What an effing joke, not having posted on here recently - until this particular email from the Gods who are MumsNet!

[Tappergirl]

Hi Tappergirl,

We wanted to drop you a line about your posts on Mumsnet, because we've have had a few reports from other posters about them, particularly your posts on the step parenting threads. And when we took a look, we could understand why other posters thought they broke our Talk Guidelines (www.mumsnet.com/info/netiquette).

We know that step-parenting has become quite a fraught area of the site, and that two opposing 'camps' of posters seem to have emerged. Our take on this is that everyone is welcome to post in the Step-parents topic - so long as they do so within our Talk Guidelines - and we'd really appreciate it if everyone concerned in the bad feeling could step back a bit and concentrate on the issues raised by each thread, rather than thrashing out ongoing disputes with other posters.

Our aim is to make parents' lives easier by pooling and sharing advice and support, and we ask members to respect each other's opinions, even when they don't agree with them. We do understand that everyone can get a bit het up on the internet from time to time, but we'd be grateful if you could bear this in mind in future.

Step parenting is never easy, so we think a bit of peace, love and support wouldn't go amiss. And please rest assured that you are by no means the only poster we're contacting about this.

Thanks and best,
MNHQ

I agree with you too, Nicki.

The mini-wife thing makes me feel queasy too. We hardly ever read anything as derogatory or scathing as this about boys and their relationships with their fathers. To me, the mini-wife thing was an idea hatched by a SM because she felt threatened by her SD.

Wowzer. This is in very poor taste to post the email on here. I've followed Tapper's recent threads and I do believe calling people 'twats' (which is only one example of mudslinging she engaged in) is quite possibly against Talk Guidelines and viewed as PA.

Is the thread now going to degenerate into another 'mini wives' debacles? I also feel sick at that phrase and the fact that it's being bandied around on here lately.

Personally I think the mere use of that phrase to describe a child should lead to an automatic deletion of the post in which it was used. I have a DD (12) and the thought of anyone describing her in that manner is disgusting.

I have realised that a lot of posters have a problem with the term 'mini wife' beacuse they read something sexual into it.

I think 'parentification' or 'spousification' is deemed better.

There is a thread here with lots of resources and links about parentification here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/stepparenting/2149675-Some-resources-if-you-are-wondering-about-parentification-and-spousification

Here we go again with the pathologising of the (usually female) child...what's wrong with sticking to the facts that some fathers are completely clueless about providing safe, boundaried parenting, and that their ineptitude and general flakiness - quelle surprise - produces anxious and clingy children?

If a child has been 'spousified' (just as bad) how is that ever the fault of the child? Ever?

Surely, as BOF says it's the fault of the useless Dad not stepping up to his responsibilities and taking his role as parent seriously.

So why, if that's the case do the daughters get the blame and the abuse for this time and time and time again on this board? Why do the SM's who have the issue never say 'you know what, my DH is a dick isn't he? He's doing a shit job, fucking with his DD's head and actually he's not all that much of a catch'?

No, what we get is 'my SD is a little bitch who wants her Daddy all to herself' and I'm stamping my feet over sharing him!

Mini-wife = grow the fuck up and be an adult.

whiskwarrior, if you read the resources on the thread river has linked to, you will see that there is no attempt to place "blame" on the child. Rather they describe a dynamic within the family that is caused by mistakes in parenting.

I personally believe that when a frustrated stepmum sees certain behaviours and situations in her home, she may look for explanations, and may wrongly blame the child, at least in part.. Telling her that the behaviours are "normal" or perfectly ok misses the mark - the stepmother in the situation may well know that what she is seeing up close and experiencing first hand isn't normal or healthy, and yet she finds herself attacked for questioning it (often by people who have no experience themselves of raising teenagers, or by people who have only witnessed healthy parent-child relationships, and cannot accept that the stepmum is possibly right when she observes something that troubles her). Then she retreats from getting help, or becomes defensive - she knows something is wrong, but when she looks for advice, she encounters only criticism and is even told that the situation is her fault, or in her imagination, or that she is 'just jealous'.

