To think the MN attitude to step-parents is very strange?

[YoohooPoo]

I have seen many posters on MN say that step parents should not be responsible for their stepchildren, financially or childcare wise. I find this very odd and not like anything I have experienced IRL. I have a 5 year old DD with ex - we split up a month after her birth so she has never known us as a unit, I don’t know if this makes a difference. I started a relationship with DP 4 years ago (knew him previously for years from school and dated briefly so not a stranger to me by any means) and after a year of dating and seeing each other separately we moved in together and now have a 5 month old DS. Not married yet but engaged.

DP has always looked after DD as if she were his own which I am very grateful for, and I never expected him or asked him to in the early days - her dad is very involved and has her 3 days a week. DP had no children of his own. Now that we are living together and have DS, he takes care of both of them financially and caring wise, e.g he will take them to see his family (who also see her as their own), will do bedtime routines, take her to appointments and pick up prescriptions if I am unable to, come to parents’ evenings if ex is working, pay for uniform etc as I am currently a SAHM but things like that usually come out of child maintenance anyway and he will pay any overage. Anything she needs on our time he will get for her. He is an excellent step dad and ex has no qualms as he also lives with his girlfriend (I’m not sure how much she does though).

But the attitude is very strange on here with people saying step parents should not discipline, not pay for things, only let primary carers make decisions. I find this utterly bizarre and not a good way to live. If you start a relationship with somebody with children and decide to go on to propose, marry them and live with them, IMO you are accepting responsibility for your stepchildren and accepting them being a part of your everyday life and family. Some posts on here I have seen talk as if each other’s children are separate responsibilities and their shared child is both. We are not a blended family as such so maybe I am not seeing the perspective but it just comes across as very odd to me.

AIBU?

I think it is much easier for the stepparent who lives FT with their stepchild . It's when a stepchild comes and goes that it is hard to know what the responsibilities should be .

Sometimes it is difficult to keep consistency as ex and I don’t have much handover chat - he was abusive and continued to be for a long time and I have struggled over the years to keep it civil. To be honest we don’t have much insight into what happens in their home as he doesn’t reveal much. But for the most part it has been fine and we just try to be very consistent in our home and very positive about ex.

You’re mischaracterising what is generally said on MN. Nobody says that a step parent must never do those things, it’s fine if the actual parents are both happy with it. What is usually said on here is that a step parent shouldn’t be expected to.

But what I am trying to say is that there are some things that they should expect and be expected to do when they marry into this kind of dynamic. I would expect DP to look after DD on our time if I had to go to an appointment or something else - he’d be caring for our other child anyway so why should he not?

But two big differences in your situation are that your partner has known your daughter since she was a baby, and if your ex has her 3 days in the week, your partner is actually with your daughter for more time than her father is with her. It’s a lot easier to take on a parenting role in those circumstances.
It would be very different if say for example when your daughter is 10 years old and her father gets a new partner. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your ex’s partner then taking on the parenting of your daughter - going to parents evening, buying her stuff, taking her out without her father, etc.

It depends how long the new partner had been with ex and how long the introduction was. I wouldn’t mind the partner doing any of that, maybe not the parents evenings but buying things and taking her out isn’t restricted to just parents. Why would I mind someone treating my child well?

I may be being pedantic, but, the term step parent only applies if the couple have married, otherwise they are partners or 'boyfriend/girlfriend ' and maybe it's this which causes confusion about sharing in the child's life, marriage is seen as more of a commitment to a long term relationship and so more of a commitment to the child too?

What about if she’s taking her out to buy her first bra, for haircuts you don’t like, to films or concerts you wanted to see with her?

Stepparent is a title, that’s it. What the role of a stepparent actually looks like is entirely up to the individual. A stepparent does not have to take on responsibility for the stepchild.

A parent, as the one responsible for their child, isn’t in a position to assume that any partner shares the same opinion regarding step parenting as they do. If they want a stepparent for their child that will take them on ‘as their own’, then they need to be clear on that from the beginning, not just assume that it’s something they’re entitled to. It isn’t.

Because he isn’t her father.

Isn't that putting a huge amount of pressure on a potential partner? No offence but why would most people choose that over someone who doesn't have kids already or if they do at least isn't asking so much of them? And who are you to judge-your DP had no kids of his own so you haven't even married a single parent and helped raise a stepchild yourself!

