How do you feel about being called Stepmum/Stepdad?

[ChickpeaCrunch]

How do you feel about being called Stepmum/Stepdad?

I personally hate it. It is loaded with societies expectations. Some people expect me to take a "mum" role. Others mention evil stepmothers (haha..not).

I don't identify with the word. I am just me, my husband's wife and whilst I do care about my stepchildren I wish there was another term. I don't "parent' them.

We don’t use it. I think my dcs and dps dcsrefer to each other as step brother / sister just for the sake of ease when talking to people.

Mine call me by my name but they refer to me as their stepmum when speaking to others, I'm not married to DP but neither were their parents married so they don't think that is a thing!

It does feel weird the few times I've overheard them say it, but I'm definitely more than dad's partner so I don't know what else you could use. DSS2 has known me nearly half his life.

I dont love the label either. My partners daughter calls me by my name or 'babe' because thats what partner calls me but then i get annoyed when im not referred to as Mummy infront of our child.

Does anyone else find it gets muddled then when an 'our' child comes along?

@ChickpeaCrunch

I just consider it a factual term to denote the partner of a father. yes I try to, but I can't help but feel if 'mum' was removed from stepmum people wouldn't have as high expectations.

I don't know about expectations but I think there would definitely be less tension, particularly on here, about it. I think the inclusion of the word 'mum' at all just enrages people, which I guess is understandable on a site mainly frequented by mums, lots of whom are separated.

It's the same as the whole 'bio mum' argument isn't it - people feel that 'mum' is a title which doesn't need a qualifier such as 'bio' as that implies that there are 2 mums - 'bio' and 'step'. Whereas most stepmums wouldn't even consider themselves to actually be 'mum' to their stepkids in any way but sometimes just use terminology that is generally accepted elsewhere online and get fried for it here. I am on a couple of sites where 'BM' is frequently used as a quick way to refer to SC's mum, rather than typing out 'their mum' all the time. Would never use it here though! And certainly never would in real life, the same way I'd never call my boyfriend my 'dear partner'. It's just shorthand, purely for online purposes.

My SCs call me by my name and tbh didn't even realise that I was what they might consider their 'stepmum' until we played one of those '20 questions' guess who games online and the person they thought of was me and it came up with 'your stepmum'...so I had to explain that I was!

@harryclr

I dont love the label either. My partners daughter calls me by my name or 'babe' because thats what partner calls me but then i get annoyed when im not referred to as Mummy infront of our child.

Does anyone else find it gets muddled then when an 'our' child comes along?

I don't have this yet but don't think it would be a problem for me - but then my SCs are 7 and 11 so old enough that the differential would be quite clear for everyone.

Re your 'mummy' comment - surely people would only refer to you as mummy when in actual conversation with your child? I wouldn't want my OH generally referring to me as mummy just because my child was in the room LOL.

Or are you meaning your stepkids will be talking to your child and say things like "Shall we go and show harryclr this picture you drew?" or whatever? Rather than go and show mummy?

Baby mama is something I have heard on American TV only and two women were being introduced by one of their husbands. The mums were both married.

What you like to be called or identify with has a lot to do with the age of the child when you came into their life too I think. In my experience if you met before child was in pre school you may do a lot more parenting over the next 20 years of marriage than if they were 8 or 12. Again speaking from my own experience and other step parents in my wider family this then would naturally be reflected in how they addressed you and how you characterised the nature of your relationship.

@Jobsharenightmare

Baby mama is something I have heard on American TV only and two women were being introduced by one of their husbands. The mums were both married.

What you like to be called or identify with has a lot to do with the age of the child when you came into their life too I think. In my experience if you met before child was in pre school you may do a lot more parenting over the next 20 years of marriage than if they were 8 or 12. Again speaking from my own experience and other step parents in my wider family this then would naturally be reflected in how they addressed you and how you characterised the nature of your relationship.

It's mentioned quite a lot on the states. It's quite regional dependant in my view.

It's not a bad term per say but there isn't any hard and fast rules that qualify someone as a baby mama bar being the babies mum 🥴 but I always didn't like it but I can't quite put my finger on why. I suspect sadly because it's almost class splitter and people tend to use it as a yard stick of ahh so they are like x or young (dare I say that out loud) and I get the ICK with people being judged by class, as it really matters very little in grand scheme of things, what reference/name title they wish to use.

Egh each to there own. My lord if the term bonus mum was used on here.

Having said that if you held a gun to my head, I would prefer to use the term bonus kids vs skids as skids to me is a really unkind term to use as it reminds me of bodily functions which should never be used in reference to children.

My half brother calls my mum/his stepmum by her first name, and his children call her Granny First name. If he was referring to her, he'd say stepmum. He would say I was his little sister. The children call me Auntie Green, and view me the same as their other aunts.