to ask how bio-mums feel about step-mums?

[InaccessibleB]

I'm a step-mum. I try my best to help look after DSD. We get on great. I pick her up from school every other week. Take her out and look after her when DP is out (I'm talking if he nips to the shops or has a weekend meeting). I try to be the step-mum she needs and a good partner to DP. I never overstep the mark and know that I am not her mother.

I am met with a lot of issues. DPs ex trying to get a court order to say only he can get her from school, asking for her not to be left alone with me, telling DSD that she's not to let me dress her or bathe her etc (she's only 6, I'm a normal woman, and being made to feel like a weirdo if I want to bathe my DSD who asks for me to bathe her instead of DF as it's more 'fun')

I keep seeing these AMA threads and I actually want to ask YOU as biological mothers a question about how you feel about step-mums to your children? I'm struggling to feel accepted as a part of her life and want to try and understand this from her mum's perspective. Very open question and I'm hoping for some open answers...

I've been a step mum for 24 years (and a mum for 6). My dsd mum was always fine (one or two friction points over the years) and since I left my ex, she and I have become good friends. I was seen as a good step mum and she was glad of me (because our mutual ex was a cockwomble).

What law?

I’m not a step mother, my partner doesn’t have kids... I’m not trying to defend myself in any way.

What I am defending is common sense. The law is a funny language sometimes, it also states that a pregnant woman can piss in a policeman’s helmet.

You can quote as many technicalities as you want, doesn’t make the adults that step up into a parental role any less of a step parent.

@VanGoghsDog I think @Whatdoido2018 is referring to the legality of marriage making a husband or wife stepparent to existing children.

There's no step parent law I'm aware of.

Stepmother or father is a definition: the husband or wife of a child's parent.

Some horrible people have sometimes been referred to as such if they've been with mum or dad for a long time but some other people don't like that and get upset

Yes, I understood what she was saying. I want to know what actual law it is written in.

It isn't

@VanGoghsDog she can’t provide that 😂 she’s too busy scoffing at the language we use and trying to prove how superior she is.

She’s amusing me 👌

Marriage Act 1949 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm guessing @Whatdoido2018 got dumped for an upgrade.
That's why she's do bitter and jealous.

I can speak only from the experience of having a stepmum (and stepfather). My mother hates my stepmum. I don't think she ever overstepped the boundary but she was a part of my father's life and therefore very much a part of my life. You simply cannot get around that and imposing weird barriers and boundaries that are born out of your own insecurities are ultimately the most harmful to the most vulnerable ones in the situation - the children.

And to everyone saying you're not a stepMUM but Dad's girlfriend/partner...that may be how you see it, but children like to make sense of the relationships around them and 'stepmum'/'stepdad' labels help to do that. I would never refer to mine as 'stepmum'/'stepdad' but it is useful shorthand when talking about them to others. If they are in your life for years and years (like mine), it is very hard to not look to them in some sort of parental capacity.

I cannot imagine how my life would have worked if my stepmum or stepdad had not been allowed to perform basic tasks for us. But more than that, as a child, I would have been sad and would have wanted to know why - did she not care for me? Did she not want to spend time with me? I wanted her and my stepdad to like me. I craved acceptance and love from my 'family' (like pretty much every child). It would have fucked me up - even more than the batshit behaviour my parents engaged in throughout my childhood.

I get it must be hard to see someone taking on roles traditionally reserved for a parent but hey, that's life. It is hard. Don't make your children suffer because it fucks them up.

OP - sounds like you are doing a great job. Hopefully the mother will come around and realise that stepparents don't replace really great mothers/fathers.

Best of luck trying to play house with other women's kids!

My DD’s step-mum does “play house” with my child? How can I possibly object when she has two loving homes and three loving parents

I’ve corrected the use of step Mum as it has been used by women simply sleeping with the children’s father for a couple of years and it's wrong

really - dss lives with me and dp and I have been in his life for 6 years.
He see's more of me than his actual mother and yet I am "simply sleeping with his father"

what planet are you on

I heard of a family, the parents had split but needed to talk about the child. Mum's partner and dad's partner were invited to the discussion. Mum and dad decided that if step parents were going to be in child's life then they should be present.
I can't see how op taking child to school twice a month is a big deal. If mum were to ask someone else to take child to school or rely on after shool childcare should dad take her to court for changes in visitation?

I heard of a family, the parents had split but needed to talk about the child. Mum's partner and dad's partner were invited to the discussion. Mum and dad decided that if step parents were going to be in child's life then they should be present

That’s what we do. The three of us went to all open days for secondary schools together with our DD for example.

Nice to hear other healthy attitudes @JacquesHammer and others x

I'm guessing @Whatdoido2018* got dumped for an upgrade.
That's why she's do bitter and jealous.*

Says the women who sneaked around shagging a married man and now takes care of his kids.
What's there to be jealous of?
We all know women like you, sugar.

We all know women like you, sugar

do we? I can't say I do!