Whereas (whether a case of true parentification or spousification or not) the stepmum could instead be given advice and support that might help her to view the role her DSC's parents have played in creating the dynamic, and to see things very differently. To not blame the DSC, or focus on symptoms, but to begin to look at how the family could begin to build more positive relationships.

These attacks on stepmums looking for help only end up hurting the stepchildren, because they prevent stepmums in genuine need of support and advice from getting that from women who have been where they are now and learned from it.

I agree riverboat and was just about to post that same point. That is why people are getting so upset and disgusted etc by this phrase but I don't think for one minute that the people who use it are suggesting a sexual element whatsoever , but rather everything else but. I think it says more about the person who can even think for one minute that is what the phrase is suggesting than it does about the person using it. Another example is when mums say 'she's like a little mum to her little brother' or a mum finds herself alone says about her son 'he is my little man' and so on. Surely no-one thinks for one minute that the 'little mum' has had sex with her own father to become her younger siblings mum or that 'my little man' means he has replaced his father in all aspects of life.

Also like it or not sometimes it really is the stepmother who needs defending especially against older SCs and it is sometimes (shock horror) the SC or their parent that is in the wrong. I personally had six years of hell with a resident 17yr old to young adult SS. He behaved abominably towards me and the home I shared with his dad. He knew how to behave with others , so damaged or not he knew right from wrong but he simply wanted to split us up. The last thing I wanted to hear when I came on here was blanket automatic defence of him because he was the step 'child'.

brd

Attacks on SM's? Weird, because Tapper seems to have done nothing bar attack her SC in her threads. And call posters twats.

I couldn't care less about external sources. I care when someone comes on here and starts labeling a child as a mini-wife and people agree that the child is exhibiting symptoms of it.

Tapper doesn't want help. She wants people to agree that her SC are awful, without giving any real evidence of their behaviour.

More than anything she wants to start trouble - as this thread clearly demonstrates!

By the way. I think one thing should be made very clear. The insistence that the term "mini wife" has been widely used on these boards is absolute rubbish.

The latest discussions of the term have been largely inflamed by posters who were incensed by an external blog that uses the term.

Prior to 1 August 2014, when these posters decided to make a bit of a campaign about this issue, the term "mini-wife" seems to have appeared on MN (as a whole) 48 times. That includes multiple mentions within the same thread.

In other words - the idea that this term has enjoyed enormous popularity on the stepparenting board is just a contrivance, and the continued focus on the term (rather than the very real problems of the stepmums) is pretty much a strategic choice. Think about it.

Excellent post Brdgl and I agree with every word. I remember only too well when I used to come on here at my wits end and raging at my SSs latest outrage , that if I got no support or got flamed it would do nothing at all to improve how I felt about my SS. In fact I would resent him even more. So you are right , it does end up hurting the step 'child' even more.

I don't know how fair that is, tbh, Whisk. From the few threads I remember of Tapper's, she's upset with her husband more than anyone, and desperately sad to have lost the closeness they once had.

But to move away from the personal- it would go a long way towards improving the atmosphere of the boards if people tried being a little kinder and willing to listen unless it's that ridiculous wifey shit being spouted...

Attacks on SM's? Weird, because Tapper seems to have done nothing bar attack her SC in her threads.

Whisk, I replied to your post above, which did not reference Tapper's OP specifically, but spoke generally about the board and the topic.

So why, if that's the case do the daughters get the blame and the abuse for this time and time and time again on this board? Why do the SM's who have the issue never say 'you know what, my DH is a dick isn't he? He's doing a shit job, fucking with his DD's head and actually he's not all that much of a catch'?

I answered in the same vein.

I couldn't care less about external sources.
And that pretty much sums up the attitude of a handful of posters who cannot accept it when the concept they have loudly and publicly proclaimed to be a fiction, is shown to be a widely accepted therapeutic concept.

that if I got no support or got flamed it would do nothing at all to improve how I felt about my SS. In fact I would resent him even more

so...people aren't allowed a different opinion to you of a particular situation? and if that opinion happens to be involve telling you that you're wrong, the fact that as a result you make a choice to resent the step child more, it's not your fault? really?

fedup, I think you have considerably missed her point.

