How do you feel about step-parents?
I am married to a man that has 3 kids from a previous marriage and we also have children of our own. I have always felt a little awkward about being a step-mother. So many people say that as a step mom, I am not the "mother" so I shouldn't discipline or have say in what they do or do not do. How are we supposed to function as a family if the woman of the household has no say? That's just strange to me. I have been treated poorly (verbally) by one of the step kids, but when I talk about it with others in my husband's family, they always side with him. Like he's had such a rough life. I understand divorce can be hard on kids, but when they are surrounded by anything and everything a kid could ask for besides mommy and daddy being together, don't you think they should understand a little? I mean the kid is 17 yrs old already. All I know is that when I was a kid, I was taught to respect your elders. If an adult tells you to do or not do something, you listen. You don't act disrespectful. Now, I can't say I'm the only one my step son mistreats. He treats his Grandmother very badly. Sometimes, after dealing with the ex-wife and the drama with the stepkids, I sometimes think maybe my mom was right......you don't want a man with baggage! Please, tell me your thoughts about being a step-parent!
Why do ALL step parents get a bad wrap?!?
Seriously, I see a lot of answers on here giving step parents a bad wrap. Also stereotypically step parents are seen as evil hate full people...what is that all about?! I had a step dad growing up and I gave him the same amount or more respect than I did my mom, if i did not i was severely punished. How do you overcome this stereotype...... now that I am a step parent I hear all kinds of bad things when i express my negative feelings towards my step child. I'm sure all parents at one point or another have negative feelings toward their children. So why is it not the same?! people have to realize that when a "step" parent walks into the situation they have to take the fall for all the shitty things that happened to the child, its the god honest truth because they are the ones who feel (well i do) like they need to mend the child and help the child and make the child better. All in the process of doing this they have to hear about how they are a horrible person for talking about the child this way yadda yadda yadda. I want to add that I do not constantly have negative feelings for my husbands daughter just when she is out of control, yes she does have a lot of issues, just as anoy other kid would who has had her life. This should not make me a bad person when I ask for help and need to describe her exact behavior and attitudes.
Are most step parents nice?
I'm a step parent and I consider myself nice. Although, no one is perfect. I don't try to throw a pity party, but being a step parent is hard. I had a step mother and now I am a step mother. I have a lot more respect for my step mom now that I am living it. I think compassion and understanding go a long way. It's easy to hate a step parent for many reasons even if they are nice but what would it fix? Being mean to my step mom certainly didn't fix anything for me and now as an adult I just regret my treatment of her. There are some mean step parents, but there are mean biological parents, too. I genuinely care for my step kids and hope the best for them. There's no parenting manual. I just do the best I can and hope that the kids won't hate me after doing my best.
What would you do if you found out a step parent hits your child for discipline?
That is crossing the boundaries of the child. Firstly, I am not okay with smacking- be it the biological parent or a step-parent. However, it is completely unacceptable for a step-parent to do that even if the biological parent smacks the child. Blended families can never work like traditional families. The harsh truth is that the step-parent can become a friend or a guide or even a parent-like figure but he or she can never be the parent! So, it is up to the biological parent's responsibility to set the boundaries and tell his/her partner in advance. If an incident like this has occurred, there needs to be a serious talk between the adults of the household. Moreover, the parent should talk to the child and reassure him/her that something like this will not happen again i.e. will not become a regular occurrence.
Do you think that a step parent can love a child as much as their biological child?
My husband and I are both handling questions under his name.We have been married 26 years in march 2018. When we met I was 25 with a four year old. He was 29 with a great new job company car awesome benefits. Oh and i had just put my daughter,a newborn up for adoption.So. a one night stand with me gets me knocked up, this man not only rented me and my son a home, accepted all my baggage, adored and spoiled all of us any of us, worked 12 hr days,did without sex often, sleep always,and the stepson he got in the bargain, has autism, and wont be leaving our home anytime soon(he's 30 this year)unless we die .He has worked 70 80 hr weeks for decades, and on the few hours he's not at work he is taking our 3 children yes my fertile friends we had yet another child before HE GOT A VASECTOMY. Forget it girls he's all mine. To movies like pokemon, or the childrens museum, or just a park if we were broke, which being us we were.He has taken up for his Step child so strongly his bios. Have gotten jealous. My daughter i put up for adoption( knowing all the times he's told my sad crying ass that it was the best thing to give a child up, so it could have a better life He does everything possible to allow her and i to meet even though it is not in our budget. I don't know where he gets the strength and patience to put up with me and the bios, much less my handful of a son, my sad self, and the daughter I always miss in my heart and life. THE MAN IS A F….CNG SAINT. I'm not saying all stepdads try this hard but they are out there raising all these deadbeat dads kids. Yes your kids will call him daddy