Step vs. Adopted

I had lunch with a friend yesterday. She has one very adorable toddler whom she adopted from China over a year ago. We discussed and compared the adaptation required in both adoption and blending steps. It was such an interesting conversation.

There are so many emotions that have not felt natural to me during my 10 years as a step parent. In fact, I refer to them as my dark place because I feel so wrong sometimes in the way I think and behave. The question we volleyed was, "Do you feel the same about your step-child as you do your bio child?" (in her family adopted vs. bio) This wasn't a light conversation - probably my first ever 3 hour lunch!

The result for me was No. The result for her was Not Yet but I feel it changing and have complete faith the answer will be Yes. For me, saying No is "the dark place". I feel like I should love my husband's children as much as I love my own. They have been my stepkids since they were 12, 10 and 4. I feel like after 10 years of raising, loving, disciplining, etc. alongside my own 4 they should all feel the same, right? No. And every time I say No I feel like I must have a defect somehow.

Without going into all the details this is what I think I gleaned from our conversation. Allie is Q's mom. Her only mom...well, the only mom that will kiss boo-boo's and bake cookies and cheer from the sidelines at all her accomplishments. I will never be my step-kids' mom. They have a mom. There will always be confusion about loyalty, boundaries, responsibility, rights, feelings and many other things. That confusion is exactly what creates that chasm keeping me from "owning" them as my children and them from "owning" me as their mom.

As much as this seems to make sense, I still feel like I must be doing something wrong to feel this way.