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Blending Families and Unconditional Love with Tracy Johnson and Jamie Schaub
115 Plays8 months ago
Lifelong friends Tracy and Jamie explore the challenges and joys of blended families. Through personal stories, these two moms discuss the complexities of navigating relationships with step children and children-in-law. Along the way, Tracy and Jamie embody the power of acceptance, understanding, and unconditional love. Join these wonderful women as they talk about families that grow in sometimes unexpected, and beautiful ways.
For more stories from brave, ordinary women, join us at Red Tent Living.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I'm Katie Stafford, and this is the Red Tent Living Podcast, where brave women host honest conversations about our beautiful and hard ordinary.
Preview of Blended Families Conversation
00:00:12
Speaker
This season, we connect on stories of family. We're excited for you to join us. Welcome to our table. Hey, it's Katie and today is a good day because today you get to listen to one of my favorite episodes of this season. It's a conversation between my mom, Tracy Johnson, and her very good friend, Jamie Schaub. Now,
00:00:40
Speaker
You're going to recognize right away that my mom and Jamie grew up together. Actually, my mom babysat Jamie when they were little. They went to the same church. My mom's about 10 years ahead of Jamie. And together, they're going to talk about blended families. It is a rich and sweet conversation, and I cannot wait for you to listen.
00:01:07
Speaker
One word of caution, Jamie uses an adult word in her story. So if you have people in the car who you don't want hearing that word, or if that's just not your preference, I'd invite you to skip ahead. But otherwise, I hope that you really tune in because it's a really beautiful conversation between friends.
Challenges and Dynamics of Blended Families
00:01:32
Speaker
So welcome to the Red Tent Living podcast.
00:01:36
Speaker
Hello. Hello. It's so good to see you. Good to see you. It's your beautiful face. Here's to. Well, how does it feel to be here to talk about our blending families? Oh, goodness. Well, I told you I would share all of my expertise and it should take about 12 seconds.
00:02:01
Speaker
I feel like I don't have very much expertise. It was really hard for me to figure out what I wanted to share. Like I wrote three different things and then threw them all in the trash.
00:02:18
Speaker
Sounds like me. Yeah. Yeah. Like me. So I'm aware of two things. One, how tender and hard this particular topic is. And then that I'm really grateful that I'm not doing it with someone that I don't really know.
00:02:38
Speaker
Oh, me as well. Okay. So the plan will be for one of us to read and then the other one respond. So do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? I'll go first. All right. I'm going to put on my glasses since I can't see. Because we're old.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yep, we are old. My husband Matt and I blended our two families 11 years ago. Both of us freshly divorced. We moved in together with five young kids under the age of 10. We had known each other for nine months.
00:03:19
Speaker
What could possibly go wrong? My children from my previous marriage were two, four, and five. Jackson and Georgia, Matt's children from his previous marriage, nine and six. Our kids were close in age and bonded with each other quickly. On the outside, we had this beautiful blended family. Inside, our home is a different story.
00:03:41
Speaker
My two stepchildren were never openly rude, but they actively avoided and ignored me. This poked some old wounds I carried from my own mother, and their rejection
Navigating Family Dynamics and Building Relationships
00:03:52
Speaker
created a growing resentment. We did the week on, week off schedule with my stepkids, a week at their moms, and then starting each Monday a week with us.
00:04:01
Speaker
My kids went to their dads every other weekend, Friday through Sunday. Some weeks we were a family of seven, some weeks we were a family of five, and every other weekend, it was just my husband and I. The constant shift in numbers and changing dynamic was hard for all of us. We all struggled with that in different ways. I felt overwhelmed and like I was never enough. Mothering five young children, as you know,
00:04:31
Speaker
is hard. Throw in the added stress of a blended family, and you have the recipe for a total disaster. A few years into our blending, things reached a breaking point. It was Sunday night. Truthfully, I don't remember what started the argument, but I remember the blow up vividly. It was the end of another tense week of having the kids with us, and it was another day of my steps on not speaking to me.
