HOME ALONE

My husband loves a house full of children – big and small – and unlike me, doesn’t like to be alone. Opposites attract and all that stuff.

When, on those rare occasions the house is empty, I stand still for a moment and soak up the sounds of nothing and of no one. This silence rarely lasts more than an hour; sometimes only a few minutes. And before a long a car door slams and the sound of stampeding feet shatter all notions of quiet.

Once, not long ago, the entire clan were going to watch rival football teams play at the MCG. Me, being a football non-enthusiast, declined the offer to join the throng. By declining, I could see before me at least five blissful hours of ‘my time’. My time to watch a chick-flick, soak in a bath, play my music loud – or soft; my time to play ‘Queen of the Remote’ and change TV channels at a whim. I even envisaged the freedom of walking naked from bathroom to bedroom with complete confidence.

Football Friday couldn’t come quick enough. My in-laws were travelling from their home in the Alpine Ranges to attend the event. It was going to be a great night all round. (Pic of Don and Liz above.)

Any sniffle or sign of floundering enthusiasm from the children as Friday approached was met with a fistful of vitamins and lots of over-abundant hand-clapping about how magnificent the MCG was, how awesome the crowd will be, and how crucial it was for my children, as Richmond supporters, to fly our flag against the heavily weighted Melbourne Mob.

Before long, it was Friday. My night of silence and solitude was so close, I could smell the bath salts.

The footy dinner was prepared: meat and salad rolls, savoury biscuits, fruit, and a bottle of water each. It was all crammed into a back-pack, along with a thermos and tea bags for the oldies. Finally, everyone and everything was ready to go.

I did the numbers in my head: ‘Will you all fit in the one car?,’ I asked my husband.

He did the count: ‘Me, Dad, 1,2,3,4,5,6 kids. Yep, we’ll fit in the Land Cruiser. And the girls are driving themselves in so they can go out afterwards. Easy.'

‘So who’s taking your mum?’ I asked.

‘Mum? She’s not going,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew. She wants to stay here, where it’s warm, and watch the match on TV. That’s okay, isn’t it? You didn’t have anything planned, did you?’

‘Well, actually…’ But what could I say? That I wanted my 76 year old mother-in-law, who’d just come from seeing a cardiologist about her up-coming triple bypass operation, thrust into a winter’s night to sit on a hard seat in a blasting cold grandstand?

I know what you’re thinking: that yes, that’s what I really did want, given that the myth of mothers-in-law share the same mythological platform as stepmothers. Well, that’s just what they are: myths. And as far as my mother-in-law goes, I’m her biggest fan. This woman not only raised eleven children of her own, but also took in foster children and then her dementia-suffering mother-in-law. If anyone deserves an elephant stamp around here, she does. I have great admiration and love for her. From the moment we met, she opened her arms and her heart to me, and she’s been a constant source of encouragement and wisdom ever since.

So no, I didn’t really mind that she wasn’t going.

Not much, anyway.

Besides, there will be other nights I can spend alone. Other nights I can be naked without scaring anybody; other nights I can rest in the quiet heat of a bath, surrounded by candles, trying to avoid water smudges on my book; other nights when I can watch a soppy movie and cry without embarrassment, dance to loud music, or just sit in meditative quiet…

If not this decade, the next.

Sticks and Stones

I'm supposed to be at a book launch sipping champers, cheering the author on and inhaling 'essence of Carlton' with its abundant folk and Italian fare. Instead, I'm at home with an unwell son.

The book launch is for a great memoir I've just finished reading, ‘This is not my beautiful life’ by Elly Varrenti. It was a passionate, rollicking read and resonated strongly with similar vignettes from my own life as a writer, performer, mother and stepmother.

And it's Elly's book that's got me fired up to write on one of the many unspeakable step parenting topics: name calling. More specifically, about 'those stepparents' who insist their stepchildren refer to them as 'Mum' or 'Dad', when clearly, they already have their own, one-off, loved, blood-related, irreplaceable mother or father.

To put my hissy-fit into context, here is an excerpt from the book – a brief exchange between Elly and a girlfriend:

“‘…Just thank your lucky stars your ex’s wife is not a monster who hates children.’

