THREE+ME: Jealous of your stepkids? Um.... Part 1

A late bloomer myself, I struggle seeing my stepdaughter’s potential for awesomeness

Writing a weekly column is a strange thing.

As a good friend of mine, who's also a writer, often quotes Snoop Dogg: "Some how, some way, keep comin' up with funky [articles], like, every single day."

Some weeks, it's easy. The words run onto the page like there's free dessert waiting for them there.

Other weeks, it's a bit harder. Say, as if there's veggies instead of dessert.

And then, there's this week.

This week, it isn't veggies or dessert. There's no food involved at all (unfortunately). This week is more like scaling a super-tall wall that I've been training to climb for months.

Because this week, you're reading something I've been trying to get myself to write since April. I've known what I want to say, but I wanted to say it the right way. I wanted to research a little, maybe interview a professional or two, just to make sure I'm getting it right.

I'm also a little ashamed to write it. It feels rather like a confession, because you don't often hear people talk about this kind of thing.

But that's enough setting the stage. Ready? Here we go...

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“Can we blow dry my hair?” my stepdaughter came bounding into the room, curls bouncing – and dripping wet from being recently washed.

I happily obliged. I’m a late bloomer when it comes to a lot of things, so I was never big on beauty stuff (I’m still not). But I figure even my limited knowledge is more than a 7-year-old’s, so I helped her out.

Besides, it was for a good cause: The Daddy-Daughter Dance was that day.

She got all dressed up – a candy-print dress, Mary Jane shoes (with socks), makeup she applied herself. It was adorable.

When she and her daddy got home from the dance later that night, my husband showed me videos from the evening of her on the dance floor. It, too, was adorable.

Then he observed the obvious, “She’s gonna be quite the dancer when she gets older.”

And that’s when I stopped thinking it was adorable. Actually, I started to cry.

As I said, I’m a late bloomer. And in some cases, like anything concerning grace and coordination, I just never bloomed at all.

I can’t dance. My 7-year-old stepdaughter can.

In that moment, the realization hit me like a left hook in a boxing match: She was better than me. I’ve known since I met her (when she was 4) that she’s cooler than me, and that the older she gets, the more cooler-than-me she’ll be. But this time, it bothered me. This time, I realized something:

I was jealous.

The realization freaked me out. Until that moment, I never understood why the evil stepmothers in fairy tales were so jealous of their beautiful, sweet, amazing stepdaughters.

Now I understood it. Because I was jealous of my beautiful, sweet, amazing stepdaughter. Not necessarily of who she is now, but of who she will be when she’s older.

Admitting it, terrified me.

In our culture of comparison and competition, I know she’ll be prettier than me, stronger, funnier, braver than me. She’ll fit in socially better than I ever have, she’ll see the world differently than I ever could.

And I envy that.

Do actual moms?

If she was my blood, would I somehow overlook the twinge of jealousy that she’ll have a cooler life experience than I’ve had? Would I just be purely happy that she’s got such a good future ahead of her?

Are moms blind to that stuff? You don’t usually hear about actual moms envying their daughters. Do you?

Thinking about it made me cry. Writing this column about it made me cry. It isn’t easy recognizing something hideous about yourself.

And I wanted reassurance that I wasn’t alone, that having this evil feeling didn’t make me the evil stepmother I try so hard not to be.

So I went looking for answers.

Which will have to wait until next week, because this column is already too long.

Email Emely Varosky at evarosky@heraldnews.com.