On Mother's Day and growing kids

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there. A special shout out to all you mother's of fur children. You are loved by your cats, dogs, horses, and other pets just as deeply as human kids love their human moms.

Today I want to send a special shout out to the step-mothers out there. Your job is different, harder, and more often than not, thankless. My two step-daughters called me today. I am blessed. There are many step-moms who are forgotten and ignored as they are not the "real" mother.

In particular, I want to share with you the deeds of a superior step-mother who I will call Carol. Her child attends school in my district. Her son is often the one that has other parents and students cringing. He's loud, boisterous, overzealous, often rude and negative in his commentary. He's defensive and sometimes insistent on doing the things he knows he shouldn't be doing. Other kids will say, "Shut up so and so..will you please be quiet. Just listen to your teacher." But this young man is a miracle and I am thankfully that he has Carol in his life. What makes this young man a miracle? He loves everyone he meets and he has never met a stranger. Given his history, that's a miracle to me, and I adore this kid and I admire his step-mother.

His "real" mom encountered problems with drugs, the law, and raising a child. He was neglected, pushed aside, physical needs went unnoticed and untreated. Schools put him in special education as that's where they thought he belonged. Carol entered his life and took care of the vision problems and the dental problems. The young man began to feel confident and okay around his peers. Then the came the educational challenge. Carol fought tooth and nail to remove the young man from special education. He didn't test and meet the requirements once he could see. She pushed him to do school correctly, to learn, earn a diploma, not drop out of high school. Even now at 17, she's at the school making sure that he's doing what he needs to be doing. She sat through his morning classes with him, watched, made notes and made his behavior improve the very next day.

He's lucky. Not every step-mother would have fought so hard for a child that she didn't birth. I am better for knowing Carol and her son.  Carol, you are doing what needs to be done above and beyond what you were expected to do. Thank you so very much. I can't wait to see where your son ends up in life.