The Smart Stepmom: Book Review From a Stepmom

The Smart Stepmom: Practical Steps to Help you Thrive by Ron L. Deal and Laura Petherbridge. Ron Deal is a licensed marriage and family therapist, director of Blended Family Ministries for Family Life, author of The Smart Stepfamily, The Smart Stepdad, Dating and the Single Parent, and co-author of The Smart Stepfamily Marriage. Laura Petherbridge has taught on divorce recovery at Reformed Theological Seminary and for the Billy Graham Training Center. She is an international speaker and author of When "I DO" Becomes "I Don't": Practical Steps for Healing During Separation and Divorce, and 101 Steps for the Smart Stepmom.

Ron and Laura bring together their experience in talking with divorced individuals and stepmoms to write The Smart Stepmom. . . and this reviewer and stepmom thanks them for it. I have been a stepmom for over three years now and I was blessed to have read this book in the beginning of my stepmom journey, and I keep looking back over it for good reminders and for guidance on new phases in our stepfamily life.

I will go over the parts of this book that have been the most helpful to me and the advice I still use that makes a huge difference in navigating the blended family life. Then I want to point out some more of my favorite tips and stories that I believe will help anyone who is a stepmom.

How This Book Helps Me Be the Best Stepmom I Can Be.

In the beginning of my stepmom journey, I found The Smart Stepfamily and this book. The Smart Stepfamily helped a lot in understanding perspectives from others in the blended family, and this book helps with that some, but I mostly love it because it helps me understand my own perspective and why I feel how I do and how I change the way I see things and the best way to handle different stepfamily dynamics.

Understanding You Are Not Alone as a Stepmom

It can feel lonely being a stepmom because you only sort of fit in with the other mom's and your friends who don't have kids can't relate to what it's like to have kids to care for. This book gives you heartbreaking and heartwarming stories of stepmoms, and each one is relatable. I felt like I belonged to a community and I no longer felt alone in the seemly unique challenges stepmoms face.

After realizing I'm not alone, I started looking for other stepmoms around me. I realized, I have two neighbors who are stepmoms and I also became friends with a coworker who is not a stepmom, but a divorced mom and we were able to share similar grievances in dealing with divorce and co-parenting while also seeing things from the other sides perspective.

Feeling like you're not alone, goes a long way. And hearing stories from stepmoms who have been through it all and still have a good story to tell can be the encouragement we need the most.

How to See Things From Your Step Kids' Point of View

Seeing things from someone else's shoes changes how you view their actions and what they say. In turn, it will change how you react to what they say and their actions. Ron and Laura do a fantastic job at helping stepmom's understand their step kids point of view. So when they say things like "You're not my mom!" You will know how to react.

I am so grateful I read this book in the beginning of my husband and I's relationship because I feel like I was able to help heal the kids from the pain of being in a broken family and coming into the new family with that knowledge.

From stories I've read about and heard about, many stepmoms have an expectation of what their new role as stepmom will look like and that their new family will automatically be great and wonderful. But it takes time to build a good relationship with anyone new. Simply marrying their dad is not going to gain their love and respect. And, It's going to take time before you have a really happy family. And like all families, there will be good days and bad days.

Understanding Your "Ex-Wife-In-Law"

In the chapter "Meet Your Ex-Wife-In-Law: Friend or Foe", you will be able to figure out the type of women you are helping to raise kids with. I like the term ex-wife-in-law because it's showing you that she's as much apart of your life as your husband's. I even know of a woman who will simply refers to her husband's ex-wife as her ex-wife.

However, personally, I like referring to her as my step kids mom. It sounds better, and that's the role she plays in our blended family. But I'm not against the term "ex-wife-in-law".

This section helped me see things from my step kids' mom's perspective. It also helped me figure out the best way to handle certain situations.

Final Thoughts

There are many other great parts in this book for each stage in a stepmom's life. It goes over holidays and vacations, adult step children, and in each sections it gives some advice to someone dating someone with kids.

I hope you found this post helpful and that you feel inspired to read the book and utilize it's practical teaching.