Being a step-mother

[VestibuleVirgin]

It used to recieved wisdom that it was pretty much always the man who would reject a woman's existing children if he remarried
Today, from the threads here, it's the women who absolutely viscerally hate their DPs or DHs children from a previous relationship.
From not taking them out with 'their birth DCs' (i.e leaving them behind), through not wanting to provide any care for them at their 'too frequent' access visits, and not wanting DH to spend to spend time with them, to hysteria that they must 'not be entitled to any of MY money when I die because their real mum will provde'...
Is it because you think the mother of the kids has some hold over you DH/P?
Is it because you would rather neither you nor your oh had any remider of his past life?
Many male animals kill the offspring of the previous male they have conquered.
Here, it seems like many of you would be happy if your DSC didn't exist!

You're really fucking angry OP. Maybe take a chill pill or something.

I agree being a SM sounds awful. Plenty of the work, and none of the thanks and love.
I'm a single mother by choice to 3 DC, but I won't be dating anyone until my kids are in at least their mid teens, because I don't think it would be fair on them.

I don't think there's anything goady or angry about OP; she's asking a reasonable question based on the threads she's been reading, tho' as PP have said, people tend to start threads when they are in particular situations. I can't relate to most of them as the someone is being so completely unreasonable most of the time.

What you see on the threads is step mums that are struggling and have reached a point where they need some support. It's a hard task, I never ever expected the cute 6 year old to steal from me repeatedly, lie almost daily, both to us and about us and break mine and my daughters things deliberately. Add into that an ex who has been awful from the start and I would say that on occasions I need support, I need some where to rant and let off steam just as I do my own children some times. But this is a snapshot of time and wouldn't reflect the happy weekends or holidays we've shared or the parents evening I've never missed ( mum won't go) or the help I give her dad navigating a teenage girl with trendy clothes and makeup.

My husband will also have times where my children are driving him mad and I recognise that and plan some weekends out to give him much needed space. They aren't his children, she isn't mine and with that we don't share biological feelings towards them and that's ok. To just start another thread (second this week I think) bashing stepmums who are doing their best is another inbuilt prejudice that feeds into society and into young people who then have a bias that all stepmums are wicked and out to steal their Dad. It's untrue, it's unhelpful and is hurtful to many of us.

There's a book I often see recommended on here called "Stepmonster" it's worth picking up if you're interested in the history and psychology of being a stepmother. And it is primarily about step mothers. Personally I think its an underappreciated and under discussed role in our society

Today, from the threads here, it's the women who absolutely viscerally hate their DPs or DHs children from a previous relationship.

What a crock of shit, I’ve never seen this visceral hate and I’ve never been a step-mum. And you know it, OP, because you’ve disabled voting.

I spend a lot of time on MN and for every 1 unreasonable step-mum, there are 9 first wives or men who are unreasonable in their expectations of a step-mum.

I’ve seen you on various threads, you are the variety of poster who uses misogynistic words like ‘hysteria’ and who thinks step-mums should only exist to serve the needs of their step-children, above their own needs and the needs of their bio children, whilst the actual parents get a free pass to prioritise their jobs or social lives.

@VestibuleVirgin shall we wait till you have your own step children and then we can talk? I’m not condoning bad behaviour, but it seems to me you’re talking from a child’s perspective, not an adult’s, your blame is misplaced. And there is an awful lot to understand when you’re the grown up.
The children are not the step mother’s children. They have their own parents. And it’s the parents’ responsibility to look after their own children.
I’m a mother and I have common sense and good morals, I’d like to think. DP has a preteen and acts as if parenting is a hobby. So rather than, yet again, ruining my day off (because he hasn’t thought what he’s going to feed her and it’s way past her meal time/it’s raining and she needs her coat/she is bored etc), I’ll make my own plans and leave them to it. Doesn’t mean I dislike the child, it just means I’m not her mother. Like with any of my friends’ children, I’m happy to adjust my expectations, but I’m not going to parent them.
Are you telling me that because I’m in a relationship with her dad I should automatically mother his child?

Being a step mother (presumably also a step dad but I don't have that experience) is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

In a nutshell, you have to love children "like they're your own" but maintain many, constantly moving, variable boundaries because you must remember that they are not your own.

It's incredibly difficult, and that's if all the parents get on well. It requires an astronomical amount of emotional maturity and patience to navigate and maintain any sanity and sense of self.

The difficulties of being a stepmother seem fairly obvious to me. Yes, it's a tough line to walk to be a semi-parental figure with no established boundaries. But the bottom line is that you do have to provide love and care to children you play a role in raising, and you shouldn't show favouritism to some children in the household (ie your bio ones) over others. That's all basic, non-negotiable stuff.

If you don't feel you can do that, that's fine. There's an easy solution. Don't get involved with men who already have children if you're not cut out to help raise them.

I have never wanted to play any role in raising children and found filtering out fathers to be extremely simple. It baffles me that anyone can't manage that.

How can you be only semi parental and at the same time treat them exactly the same and show them the same love as your own kids?
Does that mean "semi parental" is, in truth, unacceptable?
Or does that mean that you have to hold back on your own kids?
Not being goady, just trying to understand where the line is.
My DSDs mum would lose her mind if I genuinely started treating her child exactly as if she were my own. Not to mention how perturbed DSD herself would feel.

See @gannett you can't figure it out either. You can't be semi parental with step children but then have all children (bio and step) on a par with everything. Are we 'semi parenting' bio kids too then? Who picks up the other bit? Nobody knows because it's a fucking hard job.

I didn't say bad. I didn't say it wasn't worth it. I said it was hard.