And I think, yeah, I know, but can’t she be just a bit of a monster, and can’t my son call her by the name her Austrian parents bestowed on her and not ‘Mummy’ because that’s my name and I waited forty-two years to get it.”

Kafka said that ‘A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.’ Elly Varrenti’s book came with an axe which struck me on page 253 above.

Whenever I hear of a stepparent insisting their stepchild refer to them as ‘Mummy’ or ‘Daddy’ – when the biological parent is not dead, and present in the child’s life – it pushes all my audacity buttons.

I am not a mother to nine children, I am a mother to three children and a stepmother to six. My stepchildren call me Fiona. And why shouldn’t they? They already have a mother. They don’t need – nor want – another one. My children’s stepmothers (my sons have one; my daughter, another) have never requested or desired for their stepchildren to call them anything other than by their first name. They are ‘Mum’ to their own biological children; to my children they are Judy and Lynda.

It’s a tough gig being a stepparent. We’re forever chinking away at the historical myth of the wicked stepmother/mean stepfather, doing our damndest to elevate ourselves above the stereotype. But the stepmother mentioned in Elly’s book puts us way back in the middle ages when the word ‘step’ meant ‘bereave’ or ‘orphan’ (see link below). In other words, the stepparent was replacing a dead parent.

This definition supports my belief that only if the parent is dead, non-existent, or permanently absent, that the stepchild can be requested, not commanded, to call their stepparent Mum or Dad.

My own life is an example of this. I too, am a stepdaughter and have been for more than forty years. My biological father left when I was one and a half, and my brother three years old, never to return or to be seen again. When I was seven, Mum remarried and my brother and I embraced our stepfather with great relief and gratitude. We’ve called him ‘Dad’ ever since, because that’s who he became. And he stayed.

Another example of ‘okay-ness’ of the Mum/Dad reference by stepchildren is of a friend of mine who has three children: two from her husband’s first marriage and one from their own. Her two stepchildren call her Mum because their mother died when they were very young. This doesn’t mean they have denied the existence or the love and memories of their mother: quite the opposite. She’s referred to as ‘Mummy in Heaven’, to distinguish her from their father’s wife who has been their mum now for the past nine years.

Stepmothers are often seen as a threat – perceived or real – to the biological mother, but surely this comes from insecurity and fear that their children will love another woman more than us, and that we’ll ‘lose’ them? Usually (I use the term loosely) as time goes on, the mother realises that their children’s stepmother is not there to replace her, nor usurp her role; she’s there as the partner to the ex husband, and as a friend, supporter and cheerer-on-er of the stepchildren.

The word ‘step’ doesn’t mean ‘orphan’ or ‘bereave’ anymore. It went out of vogue long before wood-mills replaced woodcutters. Perhaps instead, the word ‘step’ is a metaphor or symbol for ‘one step away from being a biological parent’; or a ‘step up into a more complicated and complex life’; or perhaps it’s a ‘stepping stone to creating a safe and loving relationship with someone else’s child’. It’s a big step, nonetheless, but there’s no point in making it bigger than it needs to be with archaic and unrealistic expectations thrust upon the stepchildren.

Tonight at the book launch, had I gone, I would have liked to have told Elly that I understood her incredulity at what her son’s stepmother insisted; I would have reminded her that no matter what her son calls the stepmother that she, Elly, is his mother – his only mother. The ‘other one’ is out of line and out of date.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names can hurt us more. Especially if that name is Mum.


http://www.readings.com.au/product/9780670071982/this-is-not-my-beautiful-life

http://www.bonusfamilies.com/articles/bonus-living.php?id=177

SLEEPERS

'Only three more sleeps,' my stepson said on Tuesday. And then yesterday, trying hard to contain his excitement, 'Only one more sleep!'.

This is not our youngest child eagerly awaiting his birthday; this is my eldest stepson, all six-foot-six of him, counting down the days till he moves into his own house. And today’s the day.

He’s 21 years old and has moved out before: once, to his mother’s house full time a few years ago, and then for a short stint sharing a house with a mate, before courageously taking off to work and live in Darwin at the end of last year. However, a few months later he returned with shattered dreams and a close encounter with his own mortality, to the safe harbour of our almost full-to-the brim house.

When a prodigal child returns after experiencing the big, wide, adult world, it is not out of desire, but of need: the need to save money, the need for safety, for shelter, or the need to mark time until another independent opportunity surfaces.

