Step Mum/Dad and stepchild

[PajamaQueen]

I know pretty much all of us on the board are part of a blended family - but how many of us step mums/dads have first hand experience of being the stepchild too?

My parents split up when I was relatively young - I actually can't remember them ever living together.

I'm a step-mum and also a step child and a member of two blended families :)

I had a great childhood and had a good relationship with all my family members (well, as far as you can during teenage years). My mum and dad despise each other but never let it impact on them being on the same page bringing us up.

I was a step child - both sets of parents remarried, both handled it terribly!

I'm a step child too.
I hated my first step mum. She was the OW and hated us from day 1 because we reminded her of the family she had destroyed. I was overjoyed when Dad and her split. Stepmum 2 was an alcoholic and I didn't like her much either but by then i had left home so managed to avoid her. After her followed a series of awful women, who either tried to be my best friend or were jealous if me!
My stepdad on the other hand is like a dad to me. We have had our ups and downs over the years but he is a good man and a brilliant grandad to my kids and I have so much respect for him.

I'm a step child too. Parents split when I was 12. Dad remarried first and years later mum remarried. I have step siblings from each side.

It was an up and down experience to be honest.

I'm not a step child, though my mum is. She's had a nice relationship with her stepmum (who her DF married 2 years after being widowed, when I was 8). I do think that being a stepmum has given me a lot of insight into what it must have been like for her coming into our lively and chaotic extended family with all its traditions and memories as the outsider - and how well she coped with it all. I wish I'd had a chance to tell her that but she has dementia now and is no longer really able to understand things you tell her.

I'm sure it must help you all being stepmums, knowing what it was like as a child. It all feels really uncharted to me - MN is great for feeling less alone in it all.

I'm a step parent and a stepchild, although I was quite lucky, my step dad has no other children and has always treated me as his flesh and blood, Iv called him dad since my teens
my partner comes from a huge blended family, his parents split and his dad remarried a woman with 3 kids, there was my partner and his 2 siblings and his dad and steph um went on to hav 2 more. so 8 kids, he says at times it was hard but he's he's very close to everyone and is as close to step siblings as his blood siblings.

My parents split when I was 5 or 6 ish. I can't remember much about the time they were together. My step dad arrived when I was around 8. We hit it off immediately, became close, and remain close to this day. I had a lovely, sparkly childhood and have some wonderful memories of growing up.

However my brother, who's 4 years younger than me, would tell you a very different story. He never got on with our step dad, they had some bitter rows growing up, it put Mum's new marriage under real strain. And even now that my brother is an adult, anything that's wrong in his life gets blamed on his upbringing.

Yes I'm a SC. My SD adopted my brother and me when I was about 8, he'd been our Sd since about 3yo. My M told lies to my F about the reasons for the adoption to get him to sign the papers. SD was very much a backseat parent and an enabler of Ms bad treatment of use unfortunately, keep quiet for an easy life - pretty much sums him up. I didn't meet my F until in my 20s. My SM was/is very lovely and would have been a welcome influence in my childhood if my M could have put aside her issues and let me have contact with my F. C'est la vie.

I'm a SC too.
It was shit. And is a massive reason why I want to be a good SP myself.
My SF treated me like dirt on his shoe and was very EA. My mum had a small child and was in the middle.
I would never, ever inflict the rejection I faced on a small child.