Mumsnet anti-stepparent

[GlitterCupcakes]

Does anyone else find this site is very anti-stepparent? The admins will delete replies by stepparents that support other stepparents but rarely delete replies bashing the stepparent. I find it crazy. How many admins on the mumsnet team are actually stepparents or are they all DM’s who loath the existence of stepparents in their children’s lives?

I was once accused of having "an unnatural interest" in my step daughter's periods because I'd put sanitary towells in a prominent place in the bathroom when it looked like she might need them soon. I still can't believe that someone would accuse me of something so disgusting for trying to spare her the awkwardness of having to ask for them if she didn't feel comfortable to.

blaming a child for circumstances they didn’t create.

In all fairness step parents didn't create the circumstances either. Parents do. After all they are the one's who have children with people they then don't stay with. I thibk people sometimes forget that step parenting situations ultimately exist because of decisions made my parents.

What I’m saying @KylieKoKo is that the children should not be blamed because adults can’t behave like adults. How many times do you read the convoluted reasons that SCs shouldn’t visit, shouldn’t have their own room or space.shouldn’t come on holiday because it disrupts the plans for the “new” family?

Too often the SP wants to erase the SCs when “our own child” comes along. That’s not fair and no surprise it stirs up reactions.

But almost all step parents I know don’t behave like this. MN seems to attract these step parents who come on here seeking validation for their unfair actions.

@OllyBJolly I mainly see women doing their best struggling with the dynamic or children's poor behaviour and getting lambasted for daring to say they find it hard.

I think there are bad step parents and good ones, just like there are bad parents and good ones. Step parents don't really seem to get the benefit of the doubt on here though.

@OllyBJolly well said

MN seems to attract these step parents who come on here seeking validation for their unfair actions.

@OllyBJolly and they get slated by actual step-parents.

Also some parents are just poor parents which younger step-parents don't see until it is too late. The SC then are frequently horrible children regardless of age as they haven't been taught how to behave.

There have been threads about SC stealing, damaging property, threatening violence, being violent, being abusive including sexual abuse to another child, and lying including claiming abuse when none has taken place.

These children exist with parents who stay together. They still have an impact on adults
and children unrelated to them who live around them e.g. neighbours, people in the street. I have relations and friends who have told me about neighbours children doing such things. (In some cases the children concerned have called me names for just visiting them.) They have had to involve police, SS and other authorities. However the impact of the horrible behaviour is different to an unrelated adult and other children who is living in one of their parents households.

@OllyBJolly You seem to be giving children swathes of liberty here without knowing individual circumstances. I agree in some cases (especially if the child is young, it is more the adults), but less so as they get older.

Many step parents come on here to complain about their step children or their psycho bitch mother.
Yes they do, and if it provokes a reaction maybe more time and energy needs to be given to considering why a certain portion of society behaves the way they do. (Golden uterus mothers). They exist, categorically they exist and this site consistently side steps that without confronting the elephant in the room. The whole system is set up to protect/ promote their roles as primary carers. Family courts/ social services are woefully under equipped/ under resourced/ biased to robustly deal with primary carers who operate in such a way as to make life hell for the NRP and anyone who subsequently tries to be with them. That needs to be understood. More people need to understand that some parents very deliberately weaponise their own children post separation. And the primary target for said weaponisation? Whomever is with the parent.

In terms of children, some children know exactly what they are doing. Are they being puppeteered by someone in the background? Highly likely yes. But that doesn’t absolve them of poor behaviour. You don’t get to go around in life being rude/ dismissive/ hostile and then blame your behaviour on someone else. No. Each person is responsible for their own behaviour and subsequent consequences. Including children. They don’t get let off because ‘they’re children’ fgs. That sort of reasoning is exactly why so many children in these circumstances become borderline intolerable to live with. And as it’s already been said, the NRP largely lacks the skills to deal with such behaviour robustly.