I remember needing to move back into the family home when I was a single mother in my 30s, in between one financially and emotionally disastrous relationship and the next. Living once again with my mother was a humiliating last resort, and turned out to be both regressive and regretful.

Once again I had to account for any absence, be home on time, eat everything on my plate if I wanted dessert, hang out the washing, feed the chooks… In other words, to become the girl that had left home more than a decade prior. I despised the imposition of rules after I’d had worldly tastes of freedom and responsibility on my own terms for so long. I was a few days short of resorting to pigtails and skipping on the front veranda when I found a house to share with a friend.

My indignity, of course, was immature and unreasonable; after all, it was my mother’s house, not mine. I know that now, but I was clueless and careless back then. (Hindsight and wisdom are great companions, but always arrive too late.)

So before my six-foot-six stepson moved back in after his adventure, my husband and I, in the need to be pro-active about an inevitable shift in family dynamics and pecking order, prepared a ‘List of House Rules’ that we gave to all the children, giving us and them the opportunity to agree, disagree, negotiate, and clarify rules that, in the past, had only been verbally expressed. It also gave Six Foot Six the chance to change his mind about moving back home.

To paint a bit of a picture of these rules – so you don’t think Steve is Captain von Trapp, nor I Julie Andrews – here are a few examples: Hang up used bath towels; If you make a mess in the kitchen, clean it up; Ask permission for friends to stay over; and No smoking on the property (Six Foot Six was the only smoker and has since given up, thankfully).

One rule in particular worth elaborating on, and which may appear very ‘von Trapp-ish’ to some, but which has saved the day – and our sanity – on more than one occasion over the years, is this one: ‘When a boyfriend/girlfriend stays the night, they are to sleep on their own in a spare room or bed’. We have good reasons for this rule, and have had many passionate discussions in the past with some of our older children over such. Here’s what we told them:

Reason Number One: This rule is to convey that a sexual relationship is not to be taken lightly or snatched up at a whim – especially as an adolescent/young adult – and that being sexually active comes with responsibility, respect and a certain amount of sacredness.

Reason Number Two: We have young, influential children living here who look up to their older brothers and sisters. Whether the older children like it or not, they are the younger ones’ role models. If we had no rules about who sleeps where and when, then so it would follow with all the other children as they got older.

Reason Number Three: We have too many children already. We don’t want to have to feed more, care for more, worry about more. By relegating guests to the guest room and not their lovers’ bedrooms, they remain guests. Guests don’t overstay their welcome (generally speaking!); guests also treat hospitality with gratitude and respect.

Reason Number Four: Because we said so, that’s why. And because this is our house, and this is our rule.

This ‘sleeping’ rule has worked in our favour, compared to some other families. Some have permanent live-in boyfriends and girlfriends, with no sign of either child or partner moving out. Why would they? The rent is cheap (or free), they have home cooked meals, and sometimes, if they’re lucky, they even have their own personal laundry service. I even know of a middle-aged, widowed mother who moved out of her own home because her son’s girlfriend wouldn’t!

When I ask other parents about their own ‘sleep’ rules, many of them say that if they didn’t allow it, they would worry about where their children 'did it’! Safe sex, in this instance, is more about location than lubrication. Do they really think their child will ‘do it’ in a gutter full of AIDS-infested needles somewhere? Or up against a wall in a dangerous dark alley? The list of locations for creative and safe sexual expression is endless.

We figure that if our adult children want to have a permanent sexual relationship with someone, then they can experience the responsibility and commitment that goes with that by moving into their own place. Until then, if they want/need to explore their sexuality and sexual expression, they can do it where we used to when we were growing up – which didn’t include in the family home.

We have our list of family rules for many reasons: for safety, consistency, respect, and functionality, as well as to promote communication, responsibility and fairness between all of us. We also want our children to be fully expressed adults out in the big world, and by keeping our ship tight and perhaps restrictive for our teenage and adult children, they will more readily see the benefits of moving into their own place and space where they can live their own independent lives.

Today, being ‘No More Sleeps Day’ for my stepson as he plans his independent life with great enthusiasm, reminds me that it’s only two thousand, two hundred and sixty five sleeps before the youngest of our nine – potentially – leave home.

But who’s counting?