Step mothering plays into the hands of patriarchy

[Stepmotheringthepatriarchysdream]

Dear step mothers,

Hi 👋 ex-step mother here. I hope you are okay in these difficult summer holiday times.

If you are struggling, please ask yourself whether the expectations placed on you by your partner, your partner’s ex, your partner’s children and society at large are fair, when compared with the expectations of a step father by the same people.

If you feel you are failing to personally thrive under the weight of said expectations, please don’t be surprised. It’s set up to cause you to fail.

Think about how it’s mainly women who contribute unpaid labour to our society to keep it running. Childcare, elderly parent care, emotional labour of family friends, organising play dates, Christmas, birthdays, holidays etc.

Observed inequalities:

•Often male partners just expect step mothers to take on emotional labour of running the home, fill in child care gaps and using their own money on children’s holidays/ activities, birthdays and Christmasses.

•Step fathers allow step children’s mother to meddle with timings so step mother has to endure a life where the calendar is dictated by an external force.

•Step mothers are up against assumptions that they are evil from children’s books (another woman hating strand) whilst simultaneously getting the rough end of the deal and doing all the work.

•Step mothers provide respite for birth mothers but their sacrifices are never acknowledged by anyone. Usually just criticised.

•SMs are scapegoated by everyone in the dynamic when things go wrong. Including their own partner, the person who she’s making these sacrifices for!

It is okay to:
•Not take on any kind of caring role of the children.
•To ask your partner to not label you a step mother. Unless you want this job title.
•To insist that children respect your boundaries and respect your home.
•To not have the presence of these children impact your personal finances negatively.
•To leave all parenting to child’s father.
•To go on holiday without step children.
•To not be liked. You won’t be anyway so make boundaries to respect yourself, you home, your sanity and your money.
•No one can force you to be a martyr so it’s important you show people how to respect you.

I hope this resonates with some of you. I wish someone who had told me years ago.
a I can’t believe how many times I hear step mothers talking about all of the free labour they’re doing for their step children.

This doesn’t happen to step fathers because women are usually covering everything.

@Stepmotheringthepatriarchysdream
I’ll give you few examples:
What about when they speak to you like you’re a piece of shit?
When you take them on holiday and they spoil it with rude or bad behaviour?
When they are violent?
When their mother wrongly accuses of stuff you haven’t done?
When your partner doesn’t share your parenting ideas?
When they damage or steal your belongings?
When they don’t even say hello when you walk into a room?
Would you be happy to take this on the chin for ever increasingly flimsy reason that you ‘love’ their father?

The reasons you list above (apart from their Mother one) could apply to children you gave birth to, they’re not just related to being a step parent. Would you just wash your hands if your own children if you experienced these? Or do you live in a little fantasy land where you don’t think your own child could do any of the above? Do you even have your own children?

Agree completely with you OP.

Luckily I come from a culture where children are just people (no fawning, accepting of abhorrent behaviour, kids will be kids attitudes). And was lucky that my ex had been a full hands on husband, no disproportionate chores etc for me.

I'm like a faraway aunt, I treat them kindly but the caring and parenting is left to their father.
I used to cook (I only cook a few things but tastier than my partner). But then I realised that they treat him so disrespectfully despite his best efforts, like an actual servant (unless he wanted every meal time etc to be unpleasant).
So I only cook for my DP and me when they're not here, I don't want them to feel like they have a second servant. They can eat their father's very ok cooking:) (as I do too!).
My DP never takes the piss so of course I help him out the very odd time (like being in the house when he needs to nip out) - but that's for his benefit.

@Stepmotheringthepatriarchysdream
If you are a step mother and this vitriol is how you see your step-children, then do them AND their father a huge favour and walk away.

@LadyPenelope68

Some of those behaviours coming from anyone but one's own minor children are abusive. And everyone one would tell women/ people to stop allowing themselves be subjected to such behaviour (whether by leaving a partner, going NC / LC with mother / brother etc).
In any situation really, apart from them being your own child.

So of course one can definitely disengage from perpetrators of such behaviour unless they're your children.

