I like the quiet, but it’s odd to share it with someone less than three feet across from you every single morning.

But, that’s how it is.

My husband Hank is off to work. His youngest son is two thousand miles away living with his mother. I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee and the paper, two tabby cats nudging me for attention, giving myself just twenty more minutes before I, too, head off to my office in another corner of the house. That’s when my teenage stepson walks into the room, all groggy and as unemotional as the bowl of Cheerios he pours himself, without acknowledging my presence.

On a typical day, I can rise above his casual dismissal of me, reach through the awkward silence and chirp, “Morning,” to which I get a deep, guttural “M-o-r-n-g” in return. It’s a man-like groan, missing some key letters, but a reply, nonetheless.

That’s how I spin it, anyway. Even though he’s been prompted by me, it’s his reciprocated, albeit aloof, reply that lets me know that he does see me, that he probably doesn’t hate me, and that he’s just, well, a sixteen-year- old boy – an introverted one – and completely unaware that his stepmother occasionally needs some recognition.

Most teenagers are mute and moody and act like hormonal aliens

I know from other mothers that it doesn’t matter if they’re your blood or step – most teenagers are mute and moody and act like hormonal aliens – but I’m new at this mother thing and still getting used to our relationship.

It wasn’t until I was thirty-five that I agreed to bring children into my world, and it wasn’t through my uterus, but by marrying a man who already had two of his own. While most mothers go through a long adjustment period – cooing baby, chatty toddler, questioning ten-year-old – during which time they learn their child’s unique communication style, my boys came to me half grown and already speaking their own boy language. While I’m fairly confidant that their daily grunts don’t mean they’d prefer a third cat to a second mother, I’m never quite sure what they’re tying to say. Hank, their father since day one, is much better at interpreting their words, or lack of. When he gets lukewarm reception, which he often does, he can shake it off. But he also has memories of the early years when two little boys greeted him with nothing but delight. He tells me “Babe, you can’t take it personally.”

On most days, when I’m feeling like a big girl, I try it Hank’s way. I go back to reading the paper after our one-word morning exchange without feeling slighted, and knowing I can engage in meaningful conversation later in the day with more reliable sources – my colleagues and girlfriends or my mom in California.

But this was not one of those days. My usually mild temper had had enough. It wanted to rage. After soliciting another disinterested mumbling, it took every bit of self-control to restrain myself from saying: Would it kill you to acknowledge my existence? Really, I don’t need much. Just something simple like, how’s it going? or What’s up? I looked down at my adoring cats, now licking my ankles. I wanted to scream: How about taking a cue from the cats? Instead, I took a deep yoga breath, got up from the table and left the room, and that’s when I was struck with this self-pitying conclusion: After three years of being this kid’s full-time, stand-in mother, I feel like we are no closer today than we were on day one. And it’s all my fault.

We are no closer today than we were on day one.

Okay, I knew this wasn’t entirely true. We’ve had plenty of sweet moments (just the other night we’d watched repeat episodes of The “Real Housewives of New York” together. How many sixteen-year-old males would be caught dead doing that?). But still, tears rose to the surface like someone had punched me in the gut. Sitting together and sharing Bethenny Frankel’s enthusiasm for New York’s high priced charity events wasn’t enough. I wanted more. All the private worry that I was an inadequate, unlikable stepmom came rushing right out, leaving me deflated and wondering why I thought I could do this in the first place. Oh, yeah…because I’m in love with their father.

I sat down on the living room couch and thought; I’m NO good at this.

And it’s not for lack of trying. In my own imperfect way, I’ve made moves to grow closer to my stepsons without pushing it. Because I’m also a stepkid (my parents divorced when I was nine and remarried others when I was ten), I understand the importance of pacing. I never expected instant love from them or me, and I often reassure other shaky stepmoms that they’re not monsters for withholding the L-word.

That’s the one thing I’ve brought to this relationship. I may not know much about mothering, but I understand the code of the stepworld: You don’t walk in the front door and fling yourself on a kid. As it is with any relationship, forced love gets you nowhere, except maybe in jail. If you want to establish a natural connection, one that doesn’t label you as lame, annoying, pathetic, or your basic life suck, you have to let things develop slowly, or organically, as so many say these days.

As an adult stepkid, I get this, so I’ve kept my getting-to-know-you conversations short and my hugs reserved for holidays, and all I really want is some acknowledgment, like an “Atta Girl” for good behavior. But no, most of the time all I get is a strangled “morng.”

Now that I think about it, I seem to have adopted my stepfather’s bonding technique. When Mom’s new husband, Stanton, came along, I already had a dad who was very much in my life, so I didn’t really need another one. Stanton seemed to understand this and took a backseat role to parenting me. Likewise, he didn’t push us into a snuggly relationship.

