To think MN is horrible about blended families?

[kungfullama]

I've seen so many posts recently that just leads to think MN sees blended families as second class somehow.

Threads where ex wives are behaving horribly and withholding contact but are being defended because 'they were left' so somehow have the right to pass their bitterness onto their kids.

Posters screaming LTB at the slightest bit of conflict between dc and stepparents as if conflict doesn't ever occur in traditional families too.

Insinuating that new partners are just flash in the pan 'boyfriends' even when the relationship is long term or they're married.

Blended families can be complicated and the dynamics might be slightly different. But I know for a fact my dc lives are so much better with their bio parents apart and made considerably richer with the involvement of their two loving stepparents. I don't see us as being lesser than a traditional family. Not sure why others do.

So if someone offered to add £40k a year to your household income, but in exchange a man and a child are going to move in to the house, and you don't have any say in who he is, and you can't leave the house for 10 years and you can't make him leave, are you saying yes?

You're just being silly now.
Clearly the additional adult support and income in a two parent household Vs a one parent is a small part of a larger complex issue.
Same as people in bio families.
I can also think of situations where people stay in an unhealthy bio family situation, because of the loss of lifestyle that a split would cause.
You frequently see threads where people are contemplating this.

That's a "no of course I bloody wouldn't" then. Thought so.

You are having a conversation with yourself here, which doesn't really relate to the thread or the points people are making.
I am going to leave you to your silliness.

She does have a point though.

The only plus side to many of the children in extra income in the house.

The trade off though is a strange man/women moving in with their children who again are strangers really and then maybe even a new baby or two.

Up thread a women posted how one her step dad and step brothers move in she was never comfortable enough to have a pj day or pj movie and pop corn because of the strange males in her home. The step brother with digestive issues just wanting to be away from the strangers again.

So many of those child would have rather eaten only beans on toast forever than of lived with these strangers.

As an adult you get to say no I’m not sharing a bedroom or a house with some random friend of a friends. As a child they don’t get that choice.

so would you live with a random man and his kid for an extra £40k a year into your house, you don’t get to pick where it’s spent though but it should help, is a valid question. Because that’s what parents are asking their children to do when they blend families.

I've been the dc. Was awful. Everyone suddenly om their best behaviour. Your home no longer your home. Couldn't wait to leave

It's so wrong that so many kids are forced to share their bedroom with a strange man/womans children and have no choice whatsoever.

I often think WTF! when I read a poster naively writing 'my DS/DD shares with DSS/DSD for 50% of the time, we're a happily blended family!' and then go on to state how their child is misbehaving at school or is being moody or upset and wonders why!!

Then spends pages and pages trying to convince everyone themselves that their partner is a good parent and a happy addition to their children's lives and how the kids will be grown up and gone soon anyway and what are they supposed to do, stay single??

The old trope of 'well if they had siblings they'd have to share' is always trotted out. The difference is the siblings would be ones they'd grown up with and were very familiar with, not random resentful kids! I think people willfully miss that point.

I feel so desperately sorry for kids having strangers forced on them with no say and their parent refusing to consider that they're doing anything wrong.

There is no need to force kids into sharing rooms with strangers just so you can have a relationship or more kids. Just wait until they're gone and parent the kids you already do have! not hard to put your kids first. The world would be a much better place all round if more parents did this.

I think that's more likely to be the case when the children are teens when it happens. I know several blended families where the families blended when the children were toddlers and there's no differentiation between biokids and stepkids and home is just home. There's also situations where the Dad goes awol (or as good as) and the stepdad becomes Dad to all intents and purposes. If you didn't ask, you wouldn't know which kids were "his" and which ones went off for a few hours to see their "Dad" 3 times a year.

I find it really odd that you would describe someone who has been part of your life long enough to move in as a "stranger".

I've often thought that I prefer neutral strangers to my step relations! If either of my biological parents died, I'd probably have next to no contact with my step parents who I have known for decades. As a PP described, we just exist in the same space (although thankfully I no longer live with them).

Your parent might of known them 6 years. You might of met them 6 months ago. Thats moving in a stranger to the child, their children who they have likely met less. Stranger.

And just because you then share a house doesn’t mean you will form a connection and bond they could basically still be strangers. Look at house shares and rent a room. Living in the same building doesn’t make you family or even friends.

One of the things that has kept coming up on this thread is 'belonging'. I don't 'belong' to my step relations in the way I belong to my biological family. If you looked at my very big, very complicated family, and if you could see the threads of affection and belonging between us all, you'd see that they vary enormously. If you're not an experienced step kid, it's very difficult to describe.

How I would like to experience just being part of a family that all belongs together and feels more or less equal affection and belonging between them all!

Yes yes!!

I didn’t belong at home, because that home belonged to what felt like my half siblings family. I was a mere guest in their family. Even though it was my resident home!

Hilariously the golden together child is pretty much low contact themselves. Birthday Christmas Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is all they do.

I think part of the issue is that children are offen dealing with more than one blended family at once these days.

