Women’s History Month – My Sister

Loving your children appears to come naturally and has to be quite easy. I (a puppy mom) know that my love for my little guy has no limits. Even as I stared at the large hole in the side of my yoga mat this morning, I loved him still. It was just too cute how he darted out of the room once I turned my frightful gaze towards his furry, black body…but I digress. Loving someone else’s kids can be quite easy too. I love 3 little ladies that aren’t my own, with all my heart. However, loving someone else’s three halfway grown sons…not so fast. This brings me to the topic of the third installment of Women’s History Month: Women who care for other people’s children as if they are their own. Now since I only know one personally, I will share with you, the story of my sister.

I forget the details because I was in college/drunk through most of it, but sometime, about 9 or 10 years ago, my sister met an older man with 4 children (though for the sake of this, we’re only talking about 3 of them). For more than 6 years (again the deets are hazy) she has raised his three boys as her own. Seeing them through their awkward pre-teens, attending countless hockey games, meeting a few girlfriends and acting as ambulance driver to at least a dozen emergency room trips. She has done more for them than their own mother has, all while raising her own daughter for the past 4 years. She threw the boys their first birthday parties (seriously, they never had birthday parties), looked on as they graduated from high school, and filled out college applications, while the woman who gave birth to them was consistently absent. Her youngest son, who was just a small boy when his mother up and left, calls her by her name – but it’s clear that in his heart – she’s “Mom.”

Sometimes I wonder what the hell she will do with her time once the last two boys are on their own and she only has one child to care for…but then I remember we’re talking about my niece, who is a lot like her one and only aunt. That little one should be able to fill the shoes of three needy boys in no time : )

I guess I will never know if I could love a man enough to love his children. I can tell you that even if I could, I would never be able to unselfishly dedicate myself to running their lives, their household and eeek! doing their laundry. For this, my sister is an incredibly strong, loving and devoted wife, mother and woman.

If you care to read more about the day to day of a stepmother, check her out here. I hope you enjoyed my story of her story…maybe the next time you complain about your darling children, you’ll stop and think of all of the woman out there tirelessly dealing with whiny little brats that aren’t even their own.

*i know there should  be an apostrophe in the title, try telling that to my wordpress theme!