I had to read back to where I left off in my story. So my stepmother and stepsisters moved in with my Dad. This began a long road off connection but also some brokenness.

We still had our weekend visitations with my Dad but now it included a whole family. Since we did not live there full time; my brother and I often felt as though we were the outsiders invading their world. We had diminished to be less important or at least that’s how it felt.

It wasn’t long before there was talk of marriage and then the announcement of a baby. We were young and didn’t really understand what all of it meant but what we did know is that we were losing time with our Dad. The weekend visits became more about us being sent in the backyard to play with our new siblings rather than time with Dad.

While the we felt as though we were being shoved off to the backyard; we did start to build some connection with these new siblings. The youngest stepsister was the one that interacted with us the most. She was so nice and inclusive…for the most part. Kids will be kids and we had our moments that we did not get along but she did become our bud until we got older.

I know my experience…and what I felt having a stepmother who openly disliked our mother; whom we cherished at the time. Unfortunately, we also had our mother speaking lies to us. She very much influenced our thoughts and opinions on this new marriage as a bad experience. There were countless moments that she convinced us that we were not important to Dad anymore. He had a new family and new children that he spent time with.

We began to believe the lies but they were accompanied by actions from our stepmother and Dad that led the lies to feel like truth. We felt like an inconvenience as time went on. It came a time where we thought it over and declared to our Dad that we didn’t want to come anymore. Caring more about how we felt; he allowed us that time but what none of us realized is the hurt that was caused through him not fighting for us. We felt forgotten and I can’t speak for my brother but I know anger built up inside towards these young girls who now had MY Dad.

It is a lot for young children to process and no one talked us through it in a healthy way. Back in that time; kids were not to know the “adult” situations even if it directly affected us. I agree to an extent. I think it was good that we didn’t know everything but my wish is that someone would have sat down and really asked us what we were thinking through all of it. How was it affecting us? Instead, we moved forward knowing that we loved our mom and that the two sides did not like each other or get along.

I am not trying to place blame on any one person. We were all at fault or at least all the adults could have done better if they had known better. That’s just it. That was how parenting happened back then.