My daughter's step mum

[BonnieBobbet]

I don't know where to start with this and may well be being unreasonable but it's really hard for me to see my child upset and I'm after some advice about this.

Basically me and ex-p share one 9 year old DD. He now has a child with his wife too, a 3 year old.

My daughter loves her brother but she's really struggling with how things have changed so much with her stepmum and her family since he came along.

She used to be very invested in my daughter's life, they spent time together going places, she'd help out in the school holidays and things, and yes admittedly she's helped me out on a few occasions too. I've always been very grateful and it was never expected but she's offered in the past and we get on well enough.

Since her son was born is like she never really has time for DD. Never takes her anywhere anymore, doesn't help out ex-p making some logistics difficult.

Her family were really good with her too and she enjoyed their company. They weren't grandparents to her but she really liked them. Now it's the same, she feels they are only interested in her brother, she doesn't really understand why he can go for sleepovers and SMs mum and dad's house but she can't for example.

She no longer bothers buying her things to give him on father's Day or his birthday saying she could buy him something herself with her pocket money. She could of course and she then does but it's just another example of how things have just abruptly stopped for her since SM had her real baby iyswim.

Ex-p has never taken our DD abroad saying they prefer UK holidays anyway and I've never been bothered by this obviously as UK holidays are still great and it's not my business. DD has made comments in the past but I've told her not to be ungrateful. I take her away abroad every year anyway. Except now SM is off what seems like every 6 months on holidays with her son, one of which was Disneyland just before the school hols. They can afford all of this but never prioritise a family holiday including DD.

She's a SAHM and according to DD has just stopped doing anything like helping tidy her room or change or sheets and things leaving them to either her or her dad when he remembers all the while ensuring her son's room is spotless every day.

I know he's her dad and it's his responsibility not hers. But the change is just so obvious and hurtful to DD. She says her brother is all SM cares about now and I don't know what to say or do.

Do I say something or stay out of it? Obviously it's technically none of my business what her family do or where she goes or what she does with or for her child but it's affecting DD and she prefers staying with me now.

it’s spot on.

It's really not, with any actual knowledge of the varied experiences of step parenting.

@aSofaNearYou I'm not making presumptions about step parenting in general, I'm judging this particular step parenting situation. Hers was clearly not like yours as she did a lot of the parenting of the step child before having her own child, which you don't; so she had already broken that barrier between them, and allowed herself to be put into a situation where she did the majority of the care work. That was never going to change after giving birth, he was not going to step up as he's never had to, and as she made the decision to start the relationship that way with a 3 year old child that makes her shitty for just dumping the relationship when the child is 9 because she made a dumb decision about who to have a baby with as an adult.

Different step parenting situations don't really come into it. If their set up isn't like that, then it's not the same thing. And as I said, in the end the buck stops with him as he's the dad. The OP can't really do anything about the SM being a crappy one, there's no law preventing that.

Dumped the relationship? Absolutely no evidence of that. The only examples are not changing the bedding, not taking her on holiday, not buying presents and not having her parents take the SD for sleep overs.

None of that even so much as suggests she is ignoring the child, not being a friendly adult etc.

You've made that assumption and decided she's a "crappy" step parent.

Wow @GeekyThings Big leap to describe SM as 'a crappy one'. Really harsh. You've written posts about every situation being different but you now seem very specific on what this particular SM should and shouldn't be doing.

No one has denied the change is unhelpful to DSD. But even the OP doesn't know why the SM has changed her apporach. She may have just stepped back. She may have PND. We don't know.

The OP and the OP's ex made an adult, informed decision to split up. This comes with the risk on both sides of introducing step-parents that are absolutely not the choice of the non-choosing parent! They are the parents with the lived experience of being parents. The SM was childfree, and her choices, although adult, were far less informed than those of the actual parents. Into her life come her new, unknown partner, his unknown children and his unknown ex. Far more variables than OP is contending with here. So cut her a little slack for that.

Society (and MN) have done a pretty effective job in the past of silencing SMs so that young women take on this role without a clue of the shitstorm that awaits them. Nor has there been consistent advice on good practice, outside specialist psychologists' offices. Most young working, childless women take on this role not realizing that the children coming into their home are often significantly traumatized by the parental split. Their focus has been on work, and rarely would they consider hanging out on MN as a source of step-parenting advice, early doors. So their grounding is completely different to that of a women contemplating then planning pregnancy, who may be on MN most nights for a year or two before their child arrives in their home.