00:05:00
Speaker
I walked in his room. I made another attempt to connect. I was tired. My words probably sounded less like an invitation and more like a demand for him to engage because that tactic always works so well with middle school boys. Rejected again, he mumbled something about hating it here and wanting to go back to his moms. I snapped.
00:05:26
Speaker
I yelled, if you don't wanna be here, then fine, pack your shit and get out of my house. Formed across the hall and into our bedroom where my husband was. Before he could say anything, I said loud enough for my stepson to hear, your son would like a ride home to his mom's house. Then I could feel the tears well up. Everything was a mess and I felt like such a failure.
00:05:53
Speaker
I looked up and asked my husband, did you just hear all of that? He looked at me with his big brown eyes full of sadness for the broken relationship with his kids and still holding so much kindness for me in the midst of my giant meltdown. And he said, yeah, babe, that wasn't great. He pulled me close. I sobbed.
00:06:21
Speaker
Blending our two families was so much harder than I ever imagined it would be. This was a total shitshow. That night was a dumpster fire. And it was also the turning point. It left us all raw. And it also cracked open the door for something real. I kept showing up and inviting my stepson to relationship.
00:06:44
Speaker
We began building trust and he slowly started letting me in. I would get, hey, can you help me with my essay? And I had a hard weekend. Do you have a minute to talk? His sister watched our relationship grow and slowly she began to feel safe. They each talked about their struggle to accept this new family when their little hearts were still broken from the death of their old one.
00:07:12
Speaker
Their acceptance of me felt like rejection of their mom. And they were terrified of losing their place with their dad, now that they competed for his affection with me and three new children. The healing was slow. The spaces we sat in together were painful. Over time, a love for each other grew. Those kids are both grown and out of the house now.
00:07:41
Speaker
I didn't birth them or get to hold them as babies and I love them both deeply. They are my children. They are not my stepkids. I hate that word. Jackson and Georgia are my oldest son and my oldest daughter.
Metaphors and Reflections on Family Blending
00:07:59
Speaker
We fought hard for the relationship we have today and there are still some scars.
00:08:04
Speaker
My husband and I spent this past weekend in Santa Barbara, a college friend of mine, Keith, owns a winery there. We spent Saturday morning with him walking through the vineyard and learning about how their winery started. It was birthed from total failure. They bought the property as an apple farm, only to realize after their very first harvest, the apples were terrible. The entire crop was a bust, and there was nothing that could be done to salvage it.
00:08:31
Speaker
a perfect description of my first marriage. They were broke and left with nothing. Nothing except acres and acres of breathtakingly beautiful rolling hills with rich soil and near perfect climate.
00:08:49
Speaker
They took a huge risk and they planted a vineyard. They knew basically nothing about growing grapes or making wine. And as Keith talked about the whole process, it struck me how similar it is to blending a family. Some of the best hundred point wines you can buy, the most delicious, are made from grapes that are not grown in the same vineyard.
00:09:12
Speaker
the Grenache grown by one farmer, the Syrah grown by another. Winemakers often purchase grapes from different farmers grown miles apart in different soil and blend them together to make a bottle of their finest wine. I thought of our family, fruit that was planted in different soil and the vines that we have now intertwined and grafted together and all the goodness in what we have blended.
00:09:42
Speaker
I mean, I had a up close view of the dumpster fire as it was happening. I think my favorite moment is when Matt just puts his arms around you and says, yeah, babe, what's great? Yeah, I do that. I do. Right? Because it's that. But just like your whole description of his face and just like the sadness, but the kindness.
00:10:12
Speaker
feels like this anchoring place for you. And I could feel the energy between the encounter in Jack's room and your walk down the hall. Before you even get there, you're like, did you hear that? Did you hear what I just did?