You may think some of the threads are convoluted and trying to come up with reasons as to why Sc shouldn’t do xyz. Some Sp’s are poor role models in the exact same way some parents are. That’s a given. But having lived through hell because of this sort of scenario, all I can explain is the feelings that are stirred up constantly trying to balance the demands from a third party (normally the other parent) are feelings I have never ever had in my life. These situations are hard, overwhelming even. Dealing with my partners situation has fundamentally changed me as a person. Why? Because it took such a toll on my mental health that I had no choice but to put in hard boundaries. And then face what feels like the rest of society to say ‘no I have no interest in living with my partners children.’

I would never have thought I would be that person. Never. I adore children and have never found myself struggling with them. But this time I have. Unless you’ve lived it, you have no idea how it can be.

[quote sassbott]@OllyBJolly You seem to be giving children swathes of liberty here without knowing individual circumstances. I agree in some cases (especially if the child is young, it is more the adults), but less so as they get older.

Many step parents come on here to complain about their step children or their psycho bitch mother.
Yes they do, and if it provokes a reaction maybe more time and energy needs to be given to considering why a certain portion of society behaves the way they do. (Golden uterus mothers). They exist, categorically they exist and this site consistently side steps that without confronting the elephant in the room. The whole system is set up to protect/ promote their roles as primary carers. Family courts/ social services are woefully under equipped/ under resourced/ biased to robustly deal with primary carers who operate in such a way as to make life hell for the NRP and anyone who subsequently tries to be with them. That needs to be understood. More people need to understand that some parents very deliberately weaponise their own children post separation. And the primary target for said weaponisation? Whomever is with the parent.

In terms of children, some children know exactly what they are doing. Are they being puppeteered by someone in the background? Highly likely yes. But that doesn’t absolve them of poor behaviour. You don’t get to go around in life being rude/ dismissive/ hostile and then blame your behaviour on someone else. No. Each person is responsible for their own behaviour and subsequent consequences. Including children. They don’t get let off because ‘they’re children’ fgs. That sort of reasoning is exactly why so many children in these circumstances become borderline intolerable to live with. And as it’s already been said, the NRP largely lacks the skills to deal with such behaviour robustly.

You may think some of the threads are convoluted and trying to come up with reasons as to why Sc shouldn’t do xyz. Some Sp’s are poor role models in the exact same way some parents are. That’s a given. But having lived through hell because of this sort of scenario, all I can explain is the feelings that are stirred up constantly trying to balance the demands from a third party (normally the other parent) are feelings I have never ever had in my life. These situations are hard, overwhelming even. Dealing with my partners situation has fundamentally changed me as a person. Why? Because it took such a toll on my mental health that I had no choice but to put in hard boundaries. And then face what feels like the rest of society to say ‘no I have no interest in living with my partners children.’

I would never have thought I would be that person. Never. I adore children and have never found myself struggling with them. But this time I have. Unless you’ve lived it, you have no idea how it can be.[/quote]
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

@Sassbott what a sensible post. Agree with every word you've written there.

I've found that there are lots of posters on Step Parenting who aren't actually step parents. They're first wives with a grudge against second wife in their own lives and they hang around on the forum to jump on step mums to take out their personal anger and upset.

I just report those posts though. You can see them a mile away.

@Disneycharacter

It's clear the bashers are natural parents who hate wife #2 who is step parenting their child

I think there's probably also a large contingent of natural parents who just dread their children being spoken about or treated in the way that some children have been on these boards. (By the stepmum AND the father.)

In a lot of cases it seems these stepmums have been sold a pup. The men in their lives are barely parenting their children, EOW with the odd extra night maybe. The men were able to start relationships more or less unencumbered - plenty of dates, able to work shifts, space for a new baby even. The stepmum becomes used to having her partner and home mostly to herself and it's a real imposition if that changes.

95% of the time any inconvenience is absorbed by the stepmum while the man keeps on enjoying life as normal. It's not hard to see how resentment for both the ex and the children develops.

@GoodnightGrandma

I had a wicked step mother so, in my own personal experience that I don’t need commenting on, I’m not a fan. We’re entitled to an opinion still, I think.

This is part of the issue right here.

'I had a bad X and so my opinion of all X's is now Y'.

