AIBU to think there is rarely anything good about being a step parent?

[PorkyPINE1]

From reading here and my own experience, I am yet to really be able to name any upside to having stepchildren. Aside from obviously being with the man I want to be with, I feel like there isn't anything I can name about being a step parent that isn't hard work / a compromise / a positive experience.

Not looking for sympathy by the way, I obviously chose this situation. Just pondering after a read on here this morning!

I imagine a lot of posters here are ex-wives that have been left for OW and are now seething

My first H has remarried, I don't know a lot about her except that my son likes her (more than he likes his dad) - and she tries to include him when she can

She is kind to him. Cooks for him, washes his clothes, makes sure he's content etc. keeps a clean and welcoming home. That's all that is important

She has her own children too, including a toddler

As long as she's kind to him and looks after him when he's under her supervision? As all SPs should - excellent

Would she stand on him to reach her toddler? I'd imagine so

I might not love my own SS, but he is safe here

People not agreeing with you is winding you so you start taking the piss out of people who don't think the same way.

I imagine a lot of posters here are ex-wives that have been left for OW and are now seething

Not at all. Still with dh and dc together but I find the human shield lines and not save in a fire posts quite something.

Nope. Never been left for another woman.

You are coming across as really strange.

Children don't belong to anyone. If ever a sentence summed up someone's attitude to children in their lives, this is it.

As an adopted baby will I be stepped on in a fire to save my siblings. There's no genetic link so I'm assuming I'm for the squashing under foot.

Most of these threads seem to hate them and see them as nothing but a hindrance. Just like the OP.

Stepdads can be amazing. Often fulfilling the role left by deadbeat fathers.

It's a win win in our case. Dc have a fantastic male role model and he has got the love of children he otherwise probably wouldn't have had.

This always comes up on these threads and I just don't think, for me anyway, it's a comparative argument.

My step children aren't my children, not because they aren't biologically related to me although that is of course true, but simply because they are just not my children in any way. They have a mother, I am not her. We do not have the mother to child bond or love. An adopted child is still your child in a way that SC are not and to compare the two is just silly imo.

The children never chose the situation, the bio parents are often still at war and the children are being weaponised, the children are insecure and can play up against the step parent, the non resident parent is often trying to appease and doesn't want to set boundaries that the step parent thinks are reasonable, the children might play parents off against each other, children and step parent competing for attention, financial pressures and resentment, bio parent resenting any other parental influence, new half siblings either side, step siblings sharing space. Add the real challenges of raising children that we face anyway, and it's not hard to see it's challenging for anyone.
I can see how you wouldn't think it is worth it as a step parent. Especially as a childless one going into the relationship.

What a depressing, horrible thread. Seriously. Step-kids don’t ask for their families to implode. They don’t get to choose their new families. They don’t choose to be replaced with shiny new kids. They have to lump it.

You, the adults, make all the choices and then gleefully share how fine you’d be stepping over them/on them/using them as a human shield.

Can you imagine how they would feel reading all this? What the fuck is the point of it except to make other people feel shit?

Agreed. Disgusting comments. Smacks of a personality disorder of some sort perhaps.

I know someone who would disagree with you there but I think she has it easy. Had her own adult son who is early twenties, met someone who had a very adaptable and sociable son of 7 years old who liked her immediately. She and her partner both have a lot of money so able to spoil him a lot. They don't live together also so all of that helps.
I think it's a lot harder when the kids are young and close in age as well as living permanently together.

My stepmother has been in my life for a couple of decades and she's great. I've never felt unfairly treated compared to her children who are my (half) siblings. I actually prefer spending time with her more than I do with my dad.

Try telling that to my granny who left all her inheritance to her four biological children and not what we thought were her five grandchildren.
You make arguments about biological links and not the nurturing of children in your care being the over riding consideration on saving your children, as you have done, then say those of us who have no biological links are being silly wondering if it applies to us, is disingenuous at best, and dam right insulting at worst.
Your real issue is very clear from your posts. Your step children have a biological mother and you resent the time and money and effort you are having to put in as a step mother because it's her responsibility. Well you married their father, unfortunately for them. So you have a role and responsibilities which you chose. None of the children did. This view is blatant when you say it's different for adoptees because they don't have a mother. Well some do have biological mothers, some are fostered before, some are adopted further on in life etc etc.
If it always comes up as you say, then maybe, just maybe, there is some validity in this view, that some adoptees might hold.

I am a step child and a step mum. My step mum is brilliant but I think the fact our mum had died made it sooo much easier. Most of my DSC issues are caused by their awful mother.

?? But it would be yours and your husbands money, so why shouldn’t they receive even a 3rd of the amount their siblings get, when it is partially their dads money?

I'm happily married to my kids' dad so speaking from total naivety, but I like kids in general and can imagine loving a child who isn't mine biologically but I helped parent. I was a nanny for a while and really, really cared for the children.

It does sound like it can be difficult to navigate, though.

@Jazzappledelish Wow, now I understand exactly why my stepfather hated me so much. Must have been awful for him having to have me there at Christmas and holidays. And sharing a bathroom with me. Ugh, he must have hated the sight of me. Thank god he kicked out of the family home and turned all my family against me at the age of 16 so he would never have to endure the sight and sound of me again.

Kicked ME

YANBU you only need to read the stepparenting board to come to that conclusion. I would never do it and I also wouldn’t do it to my children. Plus when their own children come along the resentment about not having a self contained family is exacerbated. Awful situations all round I know several blended families which only intensify my feelings it rarely works out and certainly not for the kids.

I actually grew up thinking he was my dad. I just thought there was something seriously wrong with me and it was my fault he hated me. That I was hideous and unlovable. I still think that at the age of 46.
Flippant comments can be devastating.

after a bad experience with ds1 and step parent I’d never subject DS2 and DD to a step parent. At 15 & 18 it won’t happen now, not one that will live with them. Their dad who was not a great step parent to my son is now about to embark on a blended family for the time they spent at this house, bringing a 15yr old boy into a home where his DD (15) lives half the week. A boy she barely knows, having met him twice as he’s coming from overseas, his dad met his mum when working abroad. My home will be their sanctuary where no step parent will make them feel like a spare part in their own home.

Would I be a step parent myself? Maybe, I think I’d do a much better job at it then my ex did. I’m not under estimating how tough it can be though. But I wouldn’t subject my own kids to it.

Wow actually wish I had never clicked on this thread. Some of you people are VILE.