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.

As a child who went through 2 “stepmothers” and 2 “stepfathers”… (both stepfathers were arseholes and horrible, won’t get into that issue here. Anyhow:)

I agree with OP.
Did I want to be included? Made to be welcome? Know my presence was pleasant / generally desired?

absolutely

and ensuring that would have been my father’s job.
but I also wanted 1-1 time with my father without my “step-mother”. I already had a mother and I didn’t feel like I wanted an other one.
One of my best childhood memories? A hiking (!!) weekend with my dad. I wasn’t too fond of hiking but it was just the two of us.

and I used to hate it when my (former)stepmother tried to mother me, intentionally connect with me / force a connection. We actually started to get along when she started treating me like most adults treat children of friends / distant relatives etc.

• didn’t say we shouldn’t be involved with kids. There’s involved and there’s exploited. Two completely different things.

@Stepmotheringthepatriarchysdream*

But you are talking about something that all women have a choice about. You should look at the set up and decide if it's for you.

You sound like you made some not very good choices and you sound very bitter about it.

There will be lots of stepfathers who also feel in hindsight they made a bad choice.

If you don't want to be a step parent and take on the reality of whatever that might end up looking like, don't get into a relationship with someone who has kids.

This is the classic victim blaming mentality that depletes the empathy in our society.

You don’t know what you’re in for. That’s the point!

What you have said could be said about anyone in any situation such as having to leave a; marriage/ job/ friendship/ religion.

You don’t know how being a step-parent will burn until you actually experience it. That’s the bloody point!

That’s why I want to raise awareness of the pitfalls.

@Stepmotheringthepatriarchysdream you know exactly what you're into - just like you probably have a good idea of what you're into when you have your own kids. And if you don't - then that's your first mistake.

I was pretty young when I became stepmother and I literally started of with asking my partner what he imagined my role would be, and told him how I understood this - and we kept each other to that agreement, and kept talking and figuring things out together when things started to change.

at some point it helps to admit that we have made mistakes and not blame "the society" and everyone around us for not thinking things through. Sure there are things you cannot foresee, but a lot of potential pitfalls you have described are firmly in the "glaringly obvious" category

It must be wonderful to be so perfect. Glad you’ve got it all sewn up. Good for you! 👏

My OP was aimed at (the majority of) women, who enter a relationship with a man who has young children from a previous relationship. Women for whom this ever-changing beast of a set-up has step mothers contorting into positions financially, emotionally and practically that are detrimental to their wellbeing.

It’s all very well (and easy) to posit that “you shouldn’t have got into this situation in the first place”. I’m offering insight to those at are in this situation.

Do you go up to homeless people and say to them that it was their choices that led them to this place in life and withdraw all potential sympathy? Or do you buy them a cuppa and give them a bit of money? I’m sorry but your line of reasoning causes me to think that it would be the former.

Anyway, enjoy your perfect set up and don’t waste your time arguing with people on the internet.

The current active post on this board basically just proves your point. Dad not organising his kids for school and fucking off to work expecting SM to sort it all. And SM is evil for sending the kids to school in unwashed uniform because "why can't she just wash their uniforms and make packed lunches while she's sorting her own kids?".

Yeah that thread is a pretty bleak reminder that marrying a guy with kids means you will likely end up an unpaid nanny.

no set-up is perfect, but if people go into relationship with someone with children and don't think to discuss what role should they occupy in the lives of those kids, then try to share their wisdom then its like a homeless person who became homeless because they didn't think they need to pay rent.

your post comes across more patronising than helpful

and i would say they both suck because it's not like they didn't know washing needs to be done. how they split chores is up for discussion, but they both dropped a ball here

Whilst some of your points are actually valid, you do come across as very bitter and willing to put the blame on anyone (including those that are on here saying that they have had a different experience) rather than accepting that sometimes we are a victim of our own choices as much as anything else.

Like having your own kids, no 2 step families are the same either.

I have been a SM for pretty much 20 years and and can relate to some of the things that have obviously caused issues in your relationship.

In my case though I have 2 DSCs. 1 lives with us and has for 5 years now the other I had an argument with early this year, after years of emotional abuse and manipulation and now refuse to see her (even though it means I am no longer allowed contact with my DGC also).

If I was set up to fail and it was all down to society and the patriarchy - surely I would have no relationship with either or both. Both DSCs have same mom and dad and same SM.

Your DH may be great at boundaries with shared child but are you still together? His Disney parenting is learnt behavior - is it likely to be different if you two are no longer together?

It is ok to do all the things that you have listed but I think it is ok to be flexible in your approach as well, things change over the years and that means approaches and boundaries are sometimes required to change either temporary or long term.