SM may be completely suckered in to doing loads of childcare, swallowing the DP's 'must love them like your own' mantra as if it was gospel truth. She may be much younger than DP, with a real old fashioned power dynamic in flow. Unlike the mothers like GeekyThings above, she had never given birth before, had a caesarian, breastfed on demand, been up every night etc etc. All this is brand new. So while GeekyThings can take a 2nd child (of her own, note) in her stride because it is all familiar territory, the same absolutely is not the case for SM. All this huge new change of life - while trying to keep DP's ex and child happy at the same time.

Frequently SM's first maternity leave is sequestered by DP and ex as free childcare for their own children, putting the health and well-being of the new baby as lowest priority.

If SM manages to stand up to the pressure and coercion, and push back on DP to involve himself in his older children's well-being, jolly good for her in my book!

It's hard because when a baby comes older children suddenly seem so old.

My eldest was 7 when my youngest was born and we've always treated him as a lot older than the youngest one. My youngest is now 12 and I think he is still so young as the others are almost fully grown but remember when my eldest was that age, we thought he was almost an adult.

And even if they are all your children, it is difficult to find stuff that a 3 year old and a 9 year old will enjoy.

In a few years time your daughter will be more interested in being with her friends than her parents so tell your ex that he needs to make more of an effort during these next few years.

And speak to your daughter and tell her that it isn't favouritism it is just that she's older and more capable so she should be doing more stuff for herself, just like her little brother will when he gets to that age.

I’m still not seeing how the stepmother has massively changed. She’s never acted as childcare or as a stay at home mother for the stepchild, she’s never taken her on holiday one on one, and her parents whilst welcoming and kind have not acted as grandparents. So what is she doing differently in regards to the daughter, exactly?

She’s not making beds and buying Father’s Day gifts anymore, but the daughter is no longer six. What you would do on behalf of a six year old is different to what you would do on behalf of a nine year old. On those points, it sounds like the stepmother has backed off because it’s age appropriate.

Wow, what a thought provoking post! I’ve got a lot of experience of blended families of every variety imaginable. The youngest stepmother I’ve known was 21 when she became one and I knew her very well.

But your post has given me so much more insight about how it may be for her, especially at the beginning. Thank you for this

I’m still not seeing how the stepmother has massively changed. She’s never acted as childcare or as a stay at home mother for the stepchild, she’s never taken her on holiday one on one, and her parents whilst welcoming and kind have not acted as grandparents. So what is she doing differently in regards to the daughter, exactly?

I agree.
Why would she have been a SAHM to her dsc before her baby was born? I can OP being a bit irked by that to be honest. But now all of a sudden because she’s a SAHM to her own it’s seen as a snub against her dsc? She’s saving her husband lots of money in childcare for their shared child, which I presume is the goal. How she arranges her time is none of anyone’s business.

Similar with holidays. She never took dsc on holiday before her baby was born because she never thought of it to be a priority I guess. I assume she knew dsc have OP for that. But now she wants to do lovely things with her own. It’s a different relationship and of course she will want to have these memories with her little one.

SM’s parents have always been fond of OP’s child and been warm and welcoming, but they’ve really got stuck in with their grandchild.

The first post by OP said that her daughter’s step mother did used to take her places just the two of them. She didn’t do regular child care but did sometimes help out. All of this has changed, it’s not something a 9 year old has made up.

Dumped the relationship? Absolutely no evidence of that. The only examples are not changing the bedding, not taking her on holiday, not buying presents and not having her parents take the SD for sleep overs.

You're selectively ignoring the fact that the OP said - twice - that the SM would take her SD out and do things just the two of them pre the half-sibling being born.

I agree though that saying the SM dumped the relationship may be too harsh, we don't know enough, we can just go by what the OP says. The important thing is that the SD feels rejected.

When my first child was born, I couldn't always do the same things with DSD that I could before but I explained that to her and did other things with her. Like a movie night together or taking her for an ice cream while DH watched the baby. I did this because I had a bond with my DSD, wanted to spend time with her, and she was a child.

We all know that older siblings can suffer or feel left out when a new child is born, just because a child is a half-sibling and you as a mother don't have a biological relationship to your step-child doesn't and shouldn't mean any empathy and consideration you had for them stops, especially if they're living with you at least half the week.

