STEPPEN FATHER
I Don’t Stepfather For The Glory. I Do It For The Dinosaurs
The Kid And I: a stepfather’s tale
No nepotism compels my son to love me.
I’m a stepdad.
Parenting would be a joke if I had the cheat of biology on my side. I’ve heard tell of many biological parents who, through some mean math of the cosmos, generate love through cruelty. The worse they treat the kids, the more the kids want their love.
Cruelty’s as easy as taking a dump, and the crap of these parents is worth its weight in gold for all the love it buys.
But I have to settle for a love that’s based on works, not blood.
If I’m a good stepdad, the kid loves me. In theory. However, if I’m no good, if I’m cruel, he coerces his mother to shop for new stepdads, and we’re hip deep in them around here. They’re basically an ecological disaster like the spotted lanternfly, except I can’t step on them and spell my name with the ink of their gut juice. There’s nothing to do with that particular talent of mine but weep as it atrophies.
To make it all worse, my wife’s an artist, a genius of story and beauty, and hot as honey-dipped hell. It wouldn’t take her any time to find a new stepman. I have to work at this constantly…