Years ago I read a post on here who I am sure many will have read also, about maleficent and what it is like to be a SM. That was insightful to me and made me question things early on and did give me the opportunity to look at the boundaries that I wanted but I am not the same person from 20 years ago and my expectations have changed, the children are also no longer children so as young adults theirs have also changed it what they want from me. This is not really much different to my own DS though.

Bitter or not. Step parenting relationships often fail in the long run, which is sad.

I think it’s hard when everyone assumes a step mother is bad from the start and step mothers have to work backwards from there, putting extra effort in to proving that the stereotype wrong.

Single fathers on the other hand, are always related to as the good guy which is a more privileged starting point. The rl is more likely to succeed and receive support from the community.

It’s gendered because women have been taught from day one that they are the nurturers and that is their role, so single dads use this sexist vantage point to get free emotional labour from prospective partners where it would never be the same in a reversal of genders situation.

Of course it is sad when everyone just assumes the SM is bad from the start but in reality, not everyone thinks like that.

But the same can be said of a lot of relationships - MIL are all evil, DIL all hate MIL and want to push them out in favour of their own family (yes gendered again but just thinking of typical MN threads).

Stereotypes can work both ways. How often do people assume the dad must be a deadbeat if he doesn't live with the kids, if he wants more than EOW then it must be because he wants to reduce maintenance etc. Yet in rl I know of at least 5 that actually live with dad and have little or no contact with their moms (not including my own 2).

That's not even mentioning the golden uterus.

Maybe it is not a step parenting thing, maybe it is indictive of what happens when blending any type of family (see point about MIL/DIL above).

I don't disagree that caution should be given but quite often people meet, get caught up in their feelings and then feel too entrenched to have a get out when things go wrong. Or as I have witnessed many times, woman meets man who is all round bit useless, has kids, thinks she can be the one that changes him, he will be different with her. Jumps into having kids and now is overwhelmed by being mom, sm and still the man is a bit shit and yet is a surprise.

I completely agree that it is important to maintain a level of personal financial independence as well as personal boundaries but as I said, I feel that this is in all relationships we enter not just the step arena.

This is the classic victim blaming mentality that depletes the empathy in our society
Quite an ironic response when yourself have expressed very little empathy for the children involved who gave even less control on their fare than SMs.

Your view of the majority of SMs is very stereotypical. The poor woman, vulnerable financially who is being treated like Cinderella.

I do very much believe that some SMs are being used and indeed, some dads are primarily looking for replacement mums, but similarly, there are women and single mums looking for a provider, are happy to become financially dependent and become/stay SAHM or but work only PT but resent that the extra time they get is spent to help the man who is supporting her and often her children from a previous relationship.

The reality is that recomposed families come in all shapes and forms and the one you are advocating is only one of them.

Correct.

I think you're spot on...and the thing is a lot of this very obvious advice given in this thread is applicable to all relationships - including ones without children!

stay independent financially, ensure your partner is pulling their weight, discuss boundaries...

a lot of men who end up pushing their childcare onto the stepmothers are men who ended up single because they started of as useless partners and dads - it's not the fault of society that someone's partner is a bit of a lazy knobhead. Even the terminology used on this forum - Disney Dad- sort of plays down just how bad at their job these dads are.

I agree with you.

Would there be the vitriol towards a step father not seeing to the uniforms?

Of course not. Poster's on MN often don't have expectations that fathers do stuff for their own children, not to mind step children.

The spectacular naivety and boiled frog analogy often really applies to women who find themselves stuck in this dynamic.

They wake up and suddenly find they are knee deep in the most thankless situation.

If I hadn't had a friend marry a widower I wouldn't have seen how difficult it can be first hand long term.

Likewise my friend who married a man with two children.

Both were thankless jobs.

One has said 100% no to any involvement with a childcare request for a new grandchild having recently retired.

She has spent 20 years being subtly put in her place but now the penny has apparently dropped that she might actually be of use 3 days a week.

She wasn't even asked directly, her husband mentioned that he was asked.

She told him that it was 100% his decision but she will have zero part of in any of it and will be making plans to be away as and when suits her going forward.

Of course her husband had zero intentions of childminding, it would be down to her.

Her entitled step daughter was very upset at her "selfishness", now that her father suddenly thinks it won't work, and things have been very strained.

She feels her husband could have handled things much better and more respectfully of her.

On impulse my friend is going to Australia this friday for an extended break to stay with family and insisted on going alone as she thinks a break from them all would do her the world of good.

This is after 20 years of being very kind and accommodating towards them all.

Utterly thankless job IMO.

I would hate it for my daughters.

Absolutely hate it.

Would there be the vitriol towards a step father not seeing to the uniforms?
Again, it totally depends on the situation. If the step dad is the main or sole financial providers, than the established role would be for the mum to buy the uniforms (and other duties related to her children. However it is likely that SD helps financially towards the children, and sometimes even more than their own fathers. It's not black or white.

