Am I a bad mother for liking my step-daughter more

[Clariey]

Okay first of all, I want to clarify, I love my daughters more than I love anyone on this planet, that’s not what this is about.

Background, I have 2 daughters, they are 19 and 21. Lovely girls, both still live at home and I think like most families we have our issues but I love them deeply. As they have gotten older I’ve struggled at times with “liking” them, it’s tricky to explain, as they have all the traits one would want their child to have, they are kind and intelligent, they are funny and in every way I’m proud of them.
However there are traits they both have that sometimes irritate me, a lack of self-awareness, a desperate need to follow every trend and sometimes I feel they lack any originality and seem to be incapable of thinking truly for themselves. We can’t discuss politics as they just regurgitate opinions heard on social media, they pick holidays based on wherever some influencer has said is cool. It often feels like I could be talking to any late teen/early 20s girl. This frustrates me as I’ve always believed in the power of forming your own thoughts and opinions, I feel like this often what makes someone really interesting.

My step-daughter is 22, she moved in with us in September as she moved to the uk for her masters. I never really knew her before this, my husband and her mother were never a couple, she was raised by her mother in one country most of the year then spent summers with her dad in another. When she first moved in with us, I found her hard to read, intensely private and to be honest I didn’t really get her or like her. I loved her as an extension of my husband but didn’t really know her as an individual. Over the months I’ve gotten to know her and I have realised I really like her as a person. She doesn’t seem fussed by trends, not in a contrarian way where if something is trendy she must hate it, more in a I like what I like regardless of the popularity sense. She is incredibly intelligent, she reads books by authors I’ve never heard of, is capable of having meaningful conversations about most topics, from politics to feminism and history. She’s happy to have her view point challenged and her supporting arguments are never “such and such on TikTok said such and such”. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think she is perfect, I think she can be extremely cynical and seems to be permanently dissatisfied with the world.

Lately I’ve felt like I’d rather talk to my stepdaughter than my own children, not because I don’t love my children or enjoy their presence but I sometimes find their life boring. They surround themselves by people who are just like them, all caught up in a whirlwind of trends. Conversations quickly turn to arguments as they get defensive if I ever question a thought process (my theory here is they don’t have a thought process but rather they are regurgitating an opinion, they can’t defend it or talk about it in any real depth as it’s not their own).

On the flip, I feel like my step-daughter challenges me intellectually which I really enjoy. She teaches me things I never knew, has recommended some books to me which have left me feeling haunted and changed as a person. Equally she is receptive to criticism, she is open to discussing anything in depth and being challenged on her views and even conceding that her own opinions aren’t always correct. I know partially it is because she isn’t my daughter, we don’t have the same bond or relationship and probably look at each other more as equals than my own daughters and I do (I think they view me as past my best and a relic of the past while I often view them as naive and immature). Then there is the fact that my step-daughter grew up in a very different world to my own, learning about her childhood, her home city and her culture is all fascinating to me.

Last night I was chatting to my step-daughter and my own daughter wanted to change the topic to a date she had been on recently. I realised I felt a sense of dread at hearing about it as it’s always the same story with a different character. However when my step-daughter goes to share a story from a date she’s been on I am keen to listen, this is because she often has more profound views on the dates, her standards for men are higher and she’s attracted to more interesting people. I felt awful afterwards as in my mind my own children should be my priority, I should be grateful that they want to let me into their life and me being bored by it makes me feel like a bad mother, they are my own flesh and blood, how can I be anything but excited to hear what they have to share?

Now I can’t sleep, I feel like I’ve let my children down in some way, both by comparing them to my step-daughter when they are wonderful people in their own right but also by failing to instil some of these qualities in them.

Has anyone else ever felt like this? Am I awful and unreasonable for feeling this way?

There’s a better standard of education in a lot of European countries. Which produces more well rounded people. A sweeping statement but one which I have found to be largely true

No you’ve misunderstood. I agree with my daughters in principle I don’t agree with them being antisemitic.
Step daughter definitely knows more about the war and history than I do or my daughters do, she’s taken a keen interest in learning, even having learnt, she still admits she doesn’t know everything.

@Clariey My younger daughter has said she finds step-daughter quite pretentious but then she is Italian and French so I think a slight air of pretentiousness is to be expected.

Good grief! But thank you for reminding me why I dislike this country so much.

It's said that the traits we don't like in others often reflect the traits we don't like in ourselves.

She has moved out (effectively). Her home for most of her childhood was with her mother so she is now more of an adult living with fellow adults - it's a different relationship.

