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