Published in the Pan Macmillan book, Mothers and Others, 2015

IN THE WEEKS AFTER THE BIRTH OF MY SON, when those initial heady days of exhaustion began to wane, I stopped sleeping. At first it was the thrill of realising he had made it eight hours without waking. I went back to bed and lay awake from 3 am until dawn in that liminal space between sleeping and waking so familiar to insomniacs. Somehow in the horrific nights that followed, lying awake furious with myself for not sleeping, I came across God. I hadn't really thought of him since I went through my passionate Blood of Christ phase when I was twelve - a phase that came abruptly to an end when the school chaplain confirmed my worst fears (God was indeed cruel), righteously informing me that his children, in all likelihood non-believers, were going to hell, right alongside my atheist parents. It took me a while to come back around to Him, but stranded as I was in my country brick veneer with the new baby, God held a certain appeal.

In those dim early-morning hours I lay awake and thought: If I'm not sleeping it has nothing to do with me a the will of God, and felt entirely liberated by my sleight of hand. But for the grace of God go I? Mental tricks never last for long. If you allow the slightest doubt to creep in as you are willing your overactive brain back to sleep, every. thing comes undone. A whole conversation might unravel in your brain about the existence of said God and you're done for. And so it was that during one of these nightly reveries I once again began to doubt God and his useful-ness, and it occurred to me that it might be more helpful if God were a box where I could put things. And so God became the God Box, that most pedestrian of psychological tools: a place to put the hard things.

The God Box is where I place those difficult, frustrating, overwhelming, joyous parts of my life. Gathered there with my precious new son, my complicated relationship with my mother, fears about global warming and being wholly terrible with money sits a bright, beautiful six-year-old girl: Sunny, the small child who lives with me half of the time and who I decided not too long ago should never feel less loved or special than my son - but who is nevertheless not my daughter.

Sunny is her mother's daughter and I'm not sure I like her mother. (Into the God Box it goes.) I'm sure her mother feels the same way about me. You can't fault us, though, Sunny's mother and me. We are friendly and even generous with one another. I doubt you could expect anything more from a relationship such as ours. But this doesn't change the fact that when the little girl I love so much is being her mother's daughter, I feel a kind of ambivalence towards her. I wish she was different. I wish she was more like the Sunny I know.

The Sunny I know likes to dress like a boy, could probably eat half a block of dark chocolate in one sitting and loves David Attenborough documentaries. The Sunny I know is pretty cool for a six-year-old. But cool or not, I still find myself stuck on a kind of child-guilt hamster wheel.

One evening, completely out of the blue, Sunny decided to extend her usual routine of twenty-minute monologue followed by a few rapid mouthfuls and take a further ninety minutes to finish her dinner. My partner and I have the (no doubt misguided) notion that we all should sit at the table until everyone has finished dinner, but after chattering away like a small monkey Sunny had taken to chewing each mouthful over and over. My nostrils flared.

Both my partner and I kept repeating, 'Just swallow it.

Please just swallow it? There is nothing more boring or gross, it turns out, than watching a child chew her food.

I was about to go off my rocker. But was I overcome by intense irritation because she was my stepdaughter and all stepmothers have a pathological problem with their step-children? Or because watching a child masticate slowly really is one of the most annoying things anyone should ever have to endure? Of course, the answer is: who cares?

Just leave the room now.

In the car, she said, 'You know, my mum and you are really different? And that was shamefully gratifying. The indulgent aspect of my personality believes that Sunny's mother and I are entirely, utterly, fundamentally different right down to the television we watch and the kind of food that we eat.

Another day, Sunny told me that I should be using quick oats like her mum, instead of the regular rolled oats that take too long. She said, "Then you put them in the micro. wave for two minutes and they're done? And showing remarkable restraint I just smiled mildly.

Still, I find myself exhaustively documenting the quirks and foibles of that other family that exists alongside ours, boring my significant other to tears. Recently, there was the kissing episode. After we told Sunny that we were having a baby and she later found out that her mother was also having a baby a few months after us, there were the inevitable weeks of weird behaviour, an anxious little girl with a sore tummy. One Sunday night we asked her what was up.

