To think that in my experience and from threads on here,that on the whole men are more acepting step parents than women?

[ledkr]

I thought it for a little while now. I was raised by a step father who was very kind and took his role seriously,I am remarried and dh didnt think twice about taking on dd and is very supportive of my grown up sons too.
On the other hand some of my closest friends have married men who have children with a previous partner and seem very bitchy about them and give their partners a hard time if they want to spend time or money on them.
My exh partner tried to lay down the law about when he could and couldnt see our children but fortunatley he told her to bog off.
A friend of dh has just had her dd's father tell her he doesnt want to see her anymore as its causing trouble in his "new family" his wife doesnt like him seeing his dd apparently.
Am i just unfortunate to have had these experiences? Im sure there are many great step mums out there,maybe we dont hear about it enough.Speak up ladies,change my mind.

Of course you don't expect them to have a fantastic relationship immediately ,but you expect them to try-and I would end the relationship if it didn't happen.

'What apity you cant do this any more on mumsnet without a few people getting all defensive.'

Yes, how strange that people get annoyed when you set up an inflammatory premise and then invite people to defend themselves... Guilty until proven innocent, right?

I think if you want to be with a man with kids you do have to accommodate them; otherwise find a childless partner. Same for men too.
Most people know from an early stage if someone has children and what the potential pitfalls might be. It dosn't mean that you have to love them as your own; it does mean that you have to make an effort and not try and make your dp see less of them. i often hear about this and it's so sad.
After all; how often would step mum have to parent in person? Once every two weeks. It's not a huge amount is it? If you can't handle the job of being a step mum don't do it!
I would like to meet a man with kids as I won't have to bother having any more of my own and I get instant playmates for dd- sorted!

I think you are right. What you have said tallies with my experience

I also think that women who drive a wedge between men and their kids with no good reason are bang out of order.

Very about this thread I have to say.

A lot of Step-mums have it very, very hard and how about this for a question then....do Step-mums generally get a whole load more crap thrown at them from the exw that Step-dads do by the exh?

If you have experienced a lot of shoddy Step-mums then of course you will feel this way but I dont agree with the bit about threads on MN - and Ive not seen many Step-Dads posting TBH.

This post reads as defensive and its really not meant to honestly

Just im here to say lots and lots of us Step-mums do a wonderfull job all whilst taking a load of crap from the exw and Im here saying we do exist - lots of us!

Totally agreed, planetpotty

It's the 'put up and shut up' attitude of a lot of posters that pisses me off, tbh.

Yes, i knew he had kids when i got with him, i understood that. I had kids too. I just wasn't prepared for the constant venom of his ex and the way she controlled him through their son.

Interesting points esperance.
Love the phrase 'anecdata', WOTB... I know 'the plural of anecdote is not data', but for what it's worth here's mine:

I gained a step-father and a step-mother when I was 11. My step-mother was rude, ignored me, laughed when she 'accidentally' fed me food I was allergic to, made fun of my clothes, did everything she could to make me feel unwelcome. I have never considered her a parent. I usually refer to her, if at all, as 'my dad's wife'.

I was a rude, nasty, hurting adolescent towards my step-dad for a good few years. He took it all on the chin, consistently treated me with respect and never once criticised me or my dad.

I am now closer to him than I am to my dad. When I put all my wedding photos into an album, I did a couple of pages of just family shots, and it wasn't until after the album had been finished a while and I was looking through it later that I realised I had included pictures of my step-dad on those pages, but the ones of my actual dad were just on the 'other guests' pages

I disagree that take it on the chin is a bad attitude. If you do get involved with a man with kids you should accept that you are not going to be Mrs Nice guy for a while. You may even be seen as the evil step mum.If you can't accept that then time to moveon. It's the kids I feel sorry for.
In any case you are more likely to be seen as Mrs Nice guy if you don't put limits on when your man sees his own kids.
There are certain criteria I look for in a man and if they don't fit my criteria I don't go for it. I could handle a man with kids and even if they were horrid to me I would understand why and there is no way that I would drive a wedge between said man and child. If it did bother me I'd look for a childless man.
Ok we can't help who we fall in love with but we can help who we choose to get involved with.
There would be an uproar if people were defending step dads who tried to drive a wedge between mum and child.

I do not condone women who use their own kids to get at ex and new women either btw. Don't forget it's the kids who are innocent here whilst us "adults" squabble over men.

Eh? Who here has condoned wedge driving??