A lot of fuss on here about using the term bio-mum. So what? It’s just a term it’s not offensive at all and I am a mum. People don’t go around in real life saying it, just as much as they don’t say DSD.

I had similar issues to you with being a step mum but not as bad as my DSD is older than yours. The fact was her mother didn’t want me in her daughter’s life. End of. It’s changed now we have a baby together though.

I think it’s different if it was the OW, as that’s a totally different ball game. However, if you have been split up for a while then it stands to reason that somewhere along the line a new partner is going to come on the scene and I’d rather it was someone nice looking after my child than someone who wanted their father to themselves.

If you are only helping out when your DS is busy then I don’t see the problem with it. I’d have an issue though if they were doing all the work and the father none. That doesn’t sound the case though. Your helping out when your DS is working. So what would the mum prefer? Him not to work, get no maintenance but be able to take your DSD to school himself?

In your case I wouldn’t do the bathing as she has said she’s not happy about that and it will cause friction if you continue to do it as you wouldn’t be respecting her boundaries. It’s a shame really as your DSD sounds like she likes you to do it and you have a good relationship with her. I wish people would look at weather their children are happy or not. If she was going home saying you were always bathing her and she didn’t like it, she wanted her father to do it, then I’d intervene. Hopefully in time her mother will come to accept you more.

Also these mums who have replied saying you’ve overstepped the boundaries, well if they are now in relationships themselves , do they refuse their DH picking the children up from school, etc as it’s not his job? I doubt it very much.

I'm a step mom and my daughter also has a step mom. I really like my daughters step mother (much more than my ex actually) I'm glad she's there as I think she probably stabilises my ex and has been there for my daughter I think more than he has when she's been staying in their house.

The term 'bio-mum' reminds me of 'cis-woman' ... a term invented to to give status and credence to a newly created role (step parents and trans women)

I'm a stepmum and a mum.

My dp's ex caused problems from day one. She had far too much to say about absolutely everything we did and stuck her nose into our time with DSD so much that eventually I backed right off spending any time with DSD at all.

Things like saying that I didn't treat DSD the same as my kids, I didn't ask her to do things at home. She told Dp that this made their DD feel left out. So I started asking her to pick up her stuff and put things away and then she told DP I was picking on their DD. DP was around all the time and also asked her to do things, but that was ok. So basically I wasn't allowed to ask my kids to pick something up without asking her to, but similarly I wasn't allowed to ask her to do anything because that was picking on her.

We also had issues with his DD leaving her stuff everywhere. Our house, at home, at school, friends houses. She dropped her mobile phone on the way home once. Without fail, every time, I got the blame for these things going missing. I was accused of stealing phones, chargers, keys, items of clothing. No apologies when it turned up in her mates house or down the side of her bed or was returned by someone who found the thing in the street. Dp did try and keep the peace but his ex was extremely determined that we were both in the wrong. No matter what we tried, it was wrong.

I think the most telling things are two comments she made at separate times to dp. The first was 'you should have got together with someone without children so DD can be the centre of attention all the time' and 'DD is coming to see YOU not that woman and her kids'.

In other words she resented her DD having to share her space with anyone else. She is an only child (although has an older half sister she doesn't live with) and has been surrounded by adults her entire life. She has never had to share anything or her parents, she has never had to live with other children. She has been asked her opinion and given major choices all her life and when I met her (aged 8) she was very much a child who was used to getting her own way and being a 'princess'. (as both her parents referred to her).

I'd like to say things worked out. But his ex moved away with their DD, moved in with her boyfriend, cut contact with DP and died a year ago.

I would like to think I'd be a better ex than she was. I also like to think I'm doing a better job with my own kids but that's another story. I did a lot for DSD, did her hair, took her to school, cooked her food, did her washing, made lunches and took them to school when she forgot to take it from her mum's house. (her mum would ring me and ask me to do it).

I get on great with my oldest stepdaughter and my dp gets on brilliantly with my two dd's. He's a great stepdad.

The term 'bio-mum' reminds me of 'cis-woman' ... a term invented to to give status and credence to a newly created role (step parents and trans women)

The two are not comparable and step mother is hardly something "newly created" is it.

Step parents have existed for centuries.

When wives died in childbirth a man would marry another woman to take care of his existing children. Likewise widows would try and find another husband to help take care of them.

Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Katherine Parr all step-mothers.

I do like the idea of Katherine of Aragon sending a messenger to Henry VIII “that bitch Bullen does NOT bathe Mary. I’m serious. Nor does she take her to the Joust”

Oh and I forgot to say I have some adults friends who call one of their parents "biological dad" or "biological mum". This is because that was the parent who walked out before they were 7 and did nothing to take care of them then turned up when they were 16+.

The parent who did take care of them then got a new partner who treated them like what they considered a "proper" dad or mum would, and so they called that step parent "dad" or "mum".

So I understand the term bio-mum or bio-dad in that context.

However if both biological parents do take care of their child they are simply called "dad" and "mum". The step parents are then called by their first name unless the children are very young.