Stepparenting as Queer Resistance
“Hi, who are you?” A million different answers and ways of explaining myself and why I belonged flew through my head. “Sydney’s stepmom” comes out of my mouth for simplicity’s sake. I can see the wheels turning, trying to place me in the family tree. My partner walks up and validates my presence there, clears the confusion and brings immediate relief to Sydney’s principal in the chaos of elementary school pick-up. “Who are you” has always been loaded for me as a queer person, but adding in stepparenting has added a whole new layer. “Stepmom” is not the first identity I would pick, but how else can I be understood in the fray of school pickup to say I belong there and Sydney and I belong together? This is not a new experience for me. I grew up Queer, not fitting into the labels and boxes offered, learning from a young age that I required an explanation of who I am. As a Queer adult in a blended family, I continue to resist the boxes that do not work for me, which is magical and freeing but also disorienting and exhausting.
Where Do I Belong?
Belonging was confusing from the start. I remember as early as pre-school frequently being separated into boys and girls. “Well I’m a girl but the boys are doing more fun things, I’d rather go with the boys.” No one else seemed to be having this struggle so I painstakingly went with the group matching my body. That seemed to be about all we had in common. Seeds of jealousy sprouted as my male friends got to enjoy the same activities we shared in the neighborhood, but never within the walls of school, church, or camp. I remember after the last day of 2nd grade my best male friends and I went to Robbie’s house after school for a swim party. All the boys ripped their shirts off and jumped in in their shorts. I was the only girl there at this new house with parents I didn’t know well. Would I have to be the one person who had to pull on an uncomfortable suit while the boys got to be shirtless and free? I asked Robbie’s mom if I could also swim shirtless in my shorts–no one told me I had to ask for this permission, but I knew.
Never Quite Passing
I became astute at navigating gender roles and reactions to my gender expression even though I had no idea that was what I was doing. My parents say I was about 3 years old when I told them, “no pink, no purple, no dresses.” Fortunately they said “okay” and took me to shop in the boys sections in the 90’s department stores. I have much gratitude for my parents letting me dress in my baggy jeans, t-shirts, and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball hat every day without question. But I was on my own when it came to figuring out how to navigate the world’s reaction to me. I learned, “I am different and I will have to prove I belong.” By the time I hit puberty, this became ever more complex as the awareness of the male gaze set in and I traded my baseball hat for a style that could pass as more “feminine” and would help me blend in more in my difference. I never really passed, a reality that crushed my insecure adolescent self. This “difference” was here to stay–I was not going to pass through the traditional benchmarks of my peers, and the internal isolation was deep. That loneliness didn’t disappear with age—it only shifted as I entered adulthood and began building a life of my own.
Love…and a Kid
As I grew older, puberty, 2000s culture, and the pressure to pass all made the box tighter. Eventually I arrived at a place where it felt safe enough to come out and embrace who I am, more proud of my separation from the “norm.” In terms of family life, I never actually pictured myself walking down an aisle and getting married. I knew from a relatively young age that I did not want to bear children. And then I partnered with Kyrie, and experienced a love and relationship that makes me feel even more comfortable and empowered in my queerness. And from that we are able to reach out and offer more of that to others as well, so we’re not doing this alone.
Along with a new relationship came a kid, a dog, a cat, and a former spouse and very involved dad. This role of living with a child felt like a return to a box with tradition that I do not fit into. At times it felt like pulling on that uncomfortable speedo at a swim party–awkward, as if assigned to me without my consent. It caused questions in my belonging again, stirring an old loneliness to the surface. This also provided the space for confronting some of this loneliness with more compassion and understanding than I could have as a child. Stepparenting brought this internal work up close and personal.
The Awkwardness of “Stepparent”
Kyrie and I lived with each other for multiple years before I could even begin to utter “stepparent” to describe my role, even just for the ease of explanation to others. I continue to relate more to a “bonus adult” role in Sydney’s life, but have grown accustomed to the “stepparent” language. And yet, the stepparent role comes with cultural baggage and expectations that I can’t and won’t fit into. Especially for women: the expectation that nurturing a child will come naturally or that living in nuclear family life is intuitive. The word “parent” feels both too big and too narrow, and this is where the complexity of my queerness touches on the pain of not fitting in.
This is also where the Queer community has risen to the challenge of creating our own roles, our own families, our own belonging, and our own ways of loving. As feminist writer Sophie Lewis notes in Abolish the Family, queer communities have long practiced alternative forms of kinship—often out of necessity. When our own nuclear families reject us, we invent new ones. In that sense, queer people have always engaged in a kind of informal family abolition: refusing narrow definitions of family and building something freer, more chosen, and more collective in its place.
Building Outside the Box
Kyrie and I talk regularly about what we are intentionally building together, outside of the box. We’re not legally married and Sydney still pauses with a deer-in-the-headlights look when asked about my relationship to her. We’ve also found ourselves on the liberation timeline where we have not yet found a way to completely abolish inherited, limiting family systems. Oftentimes we don’t have the perfect words for how we’re trying to live and what we’re trying to build. We struggle to find resources and community for our journey. This is the queerness of our family. It’s something different from the norm and we don’t have a roadmap. It can be hard and isolating work. It is also deeply creative and imaginative work. I still find myself having to explain who I am and why I belong, sometimes feeling different and on the outside. It harkens back to not knowing if I should go with the boys or girls. Even in one of the greatest gifts of my life–getting to do life with these people every day–the old pain remains: how do I explain myself, how do I prove I belong, and how can I feel less alone?
Finding Others
When the realities of living with Sydney hit me full force, I went searching for answers to these questions. I found a lot validating content for stepparents that spoke to some of my experiences of living with my partner’s child in this new way. But I struggled to find a place or resources that resonated with the pain and challenges I was experiencing in a stepparent role but also as queer person.. My background as a therapist gave me living proof that I was not alone with these experiences, but I couldn’t find a place to live in them alongside others. I didn’t just want to sit with this loneliness—I wanted to do something with it. As a result, along with Kyrie, I created Blended Bonds, a coaching program and community building for other queer stepparents who don’t have children and are in a relationship with someone who does. This role can be isolating, but I don’t believe we have to do it alone. I’m still figuring out how to belong in a world built on boxes I have never fit into. But queerness has taught me this: We don’t have to fit into boxes to belong—we can build new ones.
This blog was originally published on Blended Family Frappe, a supportive community for stepparents run by Maarit and Dan.