As a kid, I was pretty broken up by the unexpected twist in my own after-school special: When Divorce Hits Home. I appreciated that Stanton kept a respectful distance. That’s not to say that he wasn’t an active influence in my life. He was and still is. As a stepmom, I’ve similarly given my stepsons space and time to warm up and let me in. But shouldn’t they be warmed up by now?

Later that afternoon, I arrived at my all women’s therapy session still feeling wounded.

“Who wants to begin?” Sarah, the shrink asked.
“I’ll go,” I barked.

Before she could give me the nod to go ahead, I launched right into it. “When it comes to my older stepson, I feel invisible a lot of the time, and it dawned on me today that he really doesn’t need me.” (Actually, it hadn’t dawned on me until I’d just said it and now that I had, I started to feel angry… and sad… and resentful… and weepy.)

“So, you know what,” my voice pitched a little higher, “ I’m done. I’m not trying anymore. I’m tired of giving, giving, giving and not getting anything in return. It’s true what my friends warned me in the beginning – ‘stepparenting is a thankless job,’ so screw it. He’s not my kid. We’re not obligated to love each other, and we’re better off just acting like roommates.”

Whew. Maybe it wasn’t the grown-up thing to say, but damn, it was a relief to speak my ugly thoughts out loud. The group gave me their supportive smiles, their looks of understanding, and then they told me I wasn’t behaving very much like a parent. One woman started to give me the tsk,tsk,tsk face and then said softly, “He does too need you. He might not show it, or know how he needs you, but if you’re raising this kid for any amount of time, he sure does need you to be SOMETHING.”

Her advice felt sobering and significant, but what did she mean by – be something? A roommate was something, no?

That evening, I lay in bed next to Hank, staring into the dark and going over my own teen years. Had I acted cool and withdrawn? Probably. Stanton came with two daughters about my same age, so that made three of us who became teenagers at the same time. Mornings in our house were hardly quiet, but that’s only because my stepsisters and I were fighting over our fair share of hot water and equal time in front of the bathroom mirror. Did I make time on those mornings for kitchen table chitchat with Stanton? HA! Who has time for pleasantries when you’ve got unruly curls to blow dry? Perhaps, I thought now, my expectations of my stepsons were a little too high?

Perhaps.. my expectations of my stepsons were a little too high?

I remembered a summer during college when Mom, Stanton and I found ourselves traveling together through the south of France. We were staying in a charming stone farm house run by a classic Provencal woman we called “Madame.” On one particularly blistering day, Mom retreated to the coolness of the bedroom while Stanton and I retired to the terrace under a tangled grape arbor that filtered the oppressive noontime sun. He and I sat there throughout the afternoon drinking du vin rouge ordinaire, laughing and telling family stories.

I woke up the next morning and called Stanton at work.

“What is it kid?” he said in his favorite deadpan style.

“I have some questions.”

“What kind?”

“Questions about stepparenting,” I said. “Specifically about you steppparenting me. Was it terribly… hard?”

“Hmmmm,” he paused. “Well, if you really must know – stepparenting was difficult. Not that you were difficult. You weren’t. But our relationship was a slow simmer.”

“Like you were simmering inside with hostility that you didn’t show on the outside?” I gibed.

“No, you dope. After we moved in together, your mother asked me if I wouldn’t please be more close to you and act more like a father. I told her ‘no.’ You had a father, and I was a stepfather. It was going to take a long time for you and me to get to know, understand, trust, like, and maybe even love each other. I was not going to force anything. I felt that would have been artificial and phony. Instead, I’ve been on this long courtship with you.”

I smiled at this.

“And,” he continued, “I think I made some breakthroughs over the years, and we’ve become close.”

“I think we have, too” I agreed.

I thought again about that summer in France. And how it really wasn’t until that afternoon in the shade of Madame’s piece of paradise, that, after decades of us being on medium-low, I realized how much we liked each other. I sat with this for a minute, feeling grateful for how he kept a knowing distance throughout the years. And yet, it wasn’t the distance itself, that I was grateful for, but the opposite – his enduring presence. For nearly thirty years, Stanton has been a steady constant in my life. He’s shown up every day. And he’s never asked for much in return – except maybe, “Leave me some mint chip ice cream,” and “Be nice to your mother.”

The next morning, I sat in my quiet corner of the kitchen. When my teenage stepson slunk into the room, expressionless and sullen, I said my usual:

“Morning.”

“Morng” he replied.

I’d love to have a meaningful multi-syllable conversation with this kid. But that’s just not where we’re at right now. Today, tomorrow and for who knows how long, he needs his Cheerios to be Cheerios and me to be the other one at the kitchen table, reading the paper and drinking coffee. Routine and dependable. That, I can do. That’s being something.

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