Your daughters are presumably free to be completely themselves without censoring any part of their personality. It's good that they have that freedom with you but your SD will.have less of that freedom. How ever welcome you make her, it's not her childhood home.

This is normal. It might be that your SD has had more averse experiences which have forged her personality and made her "interesting" whereas your daughters have lived a sheltered life and haven't been confronted to difficulties why they tend to be shallow. In time they will have their share I imagine and become more interesting perhaps. But it's fine to prefer having conversations with other people than your children.

I personally find it odd the role you expect your children to fill. They aren’t there to entertain and debate with you , what you describe seems more like a friend.

With regard to the stepdaughter, on the Gaza point is she not just staying neutral to be polite?

Reminds me of my mother.

I was well-read (for my age), did well in school, was very interested in history and botany from a young age. And I did receive a lot of compliments from other adults.

but there was always somebody my mother seemed to consider to be better/worthier of her compliments etc. It was usually centred around athletics (I was not athletic at all), musicality (and how I was berated for my insufficient lack of musical talent) or simply of better „character“. Whatever THAT meant!

OP: these are the girls you raised. And you apparently did not raise them as people who have intellectually challenging conversations about politics or feminism.

but you also ought to consider that moving out (from your „first“/family home) and to an entirely different country will give people perspective. Your DDs don’t have that perspective (yet). And you are your DD‘s mother. They know you love them. They know that you’ll want to know what’s going on in their lives.

your DSD doesn’t have that same security. She (even if subconsciously) will probably try to be somebody you WANT to talk to.

Agree whole heartedly. I think OP is doing her daughters a great disservice here. Just because they take joy in the little things and enjoying their life. Enjoying trends doesn’t squash their intelligence, and is in fact very valid socially,

The whole “not like other girls” vibe is very “pick me” and I suggest you do some digging into these phrases and understanding why you devalue women based on purely on their enjoyment of certain things.

i think it just sounds like your SD is more mature than your dd's. I don't think it's unreasonable if you feel like rolling your eyes at the fact that your dd's get all their information from TikTok. It's a choice for them to get their information from there and it's not somehow disloyal to not be impressed.

I think you just keep challenging your dd's with the another point of view - make sure you can back up your points! You don't have to do it in a confrontational way of course. I also think you have to ask yourself how they got to this point - what age did they have phones? What age were they watching shows like Love Island etc? How important are superficial things like looks/clothes in their family home?

So what you’re saying is you think your step daughter - who chooses to stay neutral on subjects of mass genocide, is somehow the smarter of the two?

Have you considered in fact that you do not have the correct answers here and your daughters aren’t discussing things with you because you believe they are influenced by social media and not, say, the mass bombings of literal hospitals and civillians being slaughtered on mass? There is plenty of very clear footage to be seen and being anti Zionist is not in any way anti semitic. This is why there is a huge movement of Jewish people protesting annd standing with Palestine; who insist when they say “never again” that means never again for anyone.

I think if she’s been raised abroad, there may be different educational standards-she may have been challenged more to think independently to read books which stretch her intellect. In some other countries, it’s seen as cool to be bright and intellectually inclined-here, it’s more fit in with your peer group. You love your daughters because they’re your daughters but you are allowed to find other young people interesting especially if they are well read and have considered opinions. Try to think of her adding a new dimension to your family. My dil was raised overseas and is very well read, multi lingual and paints-all very different from my dear daughter who is smart and funny and at the same time watches Love Island and uses sun beds and lip filler. The fact she likes superficial things doesn’t change my love for her. Why not reframe it as not being disappointed in your daughters but as feeling fortunate you have a lovely interesting stepdaughter as well as your daughters who are dear to you?

I think the main difference is that your kids world is a lot smaller than your SDs world. They have lived in one country their whole lives and not even left home for uni whilst your SD has lived between different cultures and moved around and been independent for years already. This has given her a massive headstart but your DDs might get there too eventually, but they would need to want to get out there and experience a different type of life.

I have two kids the same age as your DDs and they had lived in 4 countries by the time we moved to my home country when they were mid-teens. They are very similar to your SD and not particularly interested in SM or the latest trends. They are very much intelligent individuals with their own style and opinions. They speak three languages and fairly knowledgable about what is going on in the world. I think it has just come naturally to them because we are all like that. I never saw the value of them just experiencing one type of life, one culture, one language etc.