00:10:33
Speaker
my stomp down the hall, so embarrassing. And like also though, there was so much goodness in it. Like it's the moment that you stopped trying to be something and you let your son see that like he had impact. Yeah, it was my sort of yelling out
00:11:00
Speaker
I want more. Can we stop all the politeness and can we have something real? Can we engage? And whatever you have to bring to me about where I have failed you or how this has been hard and hurtful to you, I can hear all of that.
00:11:21
Speaker
I can own anything I need to. And so I hear for you, and this resonates for me so much. I just need something real. Whatever the real thing is, I can face it.
00:11:35
Speaker
We can talk about it, we can work through it, but while we're living in something that's not real, I can't connect, there's nothing there. Yeah, that was my entire childhood. It was pretty polite and nice and dead, silent, nothing real.
00:11:55
Speaker
There was such a part of me as a mom that it just longed for something more. And I think anytime there's authenticity and it's real, there's a little dumpster fire in there too. It's messy.
00:12:16
Speaker
or it ain't real. Right, right. I think it's so interesting, Jamie, like your family of origins was a nuclear family. And yet you found all of that
00:12:32
Speaker
like showing up for you inside this family that looked completely different from how you would love. And yet there it was, the very same things that were so painful and so hard for you as a little girl were happening in your house. Yes. And I can feel, I can feel, I can feel like 13 year old Jamie standing at Jackson's door, like, what are we doing here?
00:13:01
Speaker
Knock it off. Stop it. Yes. How many times did I call you so just like at the end of my rope? I don't freaking hate being a stepmom. This is hard shit. It's so hard. It was so hard. And as you were starting the story, I mean, you named it for yourself, but I was just like, there is no place. There is none of what kids need.
00:13:30
Speaker
In in what your reality looked like kids need like stability and they need consistency and they need it at like day after day after day and in the Landscape of your home was changing every five days. It changed every five days It was a different combination of people and a different combination a different combination of kids and
00:13:55
Speaker
We're not kids. So there's never,
Motherhood in Blended Families
00:14:00
Speaker
and then there's the disruption of leaving and we go pretend that we have this other house and that looks totally different than this house. It's like how in the world, there is no way for that to work well. It's going to be a dumpster fire. The idea that it's all I, especially all these little bodies,
00:14:25
Speaker
trying to figure out how to feel connected and attached. It was too much. Yes. Me wondering how to show up in the midst of all of that and not really having many role models of women that were
00:14:48
Speaker
doing what I was doing and raising small kids and blending a family and a new marriage. And I was just sort of winging it. When you and I didn't grow up,
00:15:02
Speaker
We didn't grow up with any blended families around us. We didn't grow up with, our parents didn't have relationships with people who had gotten divorced and then gotten remarried. So, I mean, there really like no idea, no idea how to do it. And yet you were so committed to it. And even when you would call me and say like,
00:15:30
Speaker
I can't do this. These kids are killing me. I'm running away. Right? But underneath it, I could always hear like you, your heart was so...
00:15:43
Speaker
in, your heart was so in, you could see, you could see so clearly what was happening for all five of your kids. And you wanted so much to be that safe mom for them. You just never, you've never given up. And you have had, you have had, you've had challenges. A few. Just a few.
00:16:12
Speaker
Mom doesn't, right? Maybe I had more than my fair share. And you and I have talked about this a lot. When you add, when there's so many of them,
00:16:24
Speaker
And especially, I think it's one thing, I think boys are one story, but you and I have talked a lot about our girls. And when you have so many girls, there are so many added dynamics to that. And you and I, we didn't have any sisters. What is happening? I don't know what to do with them. I don't either.
00:16:46
Speaker
They're kind of a menace. It's beautiful, right? Because they will claw each other's eyeballs out. I can hear them screaming at the end of the hall. And the next thing I know, they're both, don't tell mom, they've got this alliance plotting against me.