Also very different dynamic when the stepparent has been around since the child was a baby, and when they first meet as a teenager. It would be very weird to start acting as a parent to a 15yo you’ve only just met.

An older child may also have a strong opinion about a new adult coming into their lives an automatically being given the same level of control over them as a parent.

Your partner seems happy to step up, but PP are correct in that he shouldn’t be expected to. He also isn’t a step parent; it’s a legal title gained on marriage, which confers no responsibility at all. It just means you are married to a parent.

I’m not responsible for my SDC; financially or otherwise.

Every situation is different, my dh is a very similar step parent to my DDs and I wouldn’t marry someone who wasn’t.
A lot of the time on here the step mum is asking if it’s reasonable that on the eow they have her partners kids that she is doing majority of the cooking /cleaning/ parenting and still getting told she’s not good enough whilst also being default parent to their own kids.

You're talking about your personal family situation and expecting all other families to have the exact same circumstances and arrangements as you have and to therefore follow the rules of your life because you don't have the imagination to realise that nobody is exactly the same as you and doesn't have the same mindset as you and your DP.

My brother got married to a woman who had a child from a previous relationship. He was a very involved stepfather and treated DSD as his own financially and in terms of raising her. Like your DP, he knew her from a young age (I think it's very different if your step kids are teens when you first meet them) and he had no children of his own when they met. Unlike you, they didn't go on to have a child together.

Anyway, he and her mum split up after 17 years together. He and his DSD both said at the time they would keep in touch with each other, but they haven't really. I think they are in occasional contact. Despite being her stepdad and father figure for so long, he's now just her mum's ex.

Any step parent should be aware this may happen, and it's natural that this affects the way they relate to their step children.

Every stepfamily situation is different.

It also depends on the age of the child when the SP came into their lives. It's not likely to end well if a new partner comes along when a child is a teenager or preteen and starts disciplining them, before they've formed a proper relationship.

Remember that the child didn't choose your new partner and won't take well to discipline from them. Its not likely to cause conflict and a bad relationship with them, with you being in the middle of it.

In your case you partner has known your DD since she was young, so he is more inclined to treat her like his own.

Another thing is that single dads often dump a lot of their parental responsibilities on their partner, which leads to resentment of the child and the situation.

I could talk about this topic for ages, as I work with step and blended families and see so many similar, yet different situations. It's somethingin very passionate about.

My stepchildren were all at secondary school ehen we came into one anothers lives and they were not in the market for another parent. Which was fine with me because my own step parents had come into my life when I was (a) 14 and (b) 31 so I wasnt looking for extra parents either.

Every family is a different web of relationships and, beyond kindness, there are very few universal rules.

Isnt it up tot he children what they want? the parent/s are the one who put the child/ren into the step parent situation in the first place so the children have to cope through all the navigating of it

so the adults should do what they want and if the child wants the step parent to take them shouldnt it be up to the child to decide?

My ex thinks that my partner should pay for things and ferry our child around, he’s been told numerous times it is not my DP’s responsibility to do that but he still doesn’t get it.

Because they think the person will be their partner is worth it and thry accept their child as part of them. Do you not think you have enough to offer for a man to want you despite having children that you need to care for?

Financially is a funny one, because things like tax credits (I know they’re now part of universal credit but not sure how that is assessed) and student loans are assessed on household income, not just that of the biological parent. So the government is expecting the resident step parent to financially support their step child. If that’s not the arrangement you have it can be quite difficult to navigate.

Are you also happy for him to tell her off, give consequences etc.?

I would argue that there is a vastly different experience from stepmum to stepdad. Looking at it all stereotypically, stepdad is more likely to live with resident parent (less likely to be a ‘Disney dad’ and therefore less likely to have to introduce their own rules for behaviour not being addressed. Also more likely to face less criticism from the ex partner if it is dad who is less involved (again very stereotypical!). Also, you are probably likely the default parent for both children in your house which makes it easier for your partner. You have also not reached trickier ages with your child yet where they may start to push back against your partner which can be trickier when an unrelated child.

My personal experience was that I looked after my stepchild loads when they were little, had a great relationship, constantly received abuse from their mum but it was when I started to receive a lot of pushback from them and my husband let me be do everything for them (DH problem I know!) I pulled away to protect my own sanity. My relationship with him is fine, I will look after him if I’m available to, but I won’t put as much in as I used to as I get nothing back.

Please don’t write goady posts like this without understanding 😊