing now. She’s fine.” Rowan eventually calms down. Ellie is alive and well.
I have raised my daughter to use her imagination, telling her that “only boring people get bored.”
“It’s not normal,” Boyfriend says to me. “She’s too old to believe in stuffed animals.”
“Says who?” I retort. Hasn’t he seen any of the Toy Story movies? They’re awesome!
“Says everyone.”
Here we go again, the bullshit invocation of “everyone.”
“Who is ‘everyone’?” I retort.
“Just everyone.”
“Everyone can fuck right off. If my daughter wants to believe in the fucking Tooth Fairy until she’s forty, I couldn’t care less,” I say, with my unwavering loyalty to my daughter.
“I don’t think it’s healthy,” Boyfriend says to me. I want to laugh in his face. Who does he think he is, being judge and jury over what is healthy for a child? My child, my rules. Your children? Your rules. So take your opinions and shut up, is what I want to say, but I don’t.
“You raise your daughters the way you want. But don’t criticize the way I raise my daughter,” I say, anger brewing inside me like a pressure cooker.
“I’m not criticizing your parenting,” he says. “I just don’t think it’s healthy for a seven-year-old to cry over a stuffed animal.”
I don’t get why he can’t just let this go and be okay with how I’m parenting Rowan. Like, don’t we have enough shit to figure out without trying to fix what isn’t broken? I have zero issues with her loving her stuffies like I love her. If I don’t care, he shouldn’t. Let’s save our arguments for real shit, shall we?
All the girls go back into the pool to play while Ellie sunbathes on a lounge chair beside me. Boyfriend and Bonus Children are entirely unsympathetic and give each other sideway glances, like, “Who the fuck are these idiots who believe that stuffed animals are alive? Did I just witness a grown woman actually give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a fucking stuffed animal? Is this for real?” They seem downright entertained by the fact that not only does Rowan still believe in stuffed animals, but she believes they can die if they are dropped into a pool. I get it; they’re pre-teens. So to them, this is entirely ridiculous and probably embarrassing. I’m annoyed by their lack of sympathy for how my daughter is feeling and how she had reacted, though, and I want to say, She’s still young! Don’t make fun! It isn’t nice.
Even worse, my daughter noticed their disbelief, them trying not to laugh, and their WTF glances to each other. Thank god for our code words.
“I really feel like a mango, Mommy. And maybe a pineapple,” my daughter, who is now holding my hand, announces. My mind races. Right! Mango = I feel left out! Pineapple = They’re making fun of me!
I tell Boyfriend and his girls to go back to the room and get ready for dinner, while I talk with my daughter to find out why she’s feeling “Mango” and “Pineapple.” I give her a squeeze and ask why she is feeling left out.
“They were laughing at me,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. It brings me to tears, because we are just embarking on our family blending, and I’m not sure how to handle my daughter’s first real meltdown on our first blended vacation.
“So what? They’re just not believers,” I tell her. “Like I’ve always told you, there are people in the world who are believers, and there are people who aren’t. They aren’t believers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be. I still am!”
I suddenly feel like we’re living in a laboratory and that some scientist is watching us for clues on how to create a successful blended family and marriage, given different styles of parenting, age gaps, and the intricacies of the modern family — which, in my family, includes having secret code words
with my daughter.
Rowan’s mini-meltdown is just a minor blip in our otherwise lovely holiday. She only cries this one time. The fact is, everyone just wants to feel like they’re always someone’s priority and to not feel left out — and there’s no fucking way I’m ever going to let my daughter feel that way. I remain unapologetic about that, too.
It is the first time, in hindsight, that I realize that Boyfriend and I have differing parenting styles, probably something we should have discussed before blending. I put that down on my mental to-do list, which means it will never happen. I have an aversion to to-do lists, one just as powerful as my aversion to change. Apple, I think whenever my daughter is hurting, or when I am. Apple = I just want to be with you.
· SEVEN ·
Before our first blended vacation, of course our children had already met. Whether you like it or not — rather whether you agree with it or not — we live in a fast food culture, one in which we move at an incredible pace, and consequences are afterthoughts.
Boyfriend and I never think of the consequences of introducing our children to each other really early on in our relationship, because why would we? We are happy. And our relationship has gone from zero to sixty like a fucking Lamborghini, so why wouldn’t we continue to move our relationship at the same pace?
Boyfriend first introduces me, by myself, to his children at the house he rented after his separation. I make the almost hour-long drive in traffic. I’m not nervous. I’m excited to see Boyfriend and meet his children, but I’m also annoyed at the traffic getting there. Very early on, when Boyfriend first invited me over to his place for dinner, I remember very clearly thinking our relationship was not going to work out because the drive from the city to the suburbs took fucking forever. I actually did think about dumping him after my first drive to his house. Luckily, he wooed me and, more often than not, would make the drive and come see me.
Blissfully Blended Bullshit Page 9