Now Start Juggling...

Another challenging aspect of becoming a stepparent is that you are also just married. You and your new spouse don't really get a period when its just the two of you. The pre-children patterns and conflicts aren't established because you're in an instant family. If you need to have a knock down, drag out fight ( and I mean verbally and even so, no hitting below the belt) and I believe couples do need that, the new stepparent may be reluctant to engage in front of the new step kids. I know I was. It was important to me that my step kids understand that I was there to stay and that the home environment was going to be more stable than what they had been use to. The consequence was that my wife and I sublimated these conflicts for the sake of the kids and it was to the detriment of our marriage. Of course this is all 20/20 hindsight by me and I certainly didn't realize this problem as I was creating it. Its apparent to me that this series is going to be filled with short quick random posts like this one. Thats sort of how my thinking is these days.

What is a Stepparent ?

A stepparent is defined by negatives. You are not a biological parent, you don't look like your stepchildren. You haven't always been there if you come onto the scene after the kids become cognizant of their situation (i.e. older than three or four). The step kids may harbor suspicions that you're only there to be with their parent and that they're excess baggage that you were generous enough to assume responsibility for though you'd prefer that they were not there. Your authority isn't something they grew up with, it has to be established. All the agreements with your spouse about what you can and can't do may go out the window when one of the kids pushes back. The rest of the family may have set up established patterns of behavior between each other that you are not aware of until you are actually living with them. Discussions with your spouse may not fully capture the step kids actual experiences in their lives. One of the kids may have had a "bad" relationship with their father or you may just accept the idea that things at home were "not good" and see yourself as a healer. No matter how much time you spend with your new spouse and the step kids before you get married, you really will not have a full comprehension of what forces are in play between you, your spouse and kids.

The answer to my question "What is a stepparent" is answered by enumerating the qualities you have to possess. Flexibility is one of the primary characteristics of a good stepparent. The flip side is you can't be a pushover. You have to be supportive of the kids but it can't be forced, kids see right through that. I think being a stepparent is like being a tight rope walker with on the job training being the only preparation. How do you get to the other side? Thats the question for the next in this series.

Hollywood Misfires Badly

Hollywood is desperate to tap into the hipster indie film sensibility. Little Miss Sunshine (a pointless film saved by good performances by a couple of the cast) gave the execs a hint that clever quirky films can make money. Now if there was just a way to tap into the aging Harry Potter youth audience and make an "indie" film.... enter Juno, a film that is inexplicably getting rave reviews. Its the story of an impossibly precocious teen who happens to get pregnant, and like, finds these, like people, to like, adopt her baby. The great travesty of this film is the teen dialogue, clearly written by an adult trying excruciatingly hard to talk "their" language. Remember your parents saying "groovy" back in the 60s? This twaddle is worse. After about an hour of Juno (played by Ellen Page) wisecracking about her pregnancy, the film takes a serious turn. Only then do you begin to see the cartoon characters come to life. Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner are wasted. Michael Cera is underused. Clearly some of these actors have talent, its a shame the script wasn't more respectful of their abilities. My theater was full and the laughs were few and far between.

Marching in DC

In this city of marches, I'm not much of a marcher but yesterday I walked in the Help the Homeless walkathon to raise money for a myriad of DC area homeless charities. I've only become involved with the homeless issue in the past couple years. Like the community it serves, the service providers are a disparate group- churches, non-profits, grass roots volunteer organizations and just people like me who help out on a regular basis while not representing a larger organization. It was great to see 30,000 people come together on a cold (for Washington) Autumn day to walk three miles and raise around 8 million dollars for the various homeless charities. I'm always skeptical about how much money goes to the actual charities for events like this, but the people who work at my program, The Dinner Program for Homeless Women, www.dphw.org , assure me that this event is one of their most important sources of funding. We walked along the Potomac for a brief period yesterday, near the Tidal Basin, the leaves brilliantly changing color and still clinging to branches despite high winds on Thursday. One of the good things about the abysmal leadership in America the past few decades is that people don't expect the government to help out very much. Its down to us from here on out I think. This march started 20 years ago with 150 people from Fannie Mae. 30,000 people working on this issue ought to be able to make some difference. Lets hope so.

Pan's Labyrinth

Its been out on DVD for a while but I just saw Pan's Labyrinth. In the past year I've watched all three Lord of the Rings movies and the latest Harry Potter. All very entertaining fantasy movies that can be enjoyed by the entire family with the requisite moral lessons and fascinating (at least for kids in most cases) special effects. Pan's Labyrinth is a much different type of fantasy and decidedly for adults only. Set in 1940s Fascist Spain, a young girl tries to follow her mystical destiny while the adults around her are engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse. She has a desperate mother, a cruel stepfather who is a Fascist officer, and a maid who is working for the rebels. Its a tough movie to watch with a lot of overt cruelty but I don't feel it is a sad movie. The type of movie that is interesting to talk about afterwards if you see it with someone else.

Edward Hopper at the National Gallery

The National Gallery here in DC has two pretty big shows on this fall: J.M.W. Turner and Edward Hopper. I'm sure that in the Pantheon of High Art, Turner is afforded greater status than Hopper but as an American, I prefer Hopper. Apparently a few folks agree with me because the show was packed on a Thursday afternoon. Though he's best known for Nighthawks (at left), his paintings of seaside dwellings in Maine and on Cape Cod (below center) and his depiction of light in these settings is also wonderful. His urban work like Nighthawks and Automat (below right) effectively contrast isolation with the physical environment of the city. In his pictures, there seems to be less isolation in a seemingly empty house in Maine than at a lunch counter in the city. There is also a small selection of his sketches on display. The one below left is an excellent example. A very good show.

My Mid-Life Crisis

I know she's all wrong for me. I don't like women with tattoos and the hair is all over the place and ..well.. I love her anyway. I haven't mentioned music in this blog very much. I like a lot of different kinds of music but not being a musician or musically inclined, I'm really just a listener. Amy Winehouse's record, Back to Black, however, hit me between the eyes and I'm still listening to it quite frequently. She is apparently very unstable with tabloid stories full of domestic violence directed at her husband and plenty of drinking. Its weird I know but I think my life would be better if she was chasing me around the apartment with a butcher knife, screaming and crying, accusing me of running around on her. Hmmm...maybe I need counseling...nah...kids, meet my new wife!!!