When do you consider someone becomes a step parent?

[Teisen1990]

Hi all
Inspired by a post from yesterday when do you consider someone moves from 'significant other ' to 'stepmum/dad'. Is it a length of time? After marriage? When the biological parent says so?

@Sellorkeep yes I do have my own child with DH. DD is our only child.

What does that have to do with my opinion on step parenting? At the end of the day DH and I want more DC and we won't love them any less than our firstborn. I find it odd that that same stance isn't applied to step parenting especially in the case ware you've (ie the potential SP) been living (to some extent) with your partners DC longer than your own DC.

We're all entitled to an opinion.

This if you're looking at it legally.

However to me, my stepdad was my stepdad long before he married my mum. So emotionally it's whenever the child and the step parent agree that that's the relationship.

It doesn't give you have parental rights to the child, but legally, after marriage is when the term 'step parent' is used.

When they act like one and more importantly when the child views them as one.

If you have nieces or nephews surely you can see the feeling for your own child is entirely different. It simply ridiculous and naive to expect someone to feel for a child as if it were their own. If you and your partner break up and he finds someone else, the most important is that he is s capable and engaged father and that his new partner is kind to your child. You cannot expect that she would love or treat your child as if she were her own.

All I would say as a step child myself is to consider your children before introducing your new partners. You may be in the throes of passion but your kids should be kept away from that until your committed to each other. I met my dads many GF, my mum dated a man after separating from my dad and I remember latching onto him as I was desperate for a father figure then he disappeared.

When my mum finally met her love he became my stepdad and he was an amazing and lovely man...I loved him more than my own father who was in the main absent.

Living with "to some extent"? Where do you draw the line? "Living with" my DSC for 2 and a half days out of 14 in no way created a feeling even close to the love and bond shared with my own child, even if I did know them before. For so many reasons.

We're all entitled to an opinion but yours is a particularly obnoxious one to share on this board.

Been with DP for 5 years and he's done a lot for DD, particularly when her father hasn't been around. He moved in a few months ago, and last summer she started referring to him as her stepdad so we took up the label. We're never going to get married though.

I mean legally speaking -

www.familylawpartners.co.uk/blog/new-blends-the-legal-definition-of-step-parenting

So, a step parent only becomes a step parent upon marriage to one of the biological parents.
So people can say that's my dads wife sure, that term is correct but legally speaking they are also your step parent. Rightly or wrongly.

Most children want their parents back together if they split up (baring abuse obviously), if a child could decide on whether or not they have a step parent I would suspect many would prefer mum and dad back together and not to have one. Even if they like the sp, I imagine most kids if given the option would chose to have want mum and dad back together over having a step parent.

I don't doubt my own daughter would want me and her father back together even though our relationship just wasn't a happy or healthy one for anyone. Most kids would also chose to eat sweets all day and have no bed time if they got their preference and some kids do get this option. But that doesn't make it right.

I also don't begrudge the title step parent to my Dd sm, she's married to my ex so that's her title which acknowledges her value and worth. I know others may feel differently.

Before anyone jumps me for posting this I was a sc and I had a sp.

@Sellorkeep we can agree to disagree. Off the back of the various SP threads DH and I both agree with what we think it takes to be a SP.

I do love my niece - I call her my firstborn. I'd put my life on the line for her. In a fire I'd try to save them both.

My husband says he couldn't as he believes thoroughly in the traditional nuclear family and even when we dated he was clear he'd never date a woman with kids because he knew tho he'd be pleasant he wouldn't love them like his own.

Personally I agree with this - if you can't love them like your own don't blend families, don't marry their dad/mum. Honestly I can't imagine marrying a man who told me "I love you and I like your kids but can't wait to have our own kids so I can love them 🤯"

@aSofaNearYou 2 days out of 14.... I see my niece that I love dearly and brother more frequently than that.

You can think it obnoxious but I stand by it.

Well exactly, so would you really expect me to love them like my own children?

@aSofaNearYou my initial post is below

*wannabeamummysobad
Personally and from reading the step parent AIBU threads you don't become a SP until you treat said SC like your born kids.

When I read threads saying "DP wants me to contribute I don't want to/ I'm pregnant can I ask SC not to come for x weeks/ I want to go out with DC not SC etc" to me regardless of marriage you aren't deserving of the title SP instead you are their mum or dads partner only.*

Based on your comments I wouldn't consider you a step parent. I'd consider you the DW/DH of their DM/DF. Sounds like you agree.

@hedgehoglurker

No of course not but it means EXACTLY the same thing in law. What a strange question

@wannabeamummysobad go you deciding sofa’s status. 😂. With every post your naivety and lack of life experience comes through more and more.

There’s a second issue here - why is there an expectation that step parents should step
into a parenting role and why, even on this thread is that considered a right of passage?

Can’t you just be “with” a parent without all the expectations of care towards the kids - I don’t mean emotionally caring but physical care?

I used to do a lot for my DSS but as times gone on it’s become impractical and not worth the agro. Why can’t incoming partners set their own boundaries too?

@BlueRibbonPen you absolutely can and should. Boundaries are healthy!
I do emotional stuff (we have a lovely relationship) and only the parent-grunt work that I feel like doing or, of course, when my partner needs a hand. Like that I don’t go crazy.

Marriage.

Based on your comments I wouldn't consider you a step parent. I'd consider you the DW/DH of their DM/DF. Sounds like you agree.

No, I do consider myself a step parent, I just don't think it entails half as much as you do.

Though I do agree that if people are going to expect what you expect then it might be best to just reject the label.

This is my point - it’s such a loaded term.

Nothing to do with it. My partner's ex is very much his son's stepparent as she helped him raise him since he was 4 years old.. but they never married.

It's all to do with how the adult and child see each other, and how they see their roles in each other's lives. There's no hard and fast rule. Even if I married DP I would not be his son's stepmother because he was already 14 by the time we got together so there's never been that relationship really - more like an auntie or something, or even a friend of the family, possibly.

I’m referred to as step mum by the kids because I fill that role in their lives & they want to. Not married so they’ll sometimes preface to others as ‘not officially’ e.g “Occasionallysunny is my step mum but not officially as they aren’t married yet” 😂
Agree with others - officially when you are married but in practical terms when the kids see you in that way.

I disagree with marriage as the answer - you could get married when the child is 17 and do no parenting whatsoever.

It's when the child thinks so and only if there is a parenting role to be played. If the kids are older then I think it remains their father's wife and nothing more.

Can't agree more with this