Or defending it???

It's dangerous to make sweeping generalizations etc.... This is not a one size fits all kind of thing you can blanket a judgement on, every situation is unique.

What I say is my own experience and my own opinion as a step parent I can say it's a very difficult and complex situation to be in. I personally don't feel the same about my step kids as my bio daughter. Not even close, and I'm not going to apologize for it, it is how it is. I've heard so many times love them as your own, but I don't emotionally feel that way. I have realized that for me a degree of separation is a good thing, as I was feeling invaded, burdoned, and resentful towards them. Once I accepted that they were not expected to be my children and I realized that they are never going to see me as their mother, not that I wanted them to, then it became easier for me to deal with the situation. All 3 children are resident with us, due to their mother abandoning them many years ago.
I get on with my step kids but I can't say I love them. They are provided for and have a very close relationship with their father which I do not stand in the way of at all. I'm supportive of them and glad they are around as they are great siblings for my daughter, but love them as my own, I do not.

I find that research very interesting, I always felt very alone in my feelings, until I spoke to another woman randomly about it, she confessed to me how she felt about her step kids, and I felt so amazed that I wasn't alone, and then reading on this site realized that it is more common to feel this way than is generally accepted.

I have to say this just seems to be another way in which women are vilified and damned if they do, damned if they don't. You always here about the wicked stepmother, yet a man who takes on another man's kids is to be commended and patted on the back. Why? Why doesn't it work both ways?

I have done more for my DSD than her mother ever has. All that woman did was give birth to her. Yet it's automatically thought that I'm the bad guy. Jeez I talk to DSD more and am closer to her than DH! I always say I have 3 kids if anyone asks, and will only say I'm her stepmother if someone does the maths and asks outright, (I'm only 14 years older than her, so can come as a bit of a shock - and is also a bit funny when people think she's mine).

DH has said he could never take on someone else's kids. Fair enough. I didn't have a clue what I was getting myself into when I got with him as I was so young. He was completely upfront about having a daughter from the beginning. We had loads and loads of crap from his ex from day 1. You just put up with it don't you really. And no I most certainly wasn't the OW.

I once dated a man with children (they were estranged when we started dating so I didn't expect to step into the role of SM). I found the situation very difficult and when it ended I decided I would never date a man with children again.

I don't mind admitting I would be a terrible SM. I love my own daughter more than words could say and never imagined I could love anyone that much. I don't know how anyone could love a child not their own like that. Especially when every action and word is over analysed by the real mum and for me at least I was constantly told I was out of order when in fact truth be told it was their own dad who didn't really want to bother. Because, and I quote, "[he] loves him but he's a little irritating sometimes".

I have seen both sides. My stepmum was more of a mum to me than my real mum was.
My Dh is stepdad to ds1. He has never treated ds1 differently, neither have his parents. Ds1 is 27 now, dh has been his stepdad since he was eight, and they adore one another.

I would say my stepmum and my stepdad both treated me with equal disdain and both equally gave me the feeling they would rather I was not around. I'm a bit meh about the whole thing.

At least I'm an adult now and don't have to put up with that crap anymore.

Very interesting links Esperance but (inevitably, in a summary) it's not always clear exactly what the situation is with some of those points, eg:

"Children raised in families with stepmothers are likely to have less health care, less education and less money spent on their food than children raised by biological mothers. (Bear in mind that the economic status of remarried families was no different overall from that of intact families)"

Surely many kids are raised in both such settings? Is the definition here about where they spend most of their time, or what? And the 'economic status' thing surely must be incredibly complicated, and not easily comparable. Any 'intact' couple's finances must be a hell of a lot simpler and easier to manage than any remarried family's finances, which is surely going to make a difference.

teenswhodhaveem has made the point I was going to, which is that this portrayal of stepfathers as heroes is, interestingly, quite at odds with various news stories in recent years about abused children who have often had a 'stepfather' (not worthy of the term in fact) who has been at best complicit and at worst the instigator of the abuse. Off the top of my head I would have assumed that kids with stepfathers were in a worse position on that front at least.

My children's stepmother is absolutely spiteful to, disrespectful and completely uninterested in my children. She has always made them feel like they are 'in the way' whenever they visit their dad and their other siblings.

BTW my kids only get to see their dad if shes there so they try to just ignore the way she is, this woman badmouths me to my kids frequently, even though i've never given her any reason to act the way she does.
So, in my experience I agree with the op