It's not really logical although understandable.

I had a bad mother, my opinions of all other mother's aren't that they must also be terrible. I don't go onto threads written by mothers and twist what they have said to shove them into the mould for all mothers I've created in my head, that they must be awful because mine was. I do appreciate how awful having a bad step mother can be (I've been there), but I do hate the responses on threads here that take minor issues and twist them into something not even remotely comparable.

You can have something like "AIBU to ask my DSC to tidy their room" and at least one poster will come along with "my step mother made my life hell, she told me I was a bitch and that she didn't want me there, she refused to let me in the house and now my relationship with my Dad is ruined and everything is her fault so YABU".

On another note though, I can understand why these boards do get so heated. It's an emotive subject because mostly it's about children. Add to that that everyone seems to have a different opinion on what is the "proper" way to step parent it makes it very hard to get consistent answers and advice. Some people think you're terrible for not jumping in and doing everything you would for your own DC with your step children, others think a hands off approach is best, some people are in the middle and so on... There's never usually one overwhelming consensus on these threads like there is on other boards about other subjects.

I've seen some genuinely crazy replies here over the years.

Mumsnet is biased against stepparents.

I disagree.

Mumsnet does nothing to stop stepparents from being bashed and this place is a very toxic environment, not a safe space.

Again, I disagree.
Posters are expressing their opinions and every thread is different.

Posts that breach the guidelines are deleted.

Some replies can be quite harsh and some posters lack the ability to be sensitive in their responses, even if it's not what the stepparent wants to hear.

I agree with a PP who said the issue is when people come on, having had a negative experience, and announce that all SP's are the same - when they are not.

It works both ways though, whilst there is a huge issue with that, there's also a big under current of SP's, who when discussing SC and their RP tar them with a (usually nasty) brush too. Usually to justify their feelings.

Whilst there are some pretty horrible RP's who come on and spit venom, there are some equally nasty SP's who think it's ok to spit venom about SC and RP's. However. It appears that's ok, because this is a step parent forum so they can say what they like about someone else's child.

I'm not a step parent, I often come on if there is a question etc that resonates with me. My Son has had both good and bad experiences with SP's, both actually two extremes. I don't pretend it's the norm, but as he's turning into adulthood I often tell his story, because it's not a particularly nice one. Usually do it when SP's are going on about what little impact separation has on "first children". Apparently no impact in most cases. People don't like to hear it, but there can be an impact, and if I can talk about DS, and maybe give some advice about that then that may stop another child suffer like he has. I know most don't care, as A few of us discussed on a thread yesterday that the issue with a lot of threads is that you get two very different strong opinions, who are likely to both want to protect different children. So my priority is DS (I'm not a dick though, I always thought of his younger siblings) and obviously SP's are going to want to make sure their children are priority, of course they are. That's why threads often just don't work! Going round and round in circles, slagging each other off!

Usually do it when SP's are going on about what little impact separation has on "first children". Apparently no impact in most cases.

I think it's a bit of a misconception that people think it has no impact on them. They know the situation impacts them, opinions just vary on what and how much needs to be done to compensate for that (and by whom).

I agree too @sassbott. I can honestly say that my exdp's dc were the only kids I have ever come across that I could not click with so I know the problem wasn't me (even though I beat myself up for ages over it). The problem was their dm who weaponised them against me & the older they got the worse it got. She had done such a job on them that they became intolerable to be around. Yes, they were old enough to see the wood for the trees but THEY chose not to.
There's often a lot of advice on here saying dc will see things (their dm's unreasonable behaviour) for what it is as they get older but that's not always true. My exdp's dc knew their dm's behaviour was wrong but instead of 'blaming' her they 'blamed' me. Quote from them: "if Magda didn't exist then mum wouldn't be so angry. If you'd leave Magda then we'd all be happier".

