Being in a blended family isn’t easy.I like to think of myself as a “bonus mom” rather than a stepmom.
When I met my husband, Jason, he shared that he was a single father raising two incredible boys.
The pride in his voice and the love in his eyes were clear. It was a month into dating before I met them, he wanted to be sure we were serious. Over time, I fell in love with both him and his boys, and eventually, we married.
At our wedding, they weren’t just ring bearers, they were also the best men. Before I came along, their mom had remarried and moved them four hours away. Despite the distance, the four of us, me, Jason, their mom, and stepdad, learned to co-parent as a team. We’re very different people, from our styles to our parenting approaches, but we show up for the boys.
We cheer together at football games, take pictures at school events, and come together for milestones where both parents belong, even if they have four of us.
Because we live in different states, visits take effort. During football season, we travel to Idaho every other weekend just to watch our oldest play. On Fridays, I leave work, drive 100 miles to meet their mom or stepdad, and bring the boys back. Jason makes the same drive on Sundays. With traffic or bad weather, it can take five to six hours round trip but we do it without hesitation.
After we adopted two babies just four months apart last year, life got even busier. Still, we make time for all of our kids. Recently, their mom asked if we could stay with the boys while she and her husband were out of town so they wouldn’t miss school. Jason took two days off work to be there, making lunches, helping with homework, and even being there when our eight-year-old lost a tooth. That night, the tooth came with a special request: a self-portrait from the Tooth Fairy. The drawing made him laugh the next morning: “I wasn’t really expecting Mr. Tooth Fairy to look like that!”
The way Jason loves his kids is one of the things I admire most about him. Blended families take time, patience, and a lot of miles on the road but it’s worth every bit of effort. Jason will never be the kind of father who drifts away into a “new life,” and I’ll never be the stepmom who neglects making time for every one of our kids.
I’m proud to be their bonus mom. Every single day.