I can feel the hurt in the OP's output. Step-parent relationships can be really tough for everyone involved. I was a child in this set up. My dad had a number of relationships before marrying a lovely woman- my step mum. The relationships I had with these women ranged from the downright hostile. One on first meeting said I am going out with your dad-you are nothing to me to others who really wanted me as a daughter. I had a mum so that was never going to work for me. The trick here is balance. Step mums will need to have quite a lot to do with step children so they need to try and get on as best they can do. Teenage years will be tricky particularly. Equally you are not the mum and if you try and be so this is not going to be liked either. For me the best option is what I would see as a good Auntie role- always kind, listens to children, does not overly parent and occasionally will do parent type stuff- but not often.

Amen OP! Completely agree!

All this can be solved by not living with someone who has children from a previous relationship

I’m addressing step mothers!
you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube!
A lot of life’s tricky areas could be ‘solved’ by not doing x, y, z in the first place!
What a silly line of reasoning!!

That method of taking on a benign auntie role only works if the children are respectful, their mother is boundaried about timings and contact and your partner and you see eye to eye on parenting methods.

Quite a lot to balance. All beyond your control.

I don’t think I could easily maintain the mask of benign auntie when my step children are spoiling my home or ruining my peace.

If you had read my OP you will have seen that I am an ex step mother.

My own children do not behave like this because myself and my husband are on the same page about discipline and boundaries.
Unfortunately, as a step parent you are at the mercy of the behaviour management methods of the child’s mother and the Disney dad nonsense during contact weekends.

Could you afford to leave the minute a dynamic presented itself that was difficult?
Most women can’t do that. Most people work through things by being more boundaried.

I am talking about the plight of step mothers in general.
I am not seeking binary LTB advice from people on the internet!
I am putting content out there that people might struggle to accept because it subverts our normal view of the experiences and the rights of step mothers.
Please stop missing the blinking point it’s exhausting!

Sorry, not a step parent, but I've just read through the other thread here called "would you choose to be a step parent"...

Quite interesting and makes.me think I wouldn't be up to the task

I don’t think you can generalise.
If you really don’t want anything to do with someone else’s children then do not get involved with someone who is a parent. It is that simple. Lots of people know the score then get nasty when their oh tries to be a decent parent.
I do agree that lots of parents get put on. So in that case make it clear that you are busy and not their to provide childcare.

When I was single would I have gotten involved with a man with young children? Absolutely not.

FGS.

If you don't want to be a stepparent you have the absolute choice not to get involved with a man with existing DCs or have further DCs with him.

Problem solved.

I get that. However these are still children and in some cases children who have had their lives and security seriously impacted. When my mum and dad separated I was hurt and could not understand why they had done this. I hated going from one place to the other and being introduced to new women and less frequently men who then went on to disappear. I do not know what happened in your individual circumstances so I cannot judge. Generally though anyone becoming a step parent needs to be very tolerant and make some allowance for what the step children will have gone through. IMO divorce and separation is much worse for kids than it is for adults who control the process.

Why get into a romantic relationship if all you’re looking for is a nanny for your kids, rather than a person with her own needs and desires that don’t revolve around your child?

@Naunet well if it benefits the man, why wouldn't he? He gets a new wife/partner, he can have sex with her, he gets companionship and she does childcare. I can't see why a man would willingly walk away if he's happy with the arrangement.

Indeed, it works nicely for men, and some women seem keen to police other women on men’s behalf in order to keep it that way.

It's amazing.

Most step parents struggle because the adults mum or dad or both are crap.it's bloody rarely the kids but even if it is it's usually down to crappy parenting.

But somehow dad who has primary duty to his children to parent his children is forgotten and the responsibility is placed on sm with the expectation that as a sm she also has and cannot expect to be treated as a human being (of equal, not more) importance that the other humans in the dynamic.

What's really interesting about this post is so many non step parents are coming along and proving ops point. It's so engrained, men don't need to do anything to be considered good and don't need to say anything to keep women in line. It's the women who do this to themselves.

Reminds me a bit of the power plays that happen in the handmaids tale. Different rank of women keep the others in line.

of course you don't need to do anything ever, starting with getting into relationship with someone who already has children

i can imagine these boundaries working when you have no shared kids / kids of your own. otherwise it turns into favouritism

Such a true post 👏

Well I agree on the setting of boundaries and not doing more than you want to, and certainly not too much actual parenting, but if you don’t want anything to do with a partner’s kids at all, finding someone without kids would be your best bet. If you are ok with the idea but find in practice you aren’t appreciated then sack it off (that trial year is so important).

I understand the broad points you are trying to make, I think, but some of the specifics are likely to result in misery all round.