Was she worried? Did she feel like things would change? It turned out it was her mother's partner Jacob that she was worried about. Jacob didn't kiss her on the mouth like he kissed her mum on the mouth, and this was very upsetting to Sunny. She wanted Jacob to kiss her on the mouth. After nearly choking on our mashed potato, my partner and I launched in. Surely this was only normal, we said. People don't need to kiss each other on the mouth. Jacob is one of those gentle, straight-talking Europeans who obviously adores Sunny. If he doesn't want to kiss you on the mouth, we said, this doesn't mean he doesn't love you, it doesn't mean anything at all. It's normal. 'But we're going to get married, she said. More choking. We tied ourselves up in words and then it was over and it was Sunday night and time she went back to her mum's place.

When my partner dropped Sunny at her mother's, he mentioned that she might want to talk to her. A few days later, I got a call at work. My partner, slightly breathless, had spoken to his ex-wife. Everything had been resolved, he said. Jacob had agreed to allow Sunny to kiss him on the mouth. On the side of the mouth specifically. It was an Australian thing, the ex had said, and with neither my partner nor Jacob being Australian, they wouldn't under. stand. Australians kiss each other on the mouth. The conversation was over. Sunny was fine.

While my partner's ex-wife was confidently stating what Australians did and didn't do, I was polling friends.

Do Australians really kiss each other on the mouth?

I only had memories of a friend's ex-boyfriend who would happily greet anyone with a full pash on the lips. It was horrifying. How could this be about being Australian? More to the point, how had our little girl's misplaced anxiety been reduced to a debate about normative behaviour? In my mind, this merely highlighted the chasm that existed between her mother and me.

It's not in my nature to find the obvious, some might say intuitive, solution. Instead, I research. I buy parenting books and step-parenting books and books on meditation and introversion, and I regularly drown myself in that fathomless pond of highly relevant information, the internet. So when we sat Sunny down to talk about new babies on that fateful Sunday I had already looked up step-families/ new baby/anxiety. And according to the internet, Sunny was probably more worried about how the new babies would affect her relationship with her stepfather and me than with either of her parents. If you think about it, it's obvious. The parents don't stop being parents but the step-parent suddenly has a little baby of their own, a little baby who will always be more important. Who will always be number one. Should I be ashamed of this les in my God Box.

Of knew that Sunny being upset albot laced not kissing. her on the mouth was a cover, a shroud that had fallen oug her worries about how her relationship with her stepfather would change. Even if I hadn't whiled away hours on the internet I could have guessed as much. But this wasn't what her mother chose to focus on. Instead it became about what was normal. And according to her it was normal for children to kiss members of their family on the lips. Why wouldn't it be? Why on earth would I care? Somehow I had found myself drawn into a silent battle about who was more normal, more Aussie, more conventional.

In retrospect, there can be no doubt that talking about what's 'normal and what's not is entirely missing the point. As my partner gently pointed out to me, when I was once again trying to make sense of that weird other part of my life that I can't really make sense of, it shouldn't be about normal. Or Aussie. It's about bringing up a child and teaching her about inclusiveness and bounda-ries. And maybe, on a good day, difference. On the one hand, if Sunny's stepfather doesn't want to kiss her on the mouth - whether it be because he's not Australian or because he's from a different kind of family - he shouldn't have to. On the other hand, it is precisely none of my business.

Could it be that all of us oscillating around Sunny are seeking to cover up the fissure that runs through both our families? For Sunny, in particular, life with separated parents means that she is never complete. Even while she's living it up with one family she's missing out on the other.

For half of the time Sunny is with her mum and her mum making decisions about rolled oats and mouth kissing, and both my partner and I must make room for that. Just as her mum must make room for us and our various predilections (swearing, wearing shoes inside - I'm sure the list is extensive). And because of this my family isn't as perfect as your family. My family has a crack in it. In my family someone else is always deciding about whether or not it's okay for a six-year-old to eat Magnum ice-creams or wear hideous pink raincoats or stay up too late or watch television in the daytime. And as a stepmother it has nothing and everything to do with me.

When we were visiting my partner's Swedish mother a few years ago she told me how much she hated having to speak English at family events. Her daughter had a Dutch boyfriend and because of the two of us it meant that it was always necessary to speak English and it wasn't as special.

There is an almost overwhelming desire when you have a family to try to make it perfect. My mother-in-law might just as well have said if only my darling son lived right next door with a good Swedish wife and a child who spoke fluent Swedish. Om bara all var som det ska. Just as I might wish for grandparents down the road, a closer relationship with my sister, for Sunny's mother to disappear. If only we were perfect. A stifling, perfect unit. But we're not. In this sense it might be more apt if my God Box were not a box but a Japanese pot made more beautiful because it isn't perfect.

It has a crack in it.