00:17:07
Speaker
Totally. Two of my girls had a blowout at Christmas and they had this blowout around the holidays. Had this blowout and I'm like, we're done. Like this evening is a dumpster fire. And then I went upstairs like for my pajamas. The next thing I know I come out and then all four of my girls are like cuddled up on the couch watching a Christmas movie. I'm like,
00:17:35
Speaker
Goodbye. I don't, I've got nothing. I don't know. I don't understand. I don't understand how that works. And like, I literally don't. I can experience it through them and watching them, but I have, I don't know how that works.
00:17:51
Speaker
I do want to say this, you joke at your 12 seconds of wisdom. Jamie, what I heard, what you were able to name, what you were able to face about what was happening for Jackson and Georgia and the bind that they were in,
00:18:11
Speaker
and how well you saw that bind and how you helped them undo it at such cost to you. It was so costly. It's so beautiful. And the metaphor from your weekend, it's perfect. And the other thing that's true about when you take grapes like that, the grapes that are the sweetest have to struggle.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, they struggle and they struggle like with just a little bit of deprivation because it makes their roots go deeper because they have to. And that that feels true too. That is part of the story for all of your kids are places of deprivation. Yeah. That have caused their roots to go. Yeah, they get beat up a little. Yeah, scorched. Yeah. But it doesn't ruin the fruit.
Unconditional Love and Family Acceptance
00:19:06
Speaker
Makes it sweeter. Makes it sweeter.
00:19:09
Speaker
Makes it sweeter. It's beautiful. Thanks for walking through all of that with me. It has, uh, so it's felt like a huge privilege. Um, and it has oftentimes helped me feel less crazy. So solidarity sister solidarity. All right. You ready for my 12th? I am so ready.
00:19:35
Speaker
We donned our jackets and stepped into the brisk, cold fall air. The brilliant blue sky and radiant sun were a perfect backdrop for the maple trees lining the road, flaunting their fiery iridescent orange leaves. As we strolled in silence, Christie's voice pierced the quiet, breaking the stride. Tell me about your grown kids, the ones who are married. How are they?
00:20:00
Speaker
Almost instinctively, I offered my standard response. Good. I delved into the challenges my daughter and son-in-law faced while house hunting, navigating the complexity of interest rates in the housing market. And I also shared snippets about my son and his husband providing updates on their respective work situations. Sensing an underlying tone in my voice, Christie gently probed, what am I picking up in your tone when you talk about the boys?
00:20:28
Speaker
She had a keen ear, detecting nuances that standard responses often concealed. What she discerned was a mix of tenderness and concern and my uncertainty about my role in it. Tell me more about why you're feeling so stuck. I've listened to hundreds of stories about interfering mothers and mother-in-laws. I've been the one to name unhealthy dynamics and help clients put words to how their moms did damage to their marriages.
00:20:55
Speaker
I understand the foundational elements of a healthy marriage and the importance of spousal loyalty is the top priority. Mark and I have invested effort and respecting and supporting the new families forming with our kids. The pressure I feel, the pressure I put on myself to do it right and to get it right is pretty intense. Hmm. It's hard for me to find you inside all of that pressure. How are you? Just you, Stephen's mom.
00:21:24
Speaker
The fallen leaves crunched beneath our feet as I expressed my fears of making mistakes, of saying too much or not enough. I grappled with the delicate balance of being present without overstepping boundaries. The answer to her question, I was sort of a mess. And feeling pretty isolated and alone inside the pressure cooker of expectations to get it all right that I put on myself. Christy was sure and tender in her response to me.
00:21:54
Speaker
You've been a huge supporter of Steve and his husband. You've shown up with so much yes energy for them. I remember the stories from the night they got stuck on I-10 in a terrible snowstorm and you called them every hour talking them through the night. I think they trust your heart, both of them.
