Grin and Win the Stepfamily Game : Delia Ephron Stirs Humorous Truths Into ‘Funny Sauce’

The extended family is back again, but in a new way: The ex-husband or ex-wife, the ex’s new mate, the other ex’s new mate, possibly the new mate’s ex, and any new mate that your new mate’s ex has acquired

Got that clear?

It all comes together in a bitter-sweet new book by Delia Ephron, “Funny Sauce.” After being stepmother in Los Angeles to a girl and a boy for more than six years, the author has distilled her recollections and philosophy regarding holding a title that has no job while waging an uphill fight for an acceptance that doesn’t always come.

“The extended family used to be granny living upstairs and auntie down the block and everyone cooperating to raise the kids,” Ephron said in an interview. “Then in the ‘60s and especially in the ‘70s came the nuclear family--mother and father and the children--and everyone said things were tougher because there were no relatives to lend a hand.

Extended Family Is Back

“Now the extended family has returned, in a mutant form we never expected, mostly courtesy of an innovation known as joint custody.”

The 1986 version of the extended family, she went on, “consists entirely of people who are not related by blood, many of whom can’t stand each other.

“What is so terrible is that all these people have to cooperate--and none can.”

Leaning back in her Beverly Hills office, the best-selling author (and sister of writer Nora Ephron) reflected on the likelihood that things will only get worse.

While doing research for the book (published by Viking: $14.95), Delia Ephron said, she came across the figure that in another 10 years, three-fourths of all the families in the United States will be non-nuclear--either a stepfamily or one headed by a single mother or father.

“When I called the Stepfamily Foundation in New York, they informed me that the Census Bureau doesn’t keep figures on stepparents,” she explained. “But they said that taking into account the statistics on divorce and on children, they believe there are upwards of 35 million stepparents in the nation.”

If they don’t read “Funny Sauce,” they proceed at their own risk.

Take the chapter on the game of joint custody:

“Players: A formerly married couple.

“Winner: No one. Game is played for lack of a more satisfying alternative and the pleasure of interacting with one’s ex, which no player will admit to.

“Game Over: When youngest child turns 18.

“Scoring: Totals are kept secretly by each player because neither will admit that he or she is playing a game.

“Rules: None. Nevertheless, each player is convinced that the other is not playing by them.”

Scoring, Ephron writes, is accomplished by negotiating to his or her advantage on such issues as Pick Up and Deliver (somehow make your ex do the driving), Holidays (a bonus for obtaining the children for Christmas and arranging their return by Dec. 31, thereby avoiding a sitter for New Year’s Eve), and Sneakers (convincing your ex to purchase the kid’s new pair of sneakers).

While the book has a few sections that are not totally relevant to the central theme, most of it contains observations and revelations such as the Hair Issue.

A Hairy Problem

During the author’s interviews with divorced parents, hair kept turning up as a source of conflict: namely, who should be responsible for whose haircut.

Everything, it seems, becomes a battleground, the stepparent usually helpless to do little except clench the teeth and observe. “One couple I know even divided up their daughter’s wedding march,” Ephron said. “One took her halfway down the aisle and the other, the rest of the way.”

The title derives from a section on how a child talks to his stepmother. Example: The stepmother has just put chicken on the table. Child: “I don’t like chicken in funny sauce.”

Ephron, discussing this, had another use of the term: “Life after divorce shouldn’t be the province of psychologists. When stepparents are involved, the psychologists like to refer to it as ‘blended families.’ My term would be ‘funny sauce,’ a sauce that was never meant to be mixed.”

Her subjective study, poignant at times, portrays the scene from many viewpoints, including those of the children. “Until I interviewed them, I didn’t realize how difficult life is for children whose parents have divorced, how complicated their life is.”

The one sentence she kept hearing from the 40 or so kids she spoke with: “I was split apart.”

Ephron said she came upon something she feels is significant, and deserves further investigation: “Over and over, I found that teen-agers whose parents divorced are delaying their own love lives. And I don’t think they understood why it was happening.

“I think that for one thing, it is harder for such children to trust. They experienced a shattering of what had been their most permanent relationship.”

A crucial question occurred to her: Will it be harder for children of modern extended families to fall in love and stay in love?

Even the tribulations of the real parent when he happens to have custody--in this case a father--are dealt with, such as in the chapter on coping with Santa. On Christmas Eve, the daughter in question writes a note to Santa: “If you are real, sign here.” The father secretly signs, agonizes over his decision, then the next day confesses to the girl that the signature was indeed his. Tears from the girl, apologies from the father.

Story of the ‘80s

The overview is the story of the ‘80s, and Ephron states early on that the accounts of her family life are true. The only things changed were the names of her husband and stepchildren, to protect their privacy.

The 42-year-old Ephron said in the interview that when she became part of a family with a 6-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy, “I had no way of predicting the emotional roller coaster I was about to get on.”

Kids whose parents divorce are angry, she said. “Frequently the anger is at the parents, but they are afraid to express it because they don’t want to lose anyone. Their sense of permanence is fragile. So the stepparent is the safest person for them to get angry at. You are the one they can risk losing.”

Being a stepmother or stepfather, Ephron concluded, is something no one is good at. “You are in the shadows all the time.”

She said that in interviewing adults finding themselves in that position, she ran into reactions such as: “I feel like a pillar in the house.” The child in question would bump into his stepmother and continue walking “as if she didn’t exist.”

Another stepparent commented that the teen-ager in her family refused even to meet her eyes. She would greet him with a “Hi,” and he would get up and leave.

The author includes some telling quotes from stepchildren (not her own):

--”A stepmother is not a mother. She can help you with your homework and make dinner, but she should not be able to decide when you should go to bed. If you have a fight with your dad, your stepmother should stay out of it.”

--”The title stepmother has absolutely no meaning except that it means she’s married to my father. She’s another adult. Sort of a friend, but not exactly.”

--”A stepmother should be supportive. I don’t think she should actively participate unless she has to. Not a mother or a father. She should know her place.”

Ephron herself describes a scene in a restaurant booth, where both of her stepchildren fight to squeeze in next to their father, leaving her sitting by herself on the other side. During the ensuing argument between the kids as to which one should move, she concluded: “I finally realized what my place in the family is. I am the green lollipop . . . In other words, in the battle between the siblings, whoever gets me loses.”

When asked, Ephron said she had no solutions, other than: “Don’t expect your stepchildren to love you when you don’t yet love them. It takes a long time for love to build in an arranged situation. And the older the child is when you enter the scene, the more difficult it is on you.”

Her own situation, happily, has had a pleasant ending--despite what she feels was a mistake right at the beginning, when her first word was “no.”

The kids had gotten into a fountain in the Santa Monica Mall, one of those without water. Ephron wasn’t yet their stepmother, but felt she should seize the opportunity to assert authority, and told them to get out (which, of course, they refused to do).

“What I really meant,” she wrote, “was ‘Let me in .’ ”

After about six years, that happened.

In an affectionate way, her husband one day called her by the nickname of Dilky.

The kids immediately picked up on it, and from then on, they called her Dilky.

When they shout it down a supermarket aisle, their stepmother said, customers turn around expecting to see a dachshund.

But she doesn’t complain. She has been adopted.