Between Coffee & Curfew

When people ask how many children I have, there has never been a part of me that thinks only about the children I gave birth to. Motherhood, at least the way I came to understand it, didn’t begin for me in a delivery room or with a newborn placed in my arms. My first experience of loving and caring for a child as a parent began in a completely different way.

It started with him.

Technically, he is my stepson. “Bonus son” feels warmer, and maybe a little closer to what he has always been to me. But even that doesn’t completely explain it.

Because in my heart, he was my first baby. I just didn’t give birth to him.

He’s a grown man now, and sometimes I wonder how we got here so quickly. When you’re living through the years, they don’t always feel fast. You’re just living life together- the ordinary days, the hard days, the funny days, and all those little moments you don’t realize you’ll miss until they’ve passed. Then one day you look at this grown person and realize you had the privilege of watching so much of the journey that brought him here.

And I hope he knows what a privilege that has always been for me.

I Never Wanted to Take Anyone’s Place

Being a stepmom can be complicated because you’re entering a child’s life knowing that you aren’t there to replace his mother. I never needed to take someone else’s place in order for him to have a place in my heart. I just wanted to have my own place in his life.

But loving a child who isn’t biologically yours can come with a kind of helplessness that people don’t always talk about. You can love them fiercely, worry about them like they’re your own, and still have boundaries around what you can say, what you can do, and which decisions are yours to make. There were times when I saw things I didn’t agree with or situations I wished I could change, and I had to figure out where the line was between respecting my role and doing what I believed was right for him.

Sometimes that meant stepping back, even when every instinct in me wanted to step in. But there were also times when I did speak up. Times when staying quiet didn’t feel like an option, because he was a child and sometimes a child needs an adult willing to be their voice when they can’t find their own.

Those moments weren’t about overstepping. They weren’t about proving I knew better. They were about him. If I believed he needed someone in his corner, I wanted him to know I was there – even when being there wasn’t necessarily the easiest or most comfortable position for me to be in.

That’s one of the hardest things about being a bonus parent: your role may have boundaries, but your heart doesn’t conveniently stop at them. Your heart doesn’t say, this isn’t biologically my child, so I won’t worry quite as much. It simply knows, I love this kid. He matters to me. I want him safe. I want him happy. And when he needs someone to stand beside him, I want to be that person.

I never wanted my love for him to become competition with anyone else’s. A child shouldn’t have to choose between the people who love him, and I never wanted him caught in the middle of adult relationships, disagreements, or decisions. I didn’t need to be his mother to love him deeply, and I didn’t need him to call me Mom for that love to count.

I just wanted him to know that when he couldn’t speak for himself, I would speak. When he needed someone beside him, I would stand there. And when he didn’t need me to fight his battles, I’d still be close enough that he knew he never had to fight them alone.

That’s the place I wanted in his life.

Not someone else’s place.

Mine. ❤️

I don’t think relationships like ours are created because two adults get married and suddenly everyone becomes a family. A title can happen overnight, but a real relationship can’t. Ours was built over time- through showing up, worrying, laughing, getting frustrated, being proud, making memories and simply doing life together.

Somewhere in all of those ordinary moments, something happened that didn’t need a biological connection to make it real.

I loved him.

Not because I was supposed to, and not because marrying his dad meant I had an obligation to.

I loved him because he was him.

And eventually, I couldn’t imagine my family- or my life- without him in it.

When He Was Old Enough to Understand

As he got older, I started to realize that he had noticed more than I ever thought he did. When kids are young, they don’t always have the words to explain how the adults in their lives make them feel. They don’t necessarily notice all the worrying, the decisions, the times you spoke up for them, or the moments you questioned whether you were doing the right thing. But eventually, he was old enough to look back and tell me what some of those years had meant to him.

There are things he has said to me over the years that I will probably carry in my heart for the rest of my life. I won’t share the details of those conversations because some things belong only to us. But hearing, in his own words, that he remembered me being there- that he had felt my love and knew he could count on me- meant more than I think he will every fully understand.

Because there were plenty of times when I questioned myself. I wondered if I was saying too much or not enough, whether I should step in or step back, and whether I was getting any of this right. There isn’t exactly a handbook for loving a child with your whole heart while also knowing there are parts of his life and decisions about him that aren’t yours to control.