If parents divorce and remarry they tend to look for people like them I.e. people with kids already. Those step siblings are probably going back and forward between other blended families too. So things get very complicated. There ends up being so many people involved all with different rules, expectations preferences etc.

You can't answer the question because you know it'd be damning to your argument.

And going back to the strangers thing. When you first meet a parent's partner, you will probably do mostly fun things. Go out to dinner, ride bikes, picnics, visit the beach, meet their pets, watch a movie. The children might be fine with all that. It doesn't mean they are ready to live with the individual! The average child probably has good memories of doing fun things with the staff at Brownies or Scouts. But they don't want to live with them!

@sunshine244 Yes, that was my experience (multiple step and half relations in multiple family set ups as my parent's had more than one marriage break down). It is complicated. I ended up feeling like the only constant in my life because no other member of my family had the same family as me.

I don't consider someone you've seen regularly for 6 months to be a stranger.

I definitely wouldn't wait 5 years to introduce a partner to my kids if I was ever in that position anyway. The relationship would not get serious until I'd seen how they got on.

There's a big difference between a house share and a family. In one, you eat together, chat together, socialise together in communal areas and go out as a family to places. In the other, you are all preparing your own food and spending your time in your bedroom.

PP's point about belonging is interesting, but I'm not sure its universal. SD refers to us as Mum and Dad when she's here and does the same with her Mum and Stepdad. As in, she calls me by my name, but if she gets invited somewhere she'll say, "I'll just ask my Mum," or whatever. She knows she can come to us with any of the same things she'd go to her Mum with, her Dad was the first person she told when she started her periods, I was the one who checked in to make sure she had everything she needed. I was the one who suspected she might have ADHD and her Dad and I organised and paid for a private diagnosis, her Mum took her to the follow up appointments to review her medication and got the case referred to the NHS. There's nothing I'd do for DD which I wouldn't do for SD (except breastfeed and bedshare), I've nit-combed her hair, brushed her teeth, picked up her underwear off the floor, put her back to bed after a nightmare, in the exact same way since she was little.

I posted the comment that this was all related to. I was 8 when I was introduced to my step siblings, and we moved in together 2 1/2 years later. It’ll have been a good 2-3 years after that that my stepbrother begged my stepmam home, because his ibs had flared up really badly.
You’re obviously right, we weren’t strangers. He was as related to me as I am by husbands parents or siblings. But even now, having been with my husband for 17 years, and genuinely lovely his family (i feel far closer to them than I ever did my step siblings), I would still be REALLY uncountable knowing I was basically uncontrollably soiling myself with my mother-in-law in the next room. But my stepbrother had no choice.

Hold on, on the step parents thread the SP is often advised to ring fence their income?

a few weeks back there was a thread about the FH paying more of the shopping and utility bills to cover what the DSC used.

Then the advice to not pay more for holidays/dinners or contribute to uniform etc

but now you are saying SP should pay some of the DSC costs?

@MrsSunshine2b No, I agree, my comments about belonging won't be universal to everyone. A lot will depend on the personalities and the experiences of those involved and also the power dynamics - power matters a lot in step families. Does the child believe their parent has sufficient power (and will) to protect them if need be and trust them to do that? The answer to that question will have a big impact.

I said earlier, I have known some stepfamlies which worked. And I admire those who make good step parents, it really isn't easy. But then I don't think any of the roles within a stepfamily are automatically easy. It takes immense emotional intelligence and good leadership from the biological parent to make it work.

Are you under the impression that I made the posts you are referring to?
I don't agree with ring fencing money in that way.
You plan it as a family (accounting for maintenance going in/out, time at the other parents etc).
Have you responded to the right comment?

Yes, that makes sense, but honestly, I'd feel embarrassed if that was my own Mum. I suppose different people have different comfort levels. We're in a different situation slightly as I didn't have my own children when I met DH and the only extra child is the one we had together. DD is still at the age of happily running around naked until you force her into clothes.

@MrsSunshine2b

I find it really odd that you would describe someone who has been part of your life long enough to move in as a "stranger".

tbf, DSC are often referred to as someone else’s children even though the person writing it CHOSE to be in a partnership with their parents…

I think that's correct, SD is not my child. I don't have parental responsibility or rights. For example, when I thought her school was not providing for her needs adequately, I voiced my opinions to DH but it wasn't for me to try to force that opinion, her parents had the right to make that decision. I wouldn't have taken SD to get her ears pierced. The role of step-parent is to be a supportive, caring adult that your SKs trust and can turn to. It might be to take on some of the tasks of parenthood, like the school run and personal care. It's not to be a parent.

If someone I loved and trusted chose who the man and his child were then yes. Apologies if that ruins your narrative. That DID happen to me - on both sides - but I loved and trusted my mum and I loved and trusted my dad and the people they chose (who I didn't have any say over) became and still are beloved and precious members of my family. And their children. I idolised my older Ssis and doted on my two younger Sbrothers.

Children have very little say over what happens in life in general, that's what their parents are for. If yours made poor decisions then be angry at them, not PPs here whose situation you know very little about.

Your experience was obviously a negative one, but stop trying to make everyone's so.