WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE BEING A STEPMUM
When Jude Clarke, 52, met the love of her life, she had to take on his children, too
Standing in front of an eightyear-old girl, in the crumpled clothes I’d just hastily whipped on, I’d never felt so nervous. ‘How long has she been here?’ Becky asked her father as she stared at me with wide, curious eyes.
It was 1993 and I’d been dating Becky’s dad Nick, 39, for a few weeks. Though he was 15 years older than me, we were already both enamoured. I’d stayed over at his place the night before, but as we’d been lying in bed that morning, his ex had dropped Becky home earlier than planned. It certainly wasn’t the first meeting I’d envisioned but a couple of weeks later, I tried to redeem myself. Nick arranged for Becky, and her two sisters, Rachel, then 12, and Alice, four, to have a movie night with us – and, foolishly hoping the girls would think I was ‘cool’, I’d picked out the film
Arachnophobia, despite the fact I’m terrified of spiders. So when a real-life eight-legged insect crawled across the carpet, I jumped up on the sofa screaming. Of course, this only terrified Becky and Alice, who were in streams of tears. Already, I thought, I’d become the evil stepmum.
Walking into a ready-made family was never something I imagined for myself at 24. But as soon as I met Nick, a manager of a band and a record shop, we had an instant connection.
When Nick explained he was going through a divorce and how his three daughters would be with him most weekends and a night or two a week, I was apprehensive. It was a lot to take on.
‘Are you sure about this?’ my mum, Annabelle, then 52, fretted when I told her about Nick. Mum and Dad had always been very traditional, and my new set-up was a world away from their expectations.
Luckily, despite their fears and my own initial trepidation, Nick’s daughters made those first few months easy. They soon got over the spider incident and, gradually, we started to get to know each other.
I never got involved if arguments broke out between the girls. Nick was a very hands-on dad and the girls had a brilliant relationship with their mum, so there were many parental things that I didn’t want to encroach on and didn’t need to. MOMENT OF ACCEPTANCE Early into our relationship, I was staying at Nick’s house because I had a bad case of the flu and he was looking after me. In bed one morning, I heard the bedroom door inch open. Looking up, I saw Alice standing there, holding her favourite purple teddy bear. She walked over, placed it in the bed next to me, smiled and walked out. It felt like a moment of acceptance.
Then, in January 1994, Rachel, then 13, was sitting on the bed with me one
Sunday morning - a normal routine for us by now. Always wise for her years, Rachel had a suggestion. ‘You’re a feminist,’ she said. ‘If you want to get married, why don’t you ask Dad yourself?’
She was right, so a couple of weeks later, on a night out, I asked Nick to marry me, and to my delight, he said yes.
A year or so later, when Alice was around five or six, she asked me a question that took me by surprise: ‘Shall I call you Mummy now?’ Throughout my early 20s, I’d imagined myself with my own kids. Nick didn’t want any more children, but that didn’t upset me because I found that my maternal impulses were met by my stepdaughters. In many ways, they were my children.
‘No, Your mummy is your mummy. You’re just lucky to have me, too,’ I told Alice softly. That didn’t change, even when Nick and I married in July 1998. As the years went on, I often got a lovely text message from the girls on Mother’s Day, and Alice once wrote me a card saying ‘best stepmum in the world’. As the girls hit their teenage years, we faced new challenges brought on by puberty.
As I was always open and liberal, the girls were comfortable talking to me about boys and sex, and these conversations ultimately strengthened our bond. It was great watching them grow up and do things in their own way - Rachel worked at a college, while Becky would set off to music festivals with her hair in braids, and Alice left home young and sofa-surfed with a friend. I worried about them like they were my own.
There were testing times during their teenage years - Becky once had a party while we were on holiday. Then, when Alice was 18, she got pregnant. It was a shock but everyone was supportive, and when her daughter was born in December 2007, I suddenly took on a new role. ‘This is your granny,’ Alice said as she passed the baby to me. I was only 39 but it meant so much and it’s a name that has stuck.
Alice now has two daughters, Rachel has two boys, and Becky has two little girls. Before the pandemic, when I wasn’t working as a press officer for Alzheimer’s Research UK, we’d often have family events, sharing a few bottles of wine in the garden while the children played.
It has been an honour to watch the girls grow up, and I like to think I’ve played a part in shaping them into the brilliant mothers that they are. It hasn’t been without its hurdles, but being their stepmum is one of the things I’m most proud of in my life.
‘IT’S BEEN AN HONOUR TO WATCH THE GIRLS GROW UP’