Looking back now, I don’t need to know that I handled every situation perfectly. I’m sure I didn’t. What matters to me is knowing that he knew I was there. Of all the things I could have gotten right or wrong along the way, I hope that is the one thing he never had to question.

And maybe that’s why the things he eventually said to me mattered so much. I never needed to compete with anyone for a title or prove that I deserved a certain place in his life. I just loved him, showed up the best way I knew how, and hoped that somewhere underneath all of it, he understood why.

Years later, I learned that he did.

Then Our Family Grew

Later, I had children of my own, and motherhood changed again. I experienced pregnancy, childbirth, newborn nights and all the things that come with raising a child from the very beginning. But becoming their mom didn’t suddenly make what I had with him less real. If anything, having more children made me understand something I hadn’t fully understood before: love doesn’t divide itself between your children. It grows to make room for each of them.

There was never a moment when my biological children arrived and he moved down some imaginary list in my heart. They gave me experiences with motherhood that I hadn’t had with him, but they didn’t make me a mother instead of him. They added new chapters to a story that had already begun.

And he was there at the beginning.

I hope there was never a moment when he looked at the children I gave birth to and wondered whether they were somehow more mine than he was. Biology gave me a connection with them that he and I don’t share, and I won’t pretend every relationship is exactly the same. None of my relationships with my children are exactly the same.

But different has never meant less.

He has never meant less.

I Hope He Knows

If he ever reads this- and I hope someday he does- there are things I want him to know that I may not have always been good at putting into words while he was growing up.

You were never just someone who came along with the man I loved. You were never an extra piece of somebody else’s life that I learned to make room for. You became part of my life, too.

When I worried about you, it was real. When I was proud of you, it was real. When I stood up for you, it was because I believed you deserved someone willing to stand beside you. When you frustrated me- and I’m sure we could both come up with a few examples- that was real too. But underneath all of it was something that never depended on biology.

I loved you.

I’m sure there were things I got wrong. Every parent can look backward and find things they wish they’d handled differently, and I’m no exception. But every decision I made came from the same place: I wanted you happy. Most of all, I wanted you to know there was another person in this world who was firmly in your corner.

You helped shaped the mother I became, probably without either of us realizing it was happening. And when more children came into my life, nothing could change the fact that you were the first child who gave me the opportunity to love someone from that place in my heart.

My First Baby

Now you’re grown, and somehow that feels both completely normal and impossible at the same time. I can look at the man you are today and still remember the boy you used to be. That’s one of the strangest things about raising children: they grow out of every stage, but somehow the person they were during each of those stages stays with you.

And every version of you has a place in my heart.

Someday, all my children may read the things I’ve written here. As I’ve stated that’s one of the reasons Between Coffee & Curfew means so much to me. I’m writing about motherhood as I’m living and remembering it, but also leaving pieces of myself behind for all of you. I want you to someday be able to read these words and understand things I may not have always known how to say out loud.

So if you’re the one reading this someday, I need you to know this:

You were never a practice run for the children I would have later. You were never an extra, and you were never loved because I was supposed to love you. You were part of my heart because you became part of my heart.

I wasn’t there on the day you took your first breath, and I don’t have memories of holding you as a newborn. There are pieces of your story that happened before mine joined yours, and those pieces will always belong to you.

But I am so incredibly grateful for all the pieces I did get.

I got to watch you grow. I got to worry about you, laugh with you, be proud of you, get frustrated with you, stand up for you and love you. I got to watch the little boy I knew become the grown man you are today.

And out of everything I hope you remember about those years, I hope you remember me being there.

Because I was.

Not because I had to be.

Because I loved you.

I know I wasn’t perfect. There are things I would probably do differently if I could go back, moments I wish I had handled better, and mistakes I made while trying to figure out a role that didn’t always come with answers. I hope you can forgive me for the times I got it wrong. But if there is one thing I never got wrong, it was making sure you knew how very much I loved you.

I hope you knew it when you were little. I hope you knew it during the harder years. I hope you know it now that you’re grown. And no matter how much times passes or where life takes you, I hope you will always know it.

Because through every mistake, every worry, every hard moment and every good one, loving you was never something I had to figure out. That part was easy.

You were my first baby. I just didn’t give birth to you.

And no matter how old you get, how much life changes, or how many years pass, nothing will ever change what it has meant to me to have you as my son. ❤️

Between Coffee & Curfew