I also think that relationships evolve over time and ultimately, it's up to individual to decide who becomes part of their family.

My SM probably didn't consider me part of her family when I was young, but I became so as the years went by and even more so when my kids were born. She considers them her grand children like her own daughters kids.

Some opt not to invest time and effort, which is fine as long as you don't expect anything back (yet some do). Some opt to invest and usually get the live and commitment back. Unfortunately, some don't, or not as they would like and feel they've been used. That's a terrible position to find yourself in.

To not be liked. You won’t be anyway so make boundaries to respect yourself, you home, your sanity and your money
This I've picked up especially on the first post.

'not being liked' can be neutral as in everyone ignore eachother and it works. The problem is when 'not bein liked' turns into being disliked and worse hated.

It's hard to keep the status quo of 'not being liked'. My observation is that it rarely remains as such and feelings do turn negative and gradually more intense.

Sadly, that's usually when the relationship can't be sustained any longer and people separate.

It's not something I'd recommend. Can't force someone to like you but I think trying to be like is very important in any settings.

It’s annoying when it’s assumed SMs don’t financially contribute in the way that SDs do, so many of us are paying much higher mortgage/rent and associated running costs for a property big enough to house the DSC. Just because the DSC’s rooms might sit empty for more of the time than the rooms at their mum’s house doesn’t mean they cost less! Let alone all the incidental extras we inevitably pay for. And personally even without all that I’d have found step parenting waaaay easier if I could’ve just thrown money at the situation instead of all the gendered expectations of “motherly” duties like cooking and cleaning and laundry etc, I mean when do you ever see a step dad criticised for not regularly cooking the family meal?

This. There have been so many posts recently in this vein. What they’re forgetting is that adults make the choices and children have to live with them. Therefore ANY adults involved with the children; parents, step-parents, extended family etc have a duty to ensure the welfare of the children. Decent adults will communicate with each other and do this. Otherwise it’s incredibly damaging- yes it’s hard but it’s the deal. If you’re not up for it - which is entirely fair enough, then live separately.

I think that you are deliberately missing the point that a step mother has chosen to get involved with a man with DC. It’s part of the package. A choice she made.

Any person who wants to stick rigidly to your list, can easily do so by avoiding men who are fathers.

As for providing “respite for birth mothers”, I think you are kidding yourself. Step mothers tend to provide care during dad’s contact time, i.e. doing the dad’s share of the work.

Watching this thread with vague amusement as how many non step parents are commenting with the same ignorance that flat earthers are convinced the world is flat.

I find all the "treat them like your own, you signed up to be their parent" blathering very strange.
If I started to treat my DSD like my own and parent her the exact same as I parent my own children, all hell would break loose because I'd be doing things very differently.
I didn't sign up to be her parent, any more than DSD, DH or his ex signed up to allow me to parent her.
I signed up to be DHs wife and that means I signed up to support him in life as he supports me. Sometimes that comes in the form of doing things for DSD, but he takes the lead as her parent as he should.
His ex didn't choose to have a child with me.

I think what loads of some non-stepparents don’t grasp is that most of us step parents do actually go into the situation thinking we’re “up for it” - hell we probably even actually like children - but what fucks everyone over is when one or both of the parents don’t play fair, which makes functional family dynamics all but impossible for the step parent, except they’re the ones with similar expectations placed on them whilst having zero actual authority. How many times do we read on this board “you have a DP problem”? But like the boiled frog everything creeps up on you gradually, even Disney parenting can be hard to spot until you’re in the thick of it and realise its harmful consequences and knock-on effects as opposed to seeing it from a distance and assuming “aww how sweet that he dotes on his kids so much.”

Coupled with the fact that you fall in love with the in-effect childfree version of your DP (barring him being a bit less available on weekends) because you’re not allowed to meet his children until your relationship is properly serious, it’s impossible to know what you’re truly getting into until you’re in way too deep.

It’s very easy to say step parents should do this, and if I were I step parent I would never do that, but believe me when you’re up against hostile obstructive parents and/or DSC and your mental health is dying a death by 1000 cuts you literally lose the strength to step in and “just” do xyz for your DSC especially when you can see their own bloody parents failing to do so, or are actively working against you. And by then you know it’ll all get taken for granted or thrown back in your face anyway.

You can never know how mentally exhausting it is to live your life with literally every action, even the most ordinary insignificant tiny little ones, being judged as an indicator of “do you love/hate/resent your DSC?” Couple this with all the other anticipated compromises you’ll already be making as a step parent, and it really does take its toll on your ability to suck things up.

maybe the first problem is that a man who has children being available as child-free version of himself is already a red flag? because people with children generally should come as a package and if they don't then that's already a sign they may not be the most involved and reliable parent out there