Why do SMs seem to struggle more than SDs?

[Dahliass]

My own family is blended my eldest sister is my half sister. She's has contact with her bio dad but closer to dad. My dad has never treated her any differently in fact he babysits her DC more they live closer etc. My friends DH frequently babysits her daughter , drops her off at school etc. My friend complains when his DD comes to stay infrequently says she's lazy etc. I'm wondering why a lot of women find it more difficult being a SM is it a resource guarding , evolutionary thing ?

Do men accept the situation more easily ?

It's often because of external expectations. As a stepmum I bumble through life perfectly fine with my DSC's. My husband is fine with our relationship. But he doesn't expect me to do any chores etc or "treat them as my own". If he did that is where conflict would occur. Their mum however expects me to pay for them, and buy them essential school equipment but if I do anything "nice" or fun for them she complains. Society expects me to both mother them and not mother them. Society just praises stepdads for being there and not being abusive.

I don't think.you can make such a generalisation based on your own anecdotal evidence🙄

This has been covered lots of times on here, you can probably find similar threads if you search. For me there are two keen reasons.

1. Expectations of men are lower. Women often end up resentful because they are left cleaning up any mess, expected to do childcare etc, whilst men are just sort of there.

2. Women are normally resident parents, so any SD getting involved would have to be alright with living with the kids full time. You'd be less likely to do that if you had reservations, and more likely to stick it out if the kids were only there occasionally.

It’s different expectations and different levels of judgement. A good stepdad is often treated as some kind of hero, whereas a good step mum is, at best, seen as doing nothing more than the bare minimum. More usually she’ll be seen as someone who is “overstepping boundaries”.

Stepmums basically can’t win. Stepdads are heroes just for tolerating the kids 🤷🏻‍♀️

They struggle more because of a few different things really.

First of all they’re in a relationship with the dad. How many threads have we seen on here where the man isn’t pulling his weight and leaving her to parent his kids for him or isn’t doing his fair share of jobs around the house? Or pandering to his ex at the expense of his partner? Mums and stepdads always seem to be ticking along nicely as a team whereas dads seem to think they’ve found a nanny and cleaner.

The stepmum gets a lot more aggro from the ex wife than the stepdad does from the ex husband. The ex wife has a lot
more expectations of the stepmum and scrutinises what she does with her time a lot more than a dad would have the stepdad. Mums also ask for (demand) help from the stepmum when it’s the mum’s days to have her kids and if the stepmum doesn’t help her the mum has a big old sulk about it. Whereas the dad doesn’t really make any demands for help from the stepdad and even if he did, the mum would tell him where to go and to parent his kids. The dad would be less likely to give that sort of back up to his partner through fear of pissing his ex off.

Stepmums have to deal with in laws causing divides between the first and second children. Time and time again, the paternal grandparents favour their older grandchildren. The mum’s parents just would never ever do that, and even if they wanted to the mum would never allow her parents to treat her youngest like they don’t matter as much as her eldest. Dads just let it happen and this understandably leads to resentment on the stepmum’s part, seeing her child being ignored and treated less favourably. A stepmum doesn’t have to deal with stupid stuff like that.

Those are a few things anyway.

A stepDAD doesn’t have to deal with stupid stuff like that.

Because society holds women to much higher expectations. Therefore a SM is expected to put in far more effort than a SD. A mam can put in just slightly more than the bare minimum and be praised to the heavens for it.

Because men mostly always do less.

So a step dad lived with the children and basically acts like dad. He goes off to work, makes the appropriate noises when child shows them something they are proud of. Maybe a kick around in the garden if child likes that. You not just is dad in the house.

A step mum is expected to be mum but she can’t be mum/doesn’t want to be mum. Mum work is all the drudgery of parenting. The washing the cooking the cleaning. The sorting of presents etc while dad just is dad see step dad for being dad.

You do also obviously get some wicked stepmums the kind who are jealous of not being the first, the money spent outside of their household too. But mainly it’s down to having a shitty dad to start with.