The line has to be negotiated based on ages, the other parent's involvement, logistics... it's not be the same in every case. If the other parent is absent, the step-parent may need to take over the role of parent fully, in a way that would be inappropriate if the other parent lived two doors down and was still involved.

I think a lot of the threads on MN, where a step-parent wants to exclude her step-children from her "little family", arealso quite obviously egregious and damaging, but those posters always seem to get a lot of support along the lines of "they're not your responsibility".

I do acknowledge it's difficult! Really difficult. But no one is forced to be a step-parent, you choose to become one. That means you're signing up for that difficulty.

I think in most cases its actually misplaced resentment towards their partner for shirking his responsibilities.
I'd say most relationships with children end becuase of the fathers behaviour being so unbearable. I don't know many women would rather be a single mother than be a part of a good two parent household. It takes alot for a woman to break up her young children's home. (In most cases imo)

So you have a man that doesn't want to look after his kids but has to see his kids. And reels in his new partner to look after them. She resents how much she has to do for the kids and how bad their behaviour is (becuase of inconsistent Disney dad over here) but directs that bitterness at the kids rather that her partner becuase it's easier.

Some of the batshit anti-step mum threads I recall:

• a step-mum who who wanted to take her baby on holiday on her maternity leave with her mum. Some posters castigated her for going on holiday without her DSC, even though their dad wasn’t going
• a step-mum who wanted to take her 11yo DD and dd’s friend to Rome and the ex said OP should be taking 15yo DSD, not the friend, even though their dad wasn’t going
• a step-mum whose husband was going on a work trip and the ex wanted OP to have her DSC to stay the week even though it was mum’s contact time.
• a step-mum who had been doing school pick-ups and drop offs for DSC for a year but her work meant she couldn’t do them anymore without stress and the mum AND the DH castigated her.

There are so many more, I could be here all day.

I interpreted the semi parenting to mean you have to do parental things like provide safety, food, wash clothes etc, be considerate and make sacrifices and adjust your life but then also have understand ultimately you have no say and have to step back for things like decisions about schools, parents evenings, graduation etc

@BuddhaAtSea shall we wait till you have your own step children and then we can talk? I’m not condoning bad behaviour, but it seems to me you’re talking from a child’s perspective, not an adult’s, your blame is misplaced. And there is an awful lot to understand when you’re the grown up.

How very patronising of you. I am not blaming anyone - I am asking a question based on my observations (as an old adult!) to the posts I have seen regarding step-children on AIBU.
You have no idea what happened to me as a child, but just to say, apart from you have no right to assume, it had it's ups and downs, but I didn't get the feeling of being 'other' as step-mother was a caring towards our family as to hers

Right. So all of the many, many posts boldy stating that things "must done exactly this way" are a lot of crap because the people, relationships and circumstances of each family are unique to them.
Which is what I've argued on the SP board for years.
I don't share many of these "difficulties" myself because my DH and his ex are more than capable of parenting their own child. I'm very much on the subs bench.
I certainly didn't sign up for the bullshit that so many posters like to insist I signed up for.

But surely the dad should do those things. A vagina doesn’t make a step-mum more capable of washing clothes and cooking.

The issue is you and others expect the sacrifices from the step-mum and not the actual parents, as a punishment for marrying a man with dc.

@Untethered I am not sure where I stated I expect anything from anyone.

Yes technically it is the father's responsibility but in real life a human being with a child living and being in their home/part of their life does these things out of love, duty, responsibility and because things like family holidays involve everyone.

You form a bond and a relationship with the child and with that it becomes emotional, frankly if someone didn't I would find that to be incredibly worrying and sad and is untypical of my direct and indirect experiences of step parenting/ families.

I can't really think of many step parenting threads here where I disagree with the OP.

Most of the time, in fact probably 99% ot the time, the underlying issue is a lazy parent who expects their partner to deal with the parenting of their children. Why would anyone be happy with that?

I have DSC, I like them, we get on well. But no I have no desire to take on all of their care or leave to them equally in my will when they have two parents who can do that for them, no desire to do school runs because neither parent can be arsed arranging their work around their own children, or being told I can never go anywhere with my own children without also including DSC every time or however many more of the examples we always see on here.

And I think it's just a reality that if they were honest MOST step parents would find life easier if their DSC didn't exist. I don't think a lot of the time that's down to the children themselves, just the general stresses of a blended family, disney parenting, exes always there in your business etc..

Knowing what I know from having DSC myself, if I could go back in time I'd never have touched a man with children with a barge pole and I'd hate for my own children to have a step parent too. But here we are so we make the best of it.

And no, I don't love them certainly not like my own, not even close 🤷‍♀️ I think that's a ridiculous expectation to have of someone who isn't your child's parent.

So even though they’re the father’s responsibility, the step-mum should do them out of love, duty and responsibility?

My DD got flowers and a lovely card on Mothers Day from her now adult DSC. She’s never ‘mothered’ them, but they have always got on well. Probably because DSIL and his ex have always been responsible parents. They have always been welcomed, they’re adored by their younger stepsibling. So much depends on the individuals involved.

What nonsense are you talking?!
What happened to try to dispel this trope for decades? What was this window in which it worked?! Did we all stop reading Cinderella and Snow White from 1940-1990 or something? 🤣

This is a predominantly female site: that’s why you see more stepmothers posting than stepfathers.
It’s also a site where you post if you have an issue, not when it’s all roses.

Please do send links to these posts I've written which contain the word hysteria and/or where I think step-mums only exists to serve the needs of their SC
"I’ve seen you on various threads, you are the variety of poster..." 😂😃😆
I think the word you are looking for is type rather than variety.