Home/Work

Browse by Tags

• Stepmoms: Avoid "Gisele Bundchen Syndrome," and other advice from moi

  I've deleted this post after comments became highly (and inappropriately) personal in nature. My children read what I write, as well as the comments. I look forward to the day when I can openly and safely write about this important and sensitive issue in the same way I have always written about other parenting and family life topics. It's clear that that day is not here yet.   -kag Read More... Posted Jul 13 2009, 09:04 AM by kgranju with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Divorce, Stepparenting, blended families

• The tragic weirdness that is "Jon & Kate Plus 8"

  Like millions of other folks, I am - at this very moment - watching the season premiere of the TLC reality show, "Jon & Kate Plus 8,"  which has over time morphed from a reality show about a family into a reality show about a family on a reality show. As I sit here watching Jon and Kate Gosselin sit there on the screen across my living room, each individually offering up the most private details of their very public marital difficulties to their huge viewing audience, I feel sort of  like a participant the ultimate postmodern performance art piece. It's "The Truman Show" come to life, but with a weird return feedback loop via the very opinionated online community that has grown up around the show, and the family.   I've watched the show a number of times over the past few years, fascinated like so many other mamas by how in the WORLD these people manage having 8 young children without losing their minds. I must admit that I always found the family -  at least as presented on their TV show -  to be a little bit on edge, particularly Kate Gosselin. (On the other hand, I would probably be a little bit crabby as well if I were raising twins and sextuplets.) Today, I happened to be home most of the day - a rare thing - and there also happened to be a "Jon & Kate" marathon on all day. So while I did a lot of cleaning the house, I left the TV on in the background, watching episodes of the show from each season.   While I realize that much of the "unscripted" show is quite scripted, I still felt like I got enough of the reality of their family life in watching them go about their day-to-day lives in these back-to-back episodes to recognize that I was truly watching a real-life tragedy unfold over time. The harried, slightly bitchy, but loving mama of 2006 - looking suburban-cute in cargo pants and flip flops as she bustled about her very modest kitchen, knee deep in children - has been replaced by an overdressed, over-tanned, overcoiffed, obviously depressed, exhausted and angry woman. She now lives in a mansion, travels many days each week (with a bodyguard) while her young children remain at home, and she and her husband - with whom she lovingly bickered in the first seasons - are openly discussing divorce. In the season premiere tonight, I see the estranged couple struggle through their kids' birthday party, with pain over their disintegrating marriage palpably etched on their faces. The seriousness of the situation is obvious to viewers, because it's needed for dramatic tension. Unfortunately, as I watch the scene play out, it's also all too obvious to their eight children, who seem anxious and unsettled.       Read More... Posted May 25 2009, 09:03 PM by kgranju with | with 21 comment(s) Filed under: Divorce, Janeon & Kate Plus 8, Gosselin

• Blogging through divorce

  I, myself blogged all the way through my own divorce, my dating life after divorce (Which resulted in some of my very best friends. One of my post-divorce exes is even C's godfather!) , and I have obviously blogged a lot about the joy of my remarriage and our blended family. I started my personal blog before my divorce, so it was natural that I would keep writing as life handed me these new twists and turns. But more and more as time has passed, I've moved away from being specific at all about the issues that have come with the end of my marriage, or the relationship I have with my eldest children's dad. Why? Because my children are now older, and I like having them read my blog, and they don't need to see the specifics of this stuff out there for public consumption. I've pulled back considerably with each passing year in what I share on my blog about this particular topic.  I have learned -sometimes the hard way-  that specific blog venting never helps with the challenges (understatement) that come with co-parenting after divorce. I assure you that I could spill a bloggity soap opera on a nearly daily basis about this stuff, but that would feel really wrong to me.   So nowadays (and for several years now, actually), I keep 99.99% of the details of the co-parenting part of my life completely private, except for discussions with the people closest to me. And in hindsight, I regret some of what I did write during that first, painful period. I sometimes screwed up, I freely admit. Read More... Posted Mar 25 2009, 09:30 AM by kgranju with | with 18 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Divorce

• Some things after a divorce never really get easier

  I have to tell you that even though I have accepted the fact that my babies are away from me one-half the time, it doesn't mean it's ever gotten easy. I cannot begin to tell you how much I miss them when they are not there. The house seems so empty, even though we now have their baby sister toddling around. And when we do family activities on the weeks they are with their father, I literally feel an ache in my chest, wishing my other children were there to join us.   Before I met and married Jon, and gave birth to C., my time sans children was even harder. In the first year or two after their father and I broke up, I literally cried myself to sleep many nights, longing in a truly physical sense for my then quite-young children. The hard reality for me as a mother is that when I decided to end my marriage, I essentially gave up the chance to experience one-half of my children's childhoods. That's a loss so profound that I will grieve it 'til I die. And of course, the same is true for their father, who surely misses them just as much when they are with me.  Read More... Posted Nov 13 2008, 10:38 AM by kgranju with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Katie Allison Granju, Divorce

• I'm just their mom. Period.

  As I've mentioned, ours is a post-divorce family. And since my divorce, both my ex-husband and I have remarried, meaning our children now have two stepparents. And since the whole stepparenting thing became part of our family life, and because I am a voracious consumer of family life blogs, I've recently become aware of a particular sub-genre of parenting blogs.  I call them "The Really Angry Stepmother Bloggers." Read More... Posted Oct 06 2008, 12:21 PM by kgranju with | with 39 comment(s) Filed under: Parenting, Divorce, Blogging, Stepparenting