Honestly, this board is not a nice place

[TheMumsRush]

Sick of goady fuckers, trolls and people coming to bash SM from all angles! Some of the "advise" is shocking. If you try it's "step back, not your kids!" But if you don't it's "you're cold and the kids know it". And god forbid you just have a rant that you can't in RL. I see the same posters with the same SM hating shite!

I have posted before about my DD's Wicked Stepmother

The things she does!
As if caring for my child, talking to me about discipline,consulting me,keeping me informed,making me tea and coffee when I collect DD, letting me snuggle her DS and DD, being my friend who I confide my fertility woes to,.....As if any of that stuff makes my life and DD's life easier!

In RL I'm often asked 'But don't you hate her?

Because clearly she does all the above JUST TO PISS ME OFF!

There are good and bad people everywhere. A lot of the step mums on MN are trying their damnedest to make these families work and juggle everything to make everyone happy.

If they want to come to a forum and sound off about the little darlings why not?

If DStep is on these boards and she wants to moan about DD I'll probably join in then fair play to her. I know DD is no angel and DStep does her UTMOST for my child.

I agree Arsenic, I don't think it's a good thing for SPs to be encouraged to wallow in such bitterness and negativity, or to suggest those feelings should be acted on IRL and the child is irredeemable and must be awful. But on the other hand, I equally don't like it when people post suggesting the OP is despicable for even having those thoughts and is entirely unreasonable for not just thinking 'oh poor child' and instantly loving and pitying them instead of feeling annoyed. I have seen plenty of both types of post and neither is good!

It is a pitfall of board polarisation I think river

nicki and latte I am not sure why you are being nasty?!

calamity says she appreciates the sm's input amd backing her up, why is it so awful that I think that is nice of her and wished more mum's could see us as an ally instead of am enemy?

I was referring to the second part of your post, where you said you knew who this thread was about and mentioned how someone has irritated you twice today. The thread has been very positive with everyone discussing general issues on the board. Referring to a specific person in that way in my opinion was not in keeping with how positive the thread had been.

And for goodness sake it's NOT "nasty" if people don't agree with something you said!

I feel as if the step parenting boards are the only parts of the site where being child-centred isn't necessarily taken as the default.

I think step mothers can have a tough job - with anything to do with families, women always get the brunt of the work - but it is other adults that she needs to take things up with and I get a bit upset when it seems that (probably awkward, probably ill-mannered) teenagers are getting a really hard time in their parent's house, when they are too young to go out and get their own house and choose who they are going to have in it with them.

I was an awkward teenager, probably utterly charmless and annoying, and I am so, so glad I didn't spend my teenage years driving some adult nuts with palpable annoyance in my own home. Yes a lot of people didn't like me but at least they lived somewhere else!

Reading the step parenting board just makes you think that the whole notion of relationships and families need to be redesigned. Blended families are just seething masses of mistaken expectations. and I feel most for the children, as would be standard on any other section of mumsnet

This is what I don't get vezzie 'I feel most for the children' why?
I really, really don't see a) why all family members aren't equal and b) why it is always the parents fault and the child/ren are felt sorry for.
I was a absolute horrific bitch to my step mum from the age of 8, I tried to break their marriage and caused as much trouble as I could... why was I damaged NO it was because I could and I enjoyed watching the fall out. Not all children are nice nor innocent I know because I wasn't!

This is why the board IMHO should be supportive and kind in what can be a very lonely and scary place.

Tutt, because these things are about changes in living arrangements that affect children in their homes. Teenagers are generally shy, socially sensitive, and protective of their personal space. if their parent starts a new relationship - for their benefit - that brings new people into the house that the child didn't choose - my sympathy is with the child (which is not to say that the child never does anything wrong, of course)

If my DP decided his mum or his sister was going to live here now, without asking me, if would drive me fecking potty and I think I might not be my best self. just because he loves them, it doesn't mean I want to share my house with them. It's like that (but worse, because the child may be upset post-divorce and view the step family as an act of aggression against the first relationship which he may still be grieving), except that teenagers are children and so have fewer social skills and fewer ways of being assertive but polite to get their own way.

Being "equal" in the family is a red herring. from each according to his means, to each according to his needs. children have high needs of their parents. they just do. Equality doesn't enter into it. it is not a symmetrical relationship.

Got you and agree except that equal doesn't come into it.

I don't agree that children have higher needs than parents, the needs are just different and as such none is less.

A good healthy relationship is also about seeing other good healthy relationships around you and this doesn't happen if all needs are not equal and the balance isn't right.

I don't think you can dismiss the 'Were you the OW?' question out of hand. Surely people must realise that if that is how their relationship started then the relationship between the SM & the ExW (and often the children) is far more likely to be strained and that it will affect how people answer a post. It's not really a point you can choose to ignore.

Given that the whole of the Children's Act and Family Law System operates completely contrary to that, I think embedding a "get out of jail free card" ethos on MN is very, very misguided.

There is no need for any relationship, strained or otherwise, between SM and exW - regardless of whether the SM has been awarded OW status.

The DCs have no reason to know why their parents relationship broke down.

The frequency with which advice on MN contradicts the professional advice with regard to this issue is, frankly, alarming. we must tell them the truth, I'm not going to lie, they deserve to know what type of man their father really is.

It's no wonder there are so many dysfunctional blended families; the DCs are dealing with information and emotions that they are far to young to process or understand.

