Is it normal for a step parents feelings to change after their own child?

[WillU]

Would you say it's common/normal for a step parents feelings, actions or involvement to change when they have their own child in your experience or the experience of those you know?

What’s happened?

It just seems to be mentioned a lot on step parenting threads (and through my own experience of being a step parent too) seems to be quite common. Just wondering if others found the same thing?

I'm sure it does change things. Nothing compares to your own child. Your own flesh and blood and how protective you feel over them.
I'm sure a step-sibling can feel more like a threat than they did before. Sadly I think this is reality. I guess the best thing to do would be to acknowledge that feeling this is okay, and probably very normal, and try to move forwards with making the best of it all x

I'm not a stepmum but yes that does seem to be quite common

Well my life completely changed when I had a child. So I'd imagine my relationship with everyone in my life also changed. I suppose you also have a new standard to base things against. So if you didn't care about step kids birthdays but now care about your own kids birthdays even though nothing has changed the standard has.

Common but definitely not a given. I would imagine it depends on how well bonded the step parent is to their step child, how much effort they put into maintaining that bond once new child arrives, and also to what extent the couple (assuming they are together still) has open and honest dialog about such things so that no unhelpful feelings can fester and grow.

it can change things in various ways. Becoming a mother is an enormous transition for any woman.

How that affects her feelings about SC very often it depends on how her husband/partner approaches things as much as the change in the new mother’s reality.

If he tries to control and limit her relationship with her child on the basis that it’s not fair to his other children, he may well be setting up a whole set of problems.

If he responds to having has a new baby with guilt about his other children, he may also create a whole set of problems.

Sometimes in stepfamilies there are totally unrealistic expectations about involvement not changing too. A new baby will change all sorts of things in any family. But things that would be seen as totally fine in a nuclear family are viewed as dreadful and exclusionary when there are SC.

Obviously a new mother is going to have to reorganise her time and her priorities. That’s normal. But a SM who doesn’t rush home from the hospital after a section to spend a weekend taking the SC out to the park and such like can too easily be treated as if when’s being horrible. By everyone, including her own husband.

When this happens, the SC become a problem for their SM in ways they never were before. They do not have to be - but the adults around them too often create situations where the SM is unable to just relax and get to grips with new motherhood because other people insist that’s not fair to the SC. And it can grow from there, often alongside unreasonable expectations that an SM must behave as she would ‘if they were your children…’

I'm not a step parent.
Your feelings may change, but hopefully your behaviour wont, as in still being kind, good natured and welcoming. It's not the child's fault they are to yo yoing between two separate families.

but behaviour has to change in various ways. That doesn’t mean you aren’t being kind and welcoming. But what you do and how much time or energy you have will change.

The issue with stepfamilies is that people too easily insist that all change for the SC is the SM being unwelcoming or unfair. How dare she be trying to nap while the baby sleeps; she should be greeting the SC and making them feel welcomed when they arrive!

It’s the usual gendered bullshit often. Expectations of men are on the floor and it must be the SM’s fault if no one is making his children feel secure.

It’s very common. Think of wild animals, many of them would kill another litter of cubs or similar in order to protect their own. Not many animals welcome a litter from another mother. It’s hard to accept another woman’s child that you didn’t carry or raise. Some women naturally adapt and see the child as their own and it stays that way, other women try but the feelings disappear when they have their own biological child and some women just can’t adapt to step motherhood. I used to despise my exes wife as she struggled to bond with our dc and they got upset by it. I later learned it was their fathers responsibly to make them comfortable and happy not hers. When they had their own children together she stopped trying to bond with my dc but saw them as more a friend. It took the heat off my dc and they’re happier in her company. As a step mother myself now I can understand how she must have felt as a young woman put in the limelight of another woman and her children, as angry as I was that my dc were exposed to hostility, I can see it from her shoes now I am in that position. I try hard with my step daughter but I’ve never been able to bond with her in the way I hoped. I am kind to her and treat her well but I do not have that motherly instinct towards her that I do my own children. We are now having a baby of our own and my determination to build a good bond with my step daughter has passed. I’ll always welcome her and be the best person I can be, but I have no intention of acting like anything other than a friend/aunt figure. Her time here is supposed to be with her father. I want to put all my focus on my own dc as she has a mother of her own to do that for her. Don’t feel guilty for it, step children are not our responsibility, as long as they are treated with respect and are not treated poorly in any way then you don’t have to force something you can’t feel naturally. No one knows what will happen until they’re in that position, we can’t all be Mary poppins types.