Q&A: 18 years old, and new to this

Cross-posted from Stepchicks.com, and expanded upon. Read others' responses here.

QUESTION: …I’m 18 years old and a FUTURE step-mommy… If anyone has advice for me, or anything to look for, or anything that I need to do NOW, please help. All advice and wisdom is appreciated.

ANSWER: You know what’s awesome? How my gut dropped reading that you were going to step into this role and you're 18-years-young, AND that you're asking for advice at all about where you are headed.

Here's my honest opinion about stepparenting: I think most of us who enter into the deal don't enter lightly. But at some point, when the reality of the messiness that lies ahead confronts us, we look at our lives and we tell ourselves, "I am an adult. I can deal." We rationalize. We gradually shout down that little voice trying to warn us-- whether that voice is in our head or popping out of the mouths of the well-intentioned.

We stare at the wicked myth and vow that we shall not ever be that evil queen. We will write our own story; we will be the cool stepmom. We envision a life of good times and endless Christmases and sure, it'll be tough for awhile, but eventually things will get better, smooth out, and we can finally get down to the business of living happily ever after.

It's not until just after about two weeks of the giddy hysteria of “WE'RE A FAMILY NOW,” that reality sets in, sucking us down into the funk of “Forever.” And suddenly that quiet little voice that once whispered beneath our rationalizations has become a full-throated bullhorn and we’re gripped with panic: HOLY CRAP. THIS IS REAL. And the less acknowledged fear, "If I try to run, everyone will think I'm an asshat," mumbles nearby like a chain-smoking schizophrenic sidekick.

It’s not that way for all of us. Some of us are able to shake past the fear, work ardently with our partners and try to grow new kind of family, one where we define our own dysfunction, thankyouverymuch.

Your feelings are real. And you are, I’m sure, a caring woman who is very responsible and desiring nothing more than to make this work.

That said, really, really listen to the advice you solicit. The role you step into now is not a nifty little something with a man and his sweet baby that will love you the instant it arrives. It’s a lifetime of being second-place to a child that will forever and necessarily be the center of her father’s world, and you will have to support it. Assist. Facilitate. And the sweet little baby is actually a person with a ferocious mother attached who may or may not ever see you as who you really are. She may just look at you as competition or a threat. She may just be a lifelong enemy.

Then again, maybe not.

That said, the stepmoms you talk to are women who have been to war, all of us have battle scars all our own; and we know and have lived and CONTINUE to live the various difficulties that lie ahead of you.

Everyday is not Christmas in stepmother land. Especially Christmas.You need to really know yourself before you jump into a lifetime role that will put you in second place– or often third, or fifth– most of the time.

Honestly ask yourself:
• Can you deal with someone hating you every day for years on end? That someone could be a stepchild that you see daily. Or it could be your stepchild’s biological mother, who spits vitriol in your wake whenever she sees your stepchild.
• Can you accept that you are sharing a parenting role not with someone else, but actually, two someone elses, and that your ideas/constructive comments/criticisms/ruling/decrees/parenting advice may and often will get overruled?
• Can you deal with daddy guilt, when your man acts completely against the grain of your agreement because he feels horribly that he doesn’t see his own kids as much as he wants?
• Can you accept that in the eyes of society, family, friends and even therapists that your feelings are oftentimes invalid in the face of others in your family?

My please-dear-gawd-listen-to-me advice: Go be young for awhile. It’s okay to be selfish at this time in your life; in fact, it’s expected.

Above all, know this is a huge and heavy decision– a forever decision and it if you go with it, your life will never again be about you. This isn’t a gauntlet I’m throwing down, this isn’t a challenge. This is a warning.