I have a similar thing between my DH and my stepdaughters. He is an intelligent man but has dyslexia, and was sadly let down by both his parents and his piss poor education in terms of fulfilling any academic potential or learning about the world (he did not grow up in the UK). I love him but there are many things he just doesn't, and can't, get. He knows a great deal about certain things including his previous profession, but he has never read a book in his life and his understanding of things like literature, art, culture, history and science is pretty much limited to what I have manged to (surreptitiously) teach him over the years. When I met him he watched WWF wrestling as his main entertainment and talked to me confidently about Hitler having started both world wars...

My stepdaughters have been educated in London and each gone on to several university degrees in several different European counties, are both in professional careers allied to my own. They are very interesting people. They can talk about amything and everything with knowledge and confidence, and their politics is similar to my own. Where it differs they can debate with skill and respect. I love it when they come home (doesn't happen as often as I would like) as after 20 years with DH, much as I love him, I get tired of him talking about the same few topics in which he has interest, and his failing to understand the nuances of things and the history behind things that go on in the world. I can't give him book recommendations, for example, as he "doesn't like books" (yes, I know its because of the dyslexia, but its still hard never to be able to discuss a book). My stepdaughters and I are always recommending books or films to each other. I do feel guilty sometimes when I an feigning interest for the millionth time in the details of an engine that I have no interest in at all and wishing I could be talking to my elder stepdaughter about geopolitics or some scientific news...

I’m not going to repeat the things my children have said but it’s not anti-Zionist it is straight up Anti-Semitic.

Also I’m not talking about the genocide, no one is debating that the Israeli’s have committed war crimes, no one at all.

The conversation I am referring to comes from my daughter saying “From the river to the sea” and citing all the land should belong to Palestinians. It provoked a conversation about the history, the context and background prior to the attack on October 7th and the subsequent massively out of proportion and devastating retaliation.

The conversation was never about defending what Israel has done.

Step daughter isn’t neutral on that matter; she is massively pro two state solution and often condemns both the actions of the Israeli government and Hamas. What she does also recognise though is that both people groups have the right to exist peacefully and this is something my daughters seem to disagree with.

Stop making assumptions.

What have they said that you think is anti-semitic?

I want to meet your step daughter and chat to her too. She sounds really interesting. I would also be really happy if you could pass on some of those book recommendations please OP.

I think people mature at different ages - they may well mature in equally interesting people who you can have just as satisfying a convo with. They might just need to get off tik tok first.

What's funny is that you don't think your stepdaughter is as influenced by whoever she admires as your kids are. Very few people have original thoughts. They just say what they think they should say. They like what films theyre told to like, they like the music theyre told to like. I'd rather be friends with someone who was fine telling people they like Taylor Swift, than someone who has to pretend to like some obscure band who don't even have proper lyrics to their songs.

You may be in the honeymoon phase with her op.

But maybe try to turn this into a positive maternal thing by using what you admire about her to influence your interactions with your DDs . They are still young and forming. Perhaps take this as the impetus to redouble your efforts in exposing them to broader horizons and more rigorous thought processes.

They sound like much of MN btw! 🤭 Especially the defensiveness when challenged. Is everyone they know either a narc, pass agg or busily asserting their boundaries? 🙄 Maybe de-personalise this a little and look at it as cultural. I think we do have a real issue with a reductive, defensive, mindless, online pseudo-psychology generation . Perhaps what you are noticing is the impact of your dsd having grown up a bit more distant from this, rather than anything intrinsic in your girls. I’d start rescuing them now!!

I listed some earlier but
Annie Ernoux - A woman’s Story, The years, Simple Passions and The Happening
Natalia Ginzburg - All of them really but particularly The Dry Heart, The Road to the City and Family Lexicons
Marguerite Duras - Lover
Leila Slimani - Sex and Lies
Fleur Jaeggy - Sweet Days of Discipline

I hate to say it, but a lot of young adults from the UK are like your daughters. They’ve been bought up on social media and just regurgitate what they’ve heard in the media.

I am the same with ds and his friends!
He was not an easy teen and I’m a bit battle weary from it. My hope is when he moves out and we establish a better adult relationship things will improve.

I think your feelings are perfectly normal OP

Well, this is certainly a departure from the usual raft of 'I hate my step-daughter' threads we've had for the last while.

I read your OP wondering what all three girls would say about YOU, if asked, @Clariey.

I don't think there is any harm on enjoying your stepdaughter, don't make comparisons between them.

Somewhere along the way, you have enabled your daughters in the life they lead.
I can see it happening with my niece, aged 9, she has the latest trends in face creams, My Sister her mum, mentions Instagram daily.

I don't do SM, my DD isn't interested either, she reads books, (I don't) we have interestingly chats, she can become defensive on issues more acceptable to her generation. I respect that.

she isn't perfect but she is very different from the average 16 y. o.