Guest Post: Author Tami Butcher

Hello Dear Stepmoms!

I get letters all the time from families looking for books to read to their young children about remarriage (besides Cinderella), but I don’t have a lot of answers to give. Tami Butcher wrote My Bonus Mom! Taking the Step out of Stepmom, a picture book for kids that helps families talk about divorce and remarriage. Yay! She’s written a guest post for my blog today. If you’ve got young stepchildren in your household, check it out at  www.mybonusmombook.com. Happy New Year everybody! Love, Jacque

As a child, Tami Butcher grew up with what she lovingly refers to as her “bonus mom,” a nurturing, caring woman many in society would refer to as a “stepmother.” Tami’s parents amicably divorced when she was 11, and for the sake of Butcher and her three sisters, decided to keep each other fully involved in their children’s lives despite the divorce. Eventually both her parents remarried, but they continued to share birthdays, holidays and special times together with their children, as well as with their new spouses. Because of her parents’ efforts, Butcher and her sisters grew up feeling blessed for having two moms and dads instead of “stepparents.”

I had two important women in my life. One was a savvy businesswoman who taught me how to run for Student Body President and what to put on a resume.  The other, an animal lover who never knew a stranger, taught me the importance of a good book and the meaning of hugs instead of handshakes.  One woman was my biological mom, the other was my “bonus mom.” Nancy came into my life when I was 14. I liked her right away, she exuded warmth and kindness. Heck, mom liked her just as much as us. Looking back, it was not one particular thing, but an assortment of many things making Nancy a great stepmom. She never tried to take mom’s place, she never competed for affection and certainly never said a bad word about dad’s “ex.” What she did tell us is that she would love us and our dad unconditionally forever.

Both my parents have been remarried for 28 and 30 years. In those years we have shared holidays, birthdays, graduations, births and deaths together, all of us. As children of a divorced family, you can’t imagine how much easier it made life for us. Guilt, hard feelings, nervousness, taken away because my parents decided early on to put their own egos aside for the sake of us kids. I am an adult now, happily married 15 years with 3 children of my own. What I learned from my parents and bonus parents I could never have gotten from a textbook or manual, I learned it from their actions and their example. I know how difficult it must have been to bite their tongue at times. Anger and bitterness certainly followed a divorce, I know that now. But it is also a state of mind that you can adjust. My parent’s certainly adjusted theirs and because of them, my 3 sisters and I grew up loving life, loving our family and loving our bonus parents. A lot of friends ask, how did you do it? Your family could not have been comfortable sharing all those times together? Really I ask? Try coming to Thanksgiving dinner at Mom’s house, where she and Nancy are in the kitchen laughing and dancing while Dad and Ken are on the couch together cheering on their favorite football team giving high fives. You have to see it to believe it, but I promise you, it’s real, very real.

 

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