It's official - I am the wicked stepmother

[MsColouring]

So background: I have 2 dc dd8 and ds5 and one dss aged 8. Me and dp haved lived together a year and a half and were together two years before that. We have dss two nights a week and every other weekend (but only until Sunday morning as Sunday is 'family time' so his mum insists that she has him)

I do love dss but it can be a bit of a battle sometimes. The boundaries at our house are different to those at his mum's and his mum tends to make excuses for him so he can come across as a bit entitled and he thinks he knows it all. He has been prone to a bit of answering back recently (as has my dd but she seems to be able to judge better when to stop)

Normally on Sunday morning we have pancakes for breakfast. We call the kids to the table to wait and dss grabs hold of the golden syrup and keeps it in his place. I explain to dss that it is rude to grab things and he can put it back in the middle and as a consequence he will have it last. This is exactly the same as I would do with my dc.

Then, I said to dp not to watch his sugar on his pancakes (diabetic) and dss says that it is his job, not mine to look out for his dad.

Then the icing on the cake, ds had a small accident last night and we heard dss saying to him that it was a 'wet dream' and not to worry about it. The minute we heard this dp calls him down and speaks to him about it and dss acts the know it all not listening to what his dad was saying, so I lost my temper with him.

Despite me apologising for losing my temper, dss was rude to me on saying goodbye (I gave him a hug and then he 'wiped' himself on his dad.

Then his mum phones dp an hour later complaining about the fact dss is upset about the golden syrup thing as she doesn't see he did anything wrong.

So off to change into my black dress and purple cape and gaze into my magic mirror.

Just teasing funny to be a pig

OP don't worry. I'm forever being the wicked step mother. I moan about everything and would probably have done exactly what you done.

You are not alone in this. At least you can say you are treating dss as you would your own. I don't have my own so I'm just plain mean lol.

You're damned if you do damned if you dont.

If you treated dss different you'd be the bad one. Treat all kids the same - well you can't do that either because dsc need special rules because they didnt choose this life.

Sorry I'm off topic. Point is your only human. Chances are dss will have forgotten by now and just start a fresh on his next visit. Xx

I must say the fact that your DSS knows that there's such thing as a wet dream, even if he doesn't know what it is, is cause for concern.

Her rules - not a problem but just occasionally we expect young kids and 8 is still young to swap houses and rules and never screw it up.

Not a reason to treat the DCs of all persuasions differently but a gentle reminder before the heavy hand of my house my rules dome down.

eg, in my house we take shoes off at the front door and put them away, in EXs house they put them at the back door. Failure for one of my DCs to remember the rule resulted in tea time treat with held.

In my house when shoes are at the back door - it results in a "hey in this house it is the front door not the back door - move it"

So many bigger battles to fight than what made the OP "lose her temper" and interfere when her DP was actually handling the situation himself and well.

Peruvian has it spot on. It's a huge decision to make: do we parent both sets of kids the same or not?Certainly with the benefit of hindsight it would have been better in our case for dsd and our relationship with her, had we given her guest/ royal visitor status. But in the midst of all of it, and trying to do the right thing for my own dd who was 2 at the time and needed good modelling from everyone - it wasn't possible. Also, we had dsd 50% of the time and I stand by the fact it would have been neglectful to deny her parenting for half of her week!

But because mum didn't support it, it was always going to be lose lose.

Op, with the benefit of experience, I would like to suggest that you consider telling your children that their step brother is a guest and that as such he has different expectations placed on his behaviour but that doesn't mean your expectations of them change. Then let your DH "parent" your step son. Or not.

Get a monthly wine delivery booked and take up yoga or something

Week on and me and DSS made it up earlier in the week with proper cuddles so all good.

Whilst I appreciate the advice on treating dss as a guest it is not something we feel is right in our situation. DSS spends 2-5 nights a week with us depending on the circumstances so to treat him as a guest would feel wrong and possibly damage step sibling relations which are good. (Plus even children who are guests in our home would have to abide by house rules to some extent). I do think children are capable of managing different expectations in different places - they do it at school. But we are trying to accept that DSS won't always get it right.

One of my frustrations with DSS is that he does frequently switch between the two houses and we rarely get full weekends with him. We do find that when we do have him for longer in half term etc we spend less time having to remind him of our boundaries. But that situation is beyond my control.

Glad you're back on track. I hope you find something that works.

I totally agree re relations with step siblings and good parenting. That's why we attempted to go down that route with my dsd

However, if the other parent doesn't support it then I don't think it can work. Not that I have a helpful solution either so I'm sorry about that!

I'm not being funny but if you think that's bad you should come and spend a day with my 5 YO DSD!!!

No he shouldn't be treated as a guest either, he should be treated the same as you would treat your DC'S. We have real battles with DSD esp when her daddy is around, she answers back, is rude, will hit out etc and seems to be in a strop most of the time. She really doesn't know when to stop and this is all because DP has made her feel entitled for the past 3/4 years, she's gotten away with too much for too long and now he's trying to pull the reins in a bit and it just isn't working!