Of course exdp shouldn't have told me this but it came out during an argument.
There are bad step parents as there are bad parents but I find the majority of step parents on here very reasonable. They are only considered unreasonable because they have boundaries & don't believe that children & exes Wants should come first all the time.
There are a few dms on here who are genuinely dealing with awful exes & traumatised children, but there are many who just cannot get over the fact that their ex has moved on & focus all their frustrations on the new partner & fail to realise that their bitterness is what is damaging their children.
I have walked in both shoes.
My dc & I were left for the ow who is now my exes dw.
And, I've been the partner to a man with children.
I can honestly say that my self esteem & sense of self took more of a battering in the latter situation than the former. All control was taken from me & my life became an extension of the ridiculous & toxic carry on of my partners ex & dc. I was expected to prioritise him & his 'family' over myself & my dc because his situation was "so much worse than mine" & according to him & his ex his kids were suffering greatly because he'd moved on.
Well my response to that was if I and my dc could move on from cheating & betrayal & carve out good relationships with my exh & his dw & their 'new' kids, then the least exdp, his exw & their dc could do was pull their heads out of their asses and appreciate the relative ease of a mutual separation.
In the early days I would come on here for support and advice & bar a few posters I constantly got shot down for daring to expect any sort of prioritisation from my partner.
This forum is still very negative but the flip side is there are now more vocal, supportive & RATIONAL posters who go some way towards drowning out all the hand wringers.

They are only considered unreasonable because they have boundaries & don't believe that children & exes Wants should come first all the time.

👆🏽 X 100.

This fucked up notion that NR children needs come first because their parents are no longer together and a whole household should pivot to meet that? Bonkers.
My children are technically more resident than me. But their parents are not together. Their needs do not (and have never) dominated my world. Based on that I’ll be damned if I’ll put someone else’s kids needs ahead of mine.

The most depressing part of this board is that all it takes is men like my partner coming on here and reading the utter BS that comes from people about ‘the children come first’ for me to then face that rhetoric in RL.

In terms of the notion of how traumatised children are in these scenarios? Again not my issue. My issue is to navigate my life and my relationship with my exh in such a manner that minimises that. If two other people who chose to have children cannot do that (and bluntly put their own immature conflict over and above the needs of their children), then that’s on them. Whether I stay with my partner for 2 months or 20 years, his children’s ‘trauma’ is not for me to resolve.

I’ve never let the tail wag the dog with my own kids. I’m not about to let it start with someone else’s. anyone who thinks i should? Intense entitlement.

Oh and I’ll add. If the children become unpleasant/ vaguely high maintenance to be around as result? Also not my issue and I also have every right to say ‘your children are not very nice human beings at the moment, I don’t particularly want to go out of my way to spend time with them.’

If my kids acted up on play dates, I wouldn’t expect them to be invited back . And they wouldn’t be. Same with my partners children. If I don’t enjoy their company and my children also don’t, why would I want to spend time with them?

And if people have faced that scenario in RL then take a look at your kids and their behaviour. My kids are no walk in the park. Teens are testing boundaries. Youngest has hormone/ strops. I have times when I tell them they are not behaving nicely and to not talk to me until they’ve thought about their behaviour. I parent robustly and at times harshly. But the upside? They’re great a large portion of the time and when they’re not I don’t have to hang with them. I address the behaviours head on and remove myself.

But suddenly with someone else’s children I need to be empathetic to their ‘trauma’ and tolerate poor behaviour because their parents have conflict? Not. A. Chance.

It appears that's ok, because this is a step parent forum so they can say what they like about someone else's child

There are definitely ways in which no child should be spoken about however, I don't think a lot of what is said on here falls under that category. At the end of the day, I and pretty much everyone else is not going to talk about other children with same affection that they do their own.

Yes SCs are "someone else's child" but it may not stop them being annoying, displaying behaviour that makes them hard to like or difficult. There is often a theme on here that you can't say anything negative about children because "they are just a child". A lot of the time I just think "And?" when people say that. Children can still be X Y or Z. We are sometimes blinded to it when they are our own but not so much other people's.

what little impact separation has on "first children". Apparently no impact in most cases.