00:22:14
Speaker
They know you are for them. You should listen to your gut and if you overstep, you can repair with them. I cherish my children's spouses and my daughter's boyfriend of five years who increasingly feels like family. While I think of them as my own, the reality is they have mothers of their own and I am something different. And I am me, which means that I naturally perceive beyond the surface, grasp the nuances, piece together stories,
00:22:44
Speaker
My heightened curiosity, a quality that my clients appreciate often means my responses to touch something deep within a person's soul. My children have grown accustomed to this aspect of me, but the men entering our family may not always welcome such keen insight. Consequently, I strive to be mindful of how I engage with them and the impact I'm having on their lives. Figuring out who I am as a mother-in-law has not been as easy as I had hoped.
00:23:15
Speaker
And yet, we sat in my kitchen making all these, like I just helped you, you were directing the whole show, but cutting flowers and making the most gorgeous flower arrangements and centerpieces, and you wanted everything perfect for their wedding.
00:23:38
Speaker
And again, you had no guidebook. Yeah. Growing up in the church, how many gay weddings had you been to? One, zero. God, yeah. Yeah. But you, your heart was, you know, for your son and his new husband. And you showed up, I was, I remember just being struck by your excitement for them.
00:24:06
Speaker
and you're wanting everything to just be honoring of their marriage and just the level of care that you had for both of them.
00:24:19
Speaker
It has just been so odd to feel so much love because love for my son-in-laws before I could even have enough relationship to love them because of who they are to my kids.
00:24:45
Speaker
Right. And so it's like, it is a foregone conclusion. I love you because you are, you are my son's person. You are my daughter's person. And so of course, right. And, but then, but then what does that mean?
00:25:02
Speaker
What does that mean for what the actual interplay of the relationship looks like? And it's this, it has been this like, it's slow, it's slow to grow. And it hasn't, for me, it hasn't grown in the ways that I would normally grow connection with people. Oh.
00:25:25
Speaker
because it packaged inside all of this complexity of our family and then the complexity of these boundaries that I know all about and I can talk about with other people, but the actual living them out for me inside my family, I haven't done
Navigating Complex Family Relationships
00:25:51
Speaker
that before. I haven't been a mother-in-law before. Well, now I happen.
00:25:54
Speaker
I've been a mother-in-law for five years. But like you said, I didn't get a good guidebook on how to do this. And for a lot of the reasons that you said,
00:26:11
Speaker
you know, zero experience inside my growing up, zero experience inside the church. Nobody has been there to help. So for Steven Billy, for sure. I mean, that has felt like uncharted territory. And why like your face has been so important. Your face that says like, ooh, I know you, I see you. I know how much you don't know about what you're trying.
00:26:40
Speaker
It always amazes me that you say you feel all this pressure to get it right. You're just totally cool, calm, and collected. Makes me feel better and less crazy because to me, I'm like, well, Tracy seems to know what she's doing, so I'll just sit behind her. This looks like a line to get in. We're going to make these flowers. And I love that even in the midst with both of your son-in-laws when you weren't
00:27:09
Speaker
necessarily sure how to navigate it, right? Like you are full steam ahead with like just love.
00:27:18
Speaker
Thank you sister, right? It's like, I am just going to love you because I just do. I do. I love you because of who you are, who you are to someone else that I deeply love. And so that's like, I think that's truly that kind of unconditional, like there's no conditions on this love, it's just yours, you get it.
00:27:44
Speaker
And so that's not a question. The question is like, and so how do we, how do we figure out who we are to each other inside this unconditional love? I think it unfolds, you know, as, as, you know, their relationships grow and change and you grow and change and, and have more experience being a mother-in-law and what, you know, holidays look like.