Sorry Wakey but I think anyone would find it difficult to have a pleasant relationship with a women who contributed to the breakdown of a family by conducting an affair with a married/attached man. That is not a need to have/want a strained relationship it is a human reaction/emotion towards somebody who has purposefully hurt you.

Given that the whole of the Children's Act and Family Law System operates completely contrary to that,...

There have also been a fair few posts recently of the "I'm a SM, nothing has fixed the awful problems in our family therefore all stepfamiles are doomed" variety too.

This point has been made recently on another thread, attributed to me by name.

I will not apologise for telling people that it may never get better. Because when I joined MN and read that sometimes it can't be fixed - advice from other SMs - the sheer f*ing relief was indescribable.

DH and I had read every self help book going. We'd attended courses, sought professional consultations and trawled research papers. And every time, we were left thinking " but what next?".

No one, anywhere, publishes or presents anything except happy endings. Where difficulties and problems are overcome and the DCs are healed.

For those families where things aren't getting better, for whom the "least worst" option is all they can aspire to, the feelings of inadequacy and failure are only magnified when everyone else seems to be able to work it out. Being told "well, why doesnt your DP talk to his ex?" in those situations is patronising and demeaning - if it were that simple, don't you think we'd have tried? It's frustrating when no one seems to understand, and it is such a relief when you find out that other people have experience of what you are going through as a family.

Yes, it's uncomfortable to read. But it helps some people, and so as long as it's balanced by other posters who say things can get better, I think it's an important part of "making parents life easier". I don't think it helps when a poster is told to ignore the "doom and gloom" merchants - it may be exactly what they need to hear.

flossy why the need to have a "relationship" with your DCs SM at all?

flossy I think you're wrong sorry, I don't fully agree with wakey either but the exw in our case was the one who cheated, the om was a family friend, had recently split from his dp due to her infidelity and still started an affair.

my dp works very hard to maintain a friendly chatty relationship with both exw and om because, and here is the crucial bit, it is what is best for the kids.

if people cared more about the well being of their children instead of silly point scoring then I think in a vast majority of cases life would be far nicer

I will not apologise for telling people that it may never get better.

There is a huge difference between 'may not' and 'will not'.

Overly gloomily predictions (based on little to nothing) are more scaremongering than supportive, no matter who posts them.

Sometimes the Doom & Gloom is every thread. there is nothing wrong in saying 'sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't' but when you see it on every thread.....My situation is this. It is rubbish, never gets better, we have done all we can, I have detached, we will never get on, most SFamilies are or end up this way, SFamilies rarely work, somebody always looses out, it is soooooo hard sits in the category of projecting to me which was mentioned by someone up thread as a bad thing and I agree.

Good for him where.

Overly gloomily predictions (based on little to nothing) are more scaremongering than supportive, no matter who posts them.

Does this really happen?

I wouldn't dream of commenting on a child development issue "oh, he'll never walk/sleep through/eat independently" as I have no experience.

Do people really do that?

It's fine to acknowledge it may never get better, it may not.

However dwelling on this and projecting it (at length) onto most step parenting situations is unnecessary and defeatist and frankly comes across as a bit of a cop out to me because every adult involved has a certain responsibility to try and move negative situations forward and just because the other adults (usually the ex wife it appears) in the picture may not that doesn't let the other adults off the hook.

To endlessly dwell on the hopelessness of the situation and advocate total withdrawal is unrealistic for most families and just not applicable in many cases. Many of the posts I see here WANT to make it work, your constant assumption of worst case scenario is at best unhelpful and at worst may justify negative, spiteful and lazy attitudes towards step children in a certain kind of adult.

And Wakey it isn't just about predicting long term outcomes.

A few weeks ago you were trenchantly advising someone that the ONLY WAY to negotiate about what happens at the other parents house is to stop or cut contact. (I took issue with it on-thread at the time).

That is damaging advice. It has an immediate impact on the DC of any poster who listens to it and for most people (luckily), who are not in such extreme situations as you are, it is completely over the top.

I know you have been through a really litigious, hostile lengthy situation that hasn't had a happy ending but you have been particularly unlucky. Most people can manage with slightly more amicable approaches.

Overly gloomily predictions (based on little to nothing) are more scaremongering than supportive, no matter who posts them.

Does this really happen?

Yes they do happen.

Fairly frequently.

Does this really happen?

Yes. I have seen such a post on this board. It is not helpful or supportive to tell somebody it will not get better, they will always be resented. That to me is not being realistic or helpful. It smacks of being bitter at their own situation. They do say misery loves company.

I will say that I am looking at a post on the SP boards that says exactly that. I will not link it or say who the poster is ( I have been told off before for that kind of behavior ) but this is what was said to a SM who was having a tough time and looking for advice and support..

No, it never goes away.

You will always be resented, put upon, picked up and dropped and generally taken advantage of.

I do not see that as helpful in any way. It is a massive generalization and as we all know MN hates generalizations

A few weeks ago you were trenchantly advising someone that the ONLY WAY to negotiate about what happens at the other parents house is to stop or cut contact. (I took issue with it on-thread at the time).

That is a misquote - I stated that if the NRP parent wasn't prepared to listen, negotiate or compromise, the only influence a RP has on the household is if they withhold contact.

I do not see that as helpful in any way.

I did.

And still do.

Just because it doesn't help you and you can't understand how it would help others, it is somewhat arrogant to assume that no one else benefits from differing posting styles. I envy you to have never been in a position where the only glimmer of hope is to know you are not alone and that your experience is not a result of your own failings.