I don't think there's no impact. But I don't think it can be measured generally across the board. Some children will be massively affected, others may not. My parents are divorced and I have step parents, I had a bad experience with a step mother too. I wouldn't say my life has been hugely impacted by it though, whereas a friend in a similar situation is still very upset to this day about things. It's impossible to say all DC will impacted this much or this little. The truth is people, even children, deal with situations differently to how others might.

That's why I don't really have time for poster's who go on about how the OPs DSC must be hiding their trauma and will know 100% that the OP finds them a bit annoying sometimes. Deep down they must absolutely be distraught.

I know my DSC in RL. I've had thoughts similar to threads I've seen on here in the past but I am confident that they are not traumatised and just hiding it from me. Lots of people here would probably tell me that's not true though, they must be apparently.

@TooBigForMyBoots

It's anti-everything. Step parent, Vegan, Driver, Child, Parent, Sibling, McDonald's, In-law, whatever.

If you can ignore the Aunties antis, there are posters offering wisdom, intelligence and empathy.

Really not anti-driver, but anti non-drivers.

And yes, very anti step-parent. I have no children or step-children so no skin in the game but the prejudice against step-parents is clear to see.

@ABitPointlessReally I totally agree with everything you said there, great comment.

I agree with prior posters the biggest issue is projection and the assumptions that come with it as opposed to taking the matter in hand head on.

It does seem that a dynamic involving a non resident father and difficult relationship with ex drives a lot of the issues. I'd expect its a very difficult situation to manage if you are trying to do something more than an occasional blending.

There's definitely a cohort of posters on here who have a real axe to grind re: stepparents. You see them pop up in threads constantly asking things like "so were you the other woman?" and generally making inflammatory comments.

I'm not a stepparent myself but the anti-SP bias on here is so blatant it's laughable.

Usually do it when SP's are going on about what little impact separation has on "first children".

I have no doubt that for SOME children separation does have an affect on them (my children weren’t affected, and their older half sibling wasn’t affected by their parents not being together either). But I know some children take it badly. Giving them everything at other people’s expense is something I don’t agree with though. Especially if the separation is a while ago and one or both parents keep dragging it up in the way of overcompensating meaning the child gets spoiled time and time again with no opportunity to move on. I have no time for stuff like that.
I have an issue with is the separation being used as a card to dominate everyone’s lives so that the first children always come first “just because”. And people using a separation of the first children’s parents to justify the second children having to compromise on everything because “their parents are still together so they’ll be ok.”

Yes I agree, I hate the "their parents are together so..."

Firstly, that argument always assumes that their parents are living in marital bliss. I can assure you, I was not "lucky" when my parents were together. It was horrible, constantly arguing and screaming at each other, stealing the house phone to ring relatives to come and rescue me because they were fighting again and I was scared and so on... Anyone who thought I was lucky simply because they slept in the same house would have been kidding themselves. We've usually no idea whether the RDC are lucky or not.

Secondly, a lot of the time on here we can be talking about very young "new" DC, often toddler age even. Who really expects a toddler to consider themselves lucky because their parents are together.

And lastly, whilst I'm not saying no children will ever think this way, a lot don't in my experience. I remember all my friends thinking it was so cool that I got 2 of everything etc... It's stupid now as an adult, but that's how my friends, as children, thought. Likewise I often thought what their setup was was "cool" for a variety of other reasons, some having a sister when I didn't for example, the only child who didn't have to share anything and so on... all things now where I may look back as an adult and think there were pros and cons to all of our situations which I didn't understand or see as a child and neither did they.

It's not the same as saying all kids are stupid and don't understand anything which poster's get accused of here a lot. But I do think people place the emotional intelligence of adults onto children on these boards quite a lot and I don't think it really helps anyone.

It works both ways of course. But again this is why I struggle so much with this topic. A lot of poster's refuse to take an OP at face value about how she/he who actually knows their DSC in RL are reacting to things because they apparently know how they must be reacting to something because all kids are impacted the same... When actually they are often not imo. There's too many variables. It's a really hard topic to get advice on, theirs too many varying opinions on the right way and what that looks like often with no room for seeing anything from the other side.