Positive acceptance!!

[marshkat]

I just wanted to blurb about how accepting my 2 dsc have been with the fact i have just had a baby!! I have been in their lifes for 5 years and they have been living fulltime with their dad and myself for the past 2 and half years and things have not always been brilliant for any of us but it seems like are new buddle of joy has bought us even closer as a family and we are all very happy. Hoping this will last (baby only 12 days old!) but even if its short lived it reminds me how positive it can be to be a EVIL stepmum!! xxxx

Congratulations on your baby, Marshkat!

That's really lovely to hear. Good luck with it all, and I hope it continues. :)

My DD is almost three, and she has made a huge difference to us as a family (I have two teenage stepkids). They adore her, and in a way, she was the 'sugar that helped the medicine go down' - she definitely brought us closer, and she helped the stepkids to feel, I think, that at least some of the changes in their lives were positive ones. They also understood that some of the house rules and priorities needed to change to keep a baby safe and healthy - not just because Evil Stepmum wanted to make their lives harder.

I was probably TOO careful to avoid any resentment and tried to keep DD's arrival from changing their routines too much and I almost never ask them to help out (changing diapers, free babysitting, etc) - which I sometimes think was a mistake - but I think they have had very little to complain about in that regard!

Congratulations!!

I too found that having my dd (now 2) really helped my relationship with my dsc (all under 10 years old) as I became a proper member of their family in their eyes, and we have the common ground of all loving dd. There are still tough times for all of us, but we are certainly all have more loyalty to each other now we know we cant just vanish from each others lives forever!