People seem obsessed with this idea of fault. Even where no one is trying to distribute blame or deny blame, they keep banging on about "blame" and "fault".

The thing I find really hard to understand is why there are so many women who resent children. Why? Why do they resent them?

I'm a step-mum, my sister is a step-mum, my SIL is, my BIL is a step-dad. Not one of us resent our step-children, yet so many people do on this board, not only that, some of you hate them. I read some of the post so here and feel sick as to how you treat these children and the way others of you support them in such treatment. It is honestly vile.

I think the step parenting topic is often extremely cliche'y and often quite unpleasant. It's the same names and the same party line all the time.

I'm glad MNHQ are reminding posters to be kind.

The use of the terms 'mini wives' or 'spousification' seems warped to me.

"that if I got no support or got flamed it would do nothing at all to improve how I felt about my SS. In fact I would resent him even more"

Other people's opinions would make you resent a third party who had no influence over those views and didn't even know they were being expressed?

I don't know what to say. I really don't. I can't get my head round that.

Back to the op, I see that the poster has had her say and caused unrest on the forum but hasn't really contributed since. That seems a little like there's an ulterior motive to me.

The use of the terms 'mini wives' or 'spousification' seems warped to me.

That's to be expected; there's lots of evidence and research that explains why you feel the way you do; I'm sure in a few years time, recent MN threads will be quoted in yet another research paper about the social dynamics and meaning of language ad terminology.

The term "Spousification" is a medical defined therapeutic term, included in International diagnostic tools - and despite the discomfort it causes, it is well researched and documented.

A lot of "new" terms have been similarly resisted and objected to by society at first; depression, homosexuality, chronic fatigue, ADHD, PTSD - but I'm sure, like those, it won't be too long before the term is acknowledged and accepted in society.

"In fact I would resent him even more"

I too can't get my head round that comment. No wonder posters say "don't get involved with a man with children" when things like that are posted.

For answers to behavioural problems from step children, start with the surrounding adults.

Ok I will try and explain:

One example at age twenty three he thought I had moved or hidden his passport (trust me his passport would be last thing I would move or hide just as he was about to go away for two weeks !). Said passport turned up in our paper recycling bin among a load of mail he had just thrown in the bin (when I wasn't home). Whilst looking for it he was throwing his six foot plus frame around our house shouting 'fucking bitch' and that he was going to kill me and kicking and damaging furniture whilst I cowered upstairs (have baggage from violent ex and cant stand banging and shouting).

This is just one of many many examples of awful destructive behaviour of his purely imo to cause trouble between his dad and I. Another time he set up a network for his laptop and xbox , the title of which was an extremely violent threat to me.

Around everyone else however (especially his dad) he was sweetness and light so with the exception of a few members of the family who had inadvertently witnessed his true colours everybody in RL it seemed either defended him or just thought I had it in for him/didn't want him around.

So imagine coming onto a forum desperate to just get some advice or a sympathetic ear only to be met with same knee jerk defensive reaction from some posters who automatically it seems think he is the innocent party because he is the stepchild and I must just be a bitter second wife who wants rid of her DHs first family. Damn right this made me even more resentful of the whole situation and as he was the cause of my unhappiness with the situation , rightly or wrongly , trust me I was past caring then yes even more resentful of him.

At 23 he is an adult.

What is being discussed here is children. Also given those circumstance I very much doubt any poster would side with him.

I've not seen one poster who has defended behaviour such as that described by you Bahhh.

No matter how bad his misdemeanours there always seemed to be a hard core of posters who would say I should blame my DH and should be nicer to him because he was unhappy blah blah

I have never come across any poster that would defend the actions of your SS and to some degree his father should have stepped in and ensured his son did not act violently towards his wife.

What FlossyMoo said. There's a difference between the behaviour of an adult (and I have every sympathy and every ounce of support for you Bah) and that of a child.

There's a difference too between actual damaging behaviour, threats and violence like you've described and just not liking stepchildren of any age for merely being there. I've heard of the latter on here and while I can sympathise with someone for living with people they don't like I'm unwilling to support vitriolic remarks in that situation.