Yes, I see that, just not seeing how it’s particularly significant when considering the main sticking points seem to be the holiday situation, and the cleaning of the room. The former may stand in contrast to what happened in the past, but in reality it isn’t anything different to what the sd was already used to. Her stepmother hasn’t stopped taking her own holiday, because she never did that. Same with the sleepovers. The cleaning of the room again, is an age appropriate change. The issue doesn’t seem to be that she’s treating the daughter in a radically different way, but that she’s treating her son as what he is, her actual child.

The stepmother would take the daughter out one on one when she wasn’t busy looking after her own child, and provided care occasionally to help out when she was available. She’s no longer available.

I’m just not seeing this massive change and rejection that’s perceived to have happened. A dynamic shift upon the birth of the stepmothers child, yes, but I don’t see any suggestion that the stepmother isn’t treating her kindly or welcoming her when she’s there.

@Catfordthefifth* Dumped the relationship? Absolutely no evidence of that. The only examples are not changing the bedding, not taking her on holiday, not buying presents and not having her parents take the SD for sleep overs.

None of that even so much as suggests she is ignoring the child, not being a friendly adult etc.

You've made that assumption and decided she's a "crappy" step parent.*

What, like you've assumed and decided (with no evidence) that the dad is lazy and leaves all the parenting to the sm??

There is plenty of evidence!

This is the main evidence we have about the Dad:

He was an okay partner. A bit lazy but certainly not the worst. I don't feel like he does enough with DD in terms of spending quality time with her but then I suppose not everyone prioritises that on weekends and things. We share custody 50:50.

None of that is evidence he leaves all of the parenting to the SM. The OP said he was a bit lazy but not the worst, ie not categorically lazy.

“I don’t feel like he does enough with DD in terms of spending quality time with her”

It’s right there. He’s the one that needs to step up to make her feel more included, it’s not for the stepmother to do that in his stead.

Yep. This. Let's face it she's not done it for any other reason. If he was a wonderful involved she would never have done any of it because she'd never have had the opportunity to.

Again, you're making wild assumptions that the empathy and consideration has stopped. We don't know that. I'd hazard a guess it probably hasn't.

Of course she could have done it for other reasons. Because she wanted to.
And yes of course she would have had the opportunity to - she need only say DH, do you mind if I take SD out for 1.5 hours to do something together that we want to do that you don't? That would still have left a lot of hours in the day for the DH to do things. I know that's possible because I did it.

The DH not spending enough quality time with his daughter is a separate issue to the daughter feeling rejected by the SM and as if the SM isn't spending any time with her.

And you are mistaking a generic comment for a specific one again.

It's very clear I'm talking generally in this comment, not about this instance.

I even said that saying the SM has dumped the relationship may be too harsh because we don't know.

Tbh it sounds more that the lack of quality of time she was having with her parent wasn’t so apparent before it stood in stark contrast to the stepmother being an involved parent to her son.

Instead of expecting stepmother to compensate for this, take it up with the person that should be stepping up for his daughter: her father.

Regardless of who should be stepping up for the OP's daughter - and I agree that it should be the father and the OP - the fact is that the daughter feels rejected by her SM and is upset by that. That is something that is worth raising tactfully with the father because it could be easily remedied by a chat between the SM and the child. The SM may not have meant to give that impression and could speak to the 9 year old about it. Doesn't mean she should or would then start taking her out, but they may be able to spend 30 mins watching a tv programme together or something and that may be all the daughter needs to feel that she still has a bond with her SM

But then that’s putting the blame on the stepmother, as well as the onus on her to right it, when she’s not actually done anything wrong. If OP feels she should address it, it would arguably be better for OP to speak to her ex about the DD needing to find her feet in the new family step up, rather than singling the stepmother out and likely being met with hostility.

Equally, OP needs to manage her daughter’s expectations. The relationship the DD has with the stepmother will never be the same as the one the stepmother has with her son, and that can be gently explained to the SD in an age appropriate way.

It’s not putting the blame on the stepmother if you don’t phrase it like that! PPs gave some great advice about how to word it when speaking to the ex.

Most reasonable people would have sympathy for a child if told that child feels you no longer care about them any more since having your own child.

As for her “not doing anything wrong”, you don’t know that for a fact. It sounds like she may have done something wrong, knowingly or unknowingly. The majority of people think the OP isn’t being unreasonable.