- It’s a bonus.
- It’s an addition.
- It’s an extra set of arms, an extra heart. an extra set of ears.
- It’s an extra person to help with homework. It’s an extra birthday cake.
It’s an extra mom... bonus mom.
What it’s not:
- It’s not a replacement.
- It’s not better.
- It’s not a comparison.
- It’s not a competition.
Some of you are wondering what the heck a “bonus mom” is and why we use that term in our family. We use the term because “step mom”, while I respect the pants off those women and families who choose to use it, does have a lot of negative connotation attached to it. In our family, the kiddos, hubinator and I decided we preferred to use a different term to refer to myself and my relationship to the kiddos. It’s not hard to think of a whole slew of disney and non disney movies where the “evil stepmom” is a witch or other awful human being. Yet there aren’t a whole lot of stories in our culture teaching our children to think anything about “bonus mom’s” before they can make their own evaluations of their family’s situation. It provides a way for the kiddos to go into the situation with a clean slate. Sure-- they know to some extent it’s the same thing. But it takes all the loaded crud associated with one, out of the scenario.
Believe it or not, while it seems like it should be that simple, or at least it does to me and many other people, it’s not always. There are some people out there in the world who think it’s their business to police all sorts of things, including who should call whom what in families. As such there are all sorts of politics around what step moms should and should not be called. I’m not going to get into that here. What I will do is give you some background into my mommyhood experience and why, exactly, my bonus kids are a bonus for me. I will also explain, precisely, what a bonus mom is, and is not, in an effort to clear up any confusion that may still exist.
More personal about me and mommyhood.
I can’t have bio kids of my own... so they are my bonus too-- life’s bonus :) I got an amazing husband in life... I won the husband lottery. I also won the “in-law” lottery as my in-laws are pretty darn amazing. In addition, I also won the bonus mom lottery! I was given an opportunity to parent, to be a “mom” -- to love two more kids (because I have other children in my life in the form of other relatives). It’s a gift and privilege that no one can understand unless they are a parent. This is also a gift/ experience that no one can understand unless they are a bonus/step parent, or at the very least married to one, because with it comes a whole set of challenges, emotions, and day to day battles, internal and external, that biological parents don’t experience. Bonus parents and blended families experience things that two bio-parent families, adopted-parent families, and single parent families don’t. All families have their own gifts, their own challenges, and their own “adventures”. All parents offer something different to give to their children. A “bonus mom” offers a unique gift in that she’s an addition parent. She’s a parent on top of the two parents the child already has. She’s an extra set of everything.
I am a second-generation bonus mom.
My parents divorced with I was four and a half years old. I grew up in a single parent home with my mom. My mother never remarried, but she did date occasionally and throughout my childhood she had a couple of long-term relationships. In this way I built relationships with other adults and learned the value of their place in my life.
My father remarried when we were very young. It was a less than fantastic experience for all involved, but some had better experiences than others. My first step-mother and I did not have a good relationship. (Yes, here I did use the term step-mom because that is what term our family chose to use.) Eventually, some years later that relationship ended in divorce.
Then my father met another woman whom he eventually married. This is the woman who today, I refer to as my own Bonus Mom. She is exactly that... an additional mom. She’s never tried to take the place of my mom. I have a mom. She has always respected that relationship. Instead my Bonus Mom and I have been able to build an additional mother/daughter relationship. It is in this way that it is a “bonus”. Most people have one “mom”, I have two. (And actually, I have my mom, my bonus mom, my mother-in-law, my grandmother, and my late grandmother... along with all of the mothers of friends who we come to adopt as “mothers” of sorts as we pass through life). No one ever replaces our first mom. My mom will always be my mom, and she knows that. But each of my relationships with each of these women is special in their own way and brings something different to my life. Thus, in the way that we call one a “grandma” or “grams” or “nana” or “grandma great” or “mima” some of us call one of them “bonus mom”.
Believe it or not, while it seems like it should be that simple, or at least it does to me and many other people, it’s not always. There are some people out there in the world who think it’s their business to police all sorts of things, including who should call whom what in families. As such there are all sorts of politics around what step moms should and should not be called. I’m not going to get into that here. What I will do is give you some background into my mommyhood experience and why, exactly, my bonus kids are a bonus for me. I will also explain, precisely, what a bonus mom is, and is not, in an effort to clear up any confusion that may still exist.
More personal about me and mommyhood.
I can’t have bio kids of my own... so they are my bonus too-- life’s bonus :) I got an amazing husband in life... I won the husband lottery. I also won the “in-law” lottery as my in-laws are pretty darn amazing. In addition, I also won the bonus mom lottery! I was given an opportunity to parent, to be a “mom” -- to love two more kids (because I have other children in my life in the form of other relatives). It’s a gift and privilege that no one can understand unless they are a parent. This is also a gift/ experience that no one can understand unless they are a bonus/step parent, or at the very least married to one, because with it comes a whole set of challenges, emotions, and day to day battles, internal and external, that biological parents don’t experience. Bonus parents and blended families experience things that two bio-parent families, adopted-parent families, and single parent families don’t. All families have their own gifts, their own challenges, and their own “adventures”. All parents offer something different to give to their children. A “bonus mom” offers a unique gift in that she’s an addition parent. She’s a parent on top of the two parents the child already has. She’s an extra set of everything.
I am a second-generation bonus mom.
My parents divorced with I was four and a half years old. I grew up in a single parent home with my mom. My mother never remarried, but she did date occasionally and throughout my childhood she had a couple of long-term relationships. In this way I built relationships with other adults and learned the value of their place in my life.
My father remarried when we were very young. It was a less than fantastic experience for all involved, but some had better experiences than others. My first step-mother and I did not have a good relationship. (Yes, here I did use the term step-mom because that is what term our family chose to use.) Eventually, some years later that relationship ended in divorce.
Then my father met another woman whom he eventually married. This is the woman who today, I refer to as my own Bonus Mom. She is exactly that... an additional mom. She’s never tried to take the place of my mom. I have a mom. She has always respected that relationship. Instead my Bonus Mom and I have been able to build an additional mother/daughter relationship. It is in this way that it is a “bonus”. Most people have one “mom”, I have two. (And actually, I have my mom, my bonus mom, my mother-in-law, my grandmother, and my late grandmother... along with all of the mothers of friends who we come to adopt as “mothers” of sorts as we pass through life). No one ever replaces our first mom. My mom will always be my mom, and she knows that. But each of my relationships with each of these women is special in their own way and brings something different to my life. Thus, in the way that we call one a “grandma” or “grams” or “nana” or “grandma great” or “mima” some of us call one of them “bonus mom”.
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