Step Family

Step Family

Most people believe that when a man marries a woman that they should stay together despite problems that they have. With some couples, that's not their way. More and more children these days are the children of divorced parents.

The hardest part of being a child of divorced parents is that when the parent your living with comes up to you and says that they are going to marry someone else. There are many emotions involved in this- ranging from hate to jealousy. It is very hard to try and get used to having a new mother or father around, besides the fact that it's just not the same. An even harder part is starting to call them 'mom' or 'dad'.

With me, it was a totally different situation. My mother and father divorced when I was two years old, in Virginia. My mother, two brothers and I moved to Michigan and moved almost directly into her old boyfriends’ house. At such a young age I didn't know any difference that this was my dad. So it wasn't as hard to get used to as it would if it were later on in life. Even though I called this man dad all my life he wasn't officially my 'dad' until 1989, a year before his death.
Being eighteen now, I could not and would not ever get used calling another man 'dad.' I'm not sure if this is because of my age, or that this 'step father' is the only one that will ever be a dad in my life.