00:28:13
Speaker
with different folks who come in who may be celebrated things differently. The way I've experienced you is just you are a big celebrator and you are very receptive to
00:28:34
Speaker
feedback and doing it different. We did it this way. Okay, great. Sounds good. Let's do that. The pivoting. I think we both had to learn to do that. I mean, for a variety of reasons, it doesn't ever go as planned. So as we finish,
00:29:01
Speaker
One of the things that, that we do on each podcast is sort of like, what do you, what are you taking into next week? Um, um, so as you think about our conversation, what are you going to, what are you going to take into this next week with you? I think just a, like this feels so good to sit and. You know, there's nothing I haven't heard already right in your story and nothing we haven't already shared, but it just, it feels so good to feel.
00:29:29
Speaker
to connect over this and not feel alone. And I think just the renewed sense of I do have so much to offer all five of my kids, and it looks very different than when I was making dinner, packing lunches, whatever, especially for my two oldest that are out of the house, but to just continue to show up and bring my face to them.
00:29:57
Speaker
and connect with them. Yeah. I know that it's enough. It is. Just to show up and be willing to connect is enough. I think one of the things that I'm gonna take is what I mentioned earlier and it's like Matt's energy for you.
00:30:22
Speaker
That was just like that the sadness and the love and just you know, yep It wasn't great and and i'm gonna hold you and you're gonna be able to cry and that feels like the picture of Like that lack of judgment. It's like, you know what? It's okay. It wasn't great And you're still loved And I i'm still here. Oh, we're gonna be okay
00:30:47
Speaker
And, um, I just like, and you're not too much. No, right. You're not too much. It's like more, more of that. I want to, I want to be that. And I want to receive that when it's available, because that to me just feels, that feels like oxygen. Feels like oxygen. Thanks for doing this with me.
00:31:14
Speaker
Thank you for having me. So fun. It was. There are so many things from this conversation that I am just obsessed with and I will be thinking about all week.
00:31:28
Speaker
I love Jamie's self-awareness in her story. I love how she talked about fighting hard for a relationship. And I love that in the family that she and her husband started together with their kids from previous marriages, they recognized that there was no room for fake.
00:31:53
Speaker
or polite. I think so often family tiptoes around the big issues and Jamie went right to the heart of them with her son. And I think what became possible because they were real with one another is truly inspiring. I want to think about what might be possible for me in relationship if I chose to get a little bit messy and a lot more real.
00:32:22
Speaker
Of course, I also deeply connected with my mom's story. And I think the thing that Christy said to her, if you overstep, you can repair is such a beautiful word of wisdom.
00:32:40
Speaker
How many of us steer away from relationship and the deeper waters because we're worried about what might rupture? And in the process, we don't show our heart, we don't get vulnerable, we don't risk more. There is always the opportunity to repair relationship when you show up genuinely and with vulnerability.
00:33:03
Speaker
By far, what was the most inspiring to me about Jamie and Mom both is the way that they have experienced and spread unconditional love by choice.
Episode Reflection and Wrap-Up
00:33:16
Speaker
They both have people in their lives today that they cannot help but love. And it's a choice that they've made for Jamie's children who were born from her husband's first marriage and for mom's sons-in-law, who she loves because of their relationship with me and my brother.
00:33:40
Speaker
I think there is something there that is so invitational to all of us about ways that we can love without rules, love without conditions, and love creatively. I want to give a special shout out to all moms of blended families. My friends who have walked that road are absolute warriors and they do not always get appreciated. You are champions.
00:34:10
Speaker
champions for your kids, champions for the kids that you are loving that come from a marriage outside of the one that you started with your husband. And I hope you feel encouraged today and remember that you're not alone. To the rest of us, I hope that we think about ways that we can love outside of expected. I think Jamie and mom have set a high bar and I feel inspired for this week.
00:34:39
Speaker
Looking forward to seeing you in the next episode. Until then, bye. The Red Tent Living podcast is produced by myself, Katie Stafford, and edited by Aaron Stafford. Our cover art is designed by Libby Johnson, and all our guests are part of the Red Tent Living community.
00:34:58
Speaker
You can find us all at redtentliving.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. If you love the stories shared here, we would be thrilled if you left us a review. Until next week, love to you, dear ones.