To think step-children get a hugely bad deal

[w0rkout]

My thread is being deleted. This thread is hopefully a place to talk about how rubbish it is being a step child.

OP what you are describing sounds awful. I’m sorry you experienced it. But cruel behaviour to children happens in all sorts of circumstances.

What you are describing isn’t a general experience of step parents, but having had bad step parents (and parents).

Again, I’m sorry for your experience.

I think being a stepchild is harder than people realise…
I think schools need to be more aware of the impact on children, rather like children are PP

@w0rkout

Things like:

Different clothes
Different meal times
Different snack allowances
Different levels of freedom
Different expectation around phone/gaming use
Different town
Different friends/no friends because only there EOW
No dance/gymnastics/etc because away EOW
Christmas without father every year
Never just saying 'mum and dad'
Having step and half siblings
Feeling guilty for loving full siblings more
Never really relaxing at dad's because only there EOW

People will tell me this is all trivial but it's a sense of not belonging and discomfort that really stays with a person.

So @Anon19493 how do you fix all that?

Speak for yourself. I have a wonderful relationship with my step dad and even when I did have a really shitty step parent none of the above bothered me. I'm sorry you had a bad experience but please don't paint it as 'the norm

I think the really nice potential partners for your parents are generally the ones who back off because they are honest to themselves and realise that they may not be capable of taking on another man’s children, so have the insight to realise it might not work. And the others can see that they don’t want to have their dps children in their lives, but want DP at any cost, maybe thinking they can freeze the DCs out once they’ve got their foot in the door. My DF had a couple of women in his life who were lovely, but walked away as they didn’t feel they could invest the time in us needed to make a happy family unit. Instead we got the one who we all disliked, but who managed over a period of time to cut us out of our dfs life. She was the step mum from hell.

@PamDenick

I think being a stepchild is harder than people realise… I think schools need to be more aware of the impact on children, rather like children are PP

This!!

So many children punished by schools for having to live out of two homes and not always having everything they need. Schools need to take it up with patents and not make children feel worse than they already do.

@lovepickledlimes sorry your step mother sounds very selfish and immature

It's not rubbish for all stepchildren OP. That's ridiculous.

Do you really think that it is only stepchildren have a hard time? Children get a shit time from their own parents too.

Some children are just fucking awful to their step parent truth be told. Some parents drip feed toxic shit to their children to poison them against the SP.

These parents don't realize or just don't care that turning their children into spiteful people that they don't endear them to anyone and that nobody likes their brats children because of how they behave.

Some SC carry on being vile when they are adults. My lovely sister has the most vile (now young adult) SC. She's wasted her life trying to please them.

@PamDenick you're not wrong. Was researching it the other day (for personal reasons) and its awful: from more chance of physical and mental illness to less chance of a decent job. Its sad.
But I see that in my job also.

The problem is when child A can't go on the day trip with their school because there isn't enough money whilst the half sibling gets to go skiing for a week.

That’s an extreme example but I’ll use it too.
My former dsc went on every single school trip which was paid half for by my ex. Actively encouraged by me as when he had doubts about the cost I said, “I would do everything to make sure ours get to go in the future so I think dsc should get the same.” So off dsc went.

My children are most likely going to get the raw deal as there is no stepparent whispering in his ear offering some perspective and stability for them. My ex now doesn’t work and doesn’t make any effort to find work.
I will pay for the trips myself. But I won’t pretend that dsc never got anything and in fact got more when it comes to stuff like extras.

So it’s not always the stepparents fault when a child goes without. Sometimes they get more than they would of the parent was on their own.

So many children punished by schools for having to live out of two homes and not always having everything they need. Schools need to take it up with patents and not make children feel worse than they already do."

That's not a step child issue though, it's being a child of separated parents.

[quote Whatayear1234]@PamDenick you're not wrong. Was researching it the other day (for personal reasons) and its awful: from more chance of physical and mental illness to less chance of a decent job. Its sad.
But I see that in my job also.[/quote]
Again, that's children with separated parents though isn't it? Not just ones that have step parents.

It's amazing to see what is being blamed on step parents when actually it is just down to divorced parents.

I get it OP. I actually felt tearful as I read your words "never just saying mum and dad". I'm 61 and both of them are dead now, but the sadness never leaves you

My DF remarried after the death of my mother. I was an adult so have never been referred as “step daughter”. DF is heavily discouraged from seeing any of his family (he has two DCs and two GCs). Phone calls are snatched affairs which are ended quickly when she realises he us on the phone. On the day of the wedding I was taken to one side and told “I am his priority now, what’s his is mine, what’s mine will go to [my niece]”.

To be fair DF is very happy but his grandchildren don’t even know him.... I doubt my mother would mind him remarrying but she would be furious with the way he has treated us.

@lunar1 I sympathise with this:
Misswhatayear1234 I havent got my book-bag / p.e kit / reading book because its at mums / dads / grandparents.

Thats fine, it can't be helped. Dont worry.
We aren't all nasty

My step Dad was the best thing in my life a real blessing. Before he died I told him I wished he was real dad and he said ‘I am’

That is lovely. I'm really pleased you were able to have him as part of your life.

I had a horrific experience as a stepchild and it has unfortunately resulted in me recently having a breakdown and becoming unable to work. I am 32 and from 6yo my life has been hugely damaged.

I know that some blended families work well but to me the risk of it not working is too high and I would never do that to my DS. If anything happened to DH I would remain single.

I am passionately against blended families, I believe it is fundamentally wrong to expect a child to live between houses and to live with people who don't love them unconditionally during childhood. I would never say that to a blended family but it is absolutely what I personally believe.

@Lurcherloves I did try to just came along. The final punch was after my father died I was not allowed one item to remind me of him and same for my grandmother. We were lucky my gran had a handful of items that belonged to him before sm so a old nail care kit he used at uni and the last ever card he wrote to me is all I have left (my father's book collection, music records that meant so much to him, his model train set all that is in her possession now). My biggest upset is this post card and nail care kit is all I have that I can pass onto my future dc for them to connect with their grandfather they never met

What happens when the child ends up playing one parent off against the other and the step parent can do nothing but stand back and watch, because it's nothing to do with them. I was in this situation, watched my partner being manipulated by the child, they were abusive, in language and emotionally. Played one parent to get their own way, then went home to the other parent and told a pack of lies about partner and I as the step parent. No matter what some step parents do, it will never be enough.

My parents split when I was 13 - my stepmother was the OW that Dad left for. And I ended up with a stepmother who made it perfectly clear that she wanted my Dad but not us. We barely saw him for years; he didn't financially support my Mum as she didn't deem it necessary, and she was barely able to tolerate us even when we became adults.

I may sound wicked, but I didn't get my Dad back until she died. Which I blame my Dad for entirely, and not her.

I made the decision when DH and I met and had children that should we ever split, I wouldn't have another relationship until they were adults as inflicting a step parent in most cases is the last thing that any child wants in their life.

A child living between 2 houses is due to seperated families, not a result of blended families. If you seperate this would be the fate of your child.

People will tell me this is all trivial but it's a sense of not belonging and discomfort that really stays with a person.

This, this is what it was for me, and still is. I don't feel like I belong to either family.
However, now, as an adult, I don't exclusively blame my step parents, I also blame my biological parents too. My step mum took her cue from my dad, he treated me as an inconvenience and a living reminder of a time he'd rather forget, and so she followed suit.
My mum was the same, she was quite weak and the rules changed overnight when my stepdad moved in. Ultimately she wanted to keep him happy over me, and it was easier to tell me I was unreasonable, I was naughty and use that as reasons to push me out even further, so I wasn't in the way and 'causing' an issue just by being there, it was easier to let him believe I was the issue, to label me as a 'problem child' than it was to tell him she wasn't happy with the way he treated me and the way he treated me was wrong. I was a person, not something to be controlled and demeaned to bolster someone else's ego.
So yes, it's bloody hard being a step child, but it's not always the step parents that are the ones to blame, the biological parents have the ultimate responsibility to ensure the person they're with treat their children fairly and not like an obstacle or inconvenience.

Living between two houses really doesn't have to be bad as long as both parents make it nice. E.g. having two sets of everything helps or ensuring stuff travels between houses as needed if that's what the child prefers. I was never in a "sorry I don't have xyz it's at dad's house" situation because my parents (well my mum let's be fair) made sure that didn't happen. Similarly with dss the amount of times we've picked up or dropped off forgotten stuff, bought duplicate items for our house and for his mums. It is what you make it and yes, if your parents are shit it'll be shit, but if they're not it doesn't have to be.

Well you must understand that your experience is not the same for everyone?

I'm a step child, I have a step father and I just can't relate to what you say, sorry.

I love my step dad 🤷 I'm glad he's in my life. My parents were shit together, I remember the arguments and the negative feelings in the home before they divorced and I was glad to be out of it. They were calmer, more engaged, better parents when they weren't together. They spent more time with me than they ever had before. I've never even thought of the fact I was unable to say 'mum and dad' tbh.

I also never really cared about going between two 'homes' but then I never really felt like I had two. I had my home, and then my mum's house and it never emotionally scarred me. I didn't think of my mum's house as my home, my dad's was my home. That was fine to me. I know some people think the idea of not feeling at home in one of the houses is absolutely awful but that was the way I felt and I don't even think it was a bad thing.

Having step and half siblings

And I don't really like that this is on your automatic negative list of things being wrong with being a step child. I love my 'half' sibling thank you very much! She is not a negative thing to me. She is not a 'bad deal'. She's my sister.

I'm sorry if some of your parents got it so wrong. But it isn't the same for everyone.

I hope to never separate but if I did I would push for a nesting arrangement where DS stayed put and the adults moved. If adults choose to break up they should bear the disruption not their children. Obviously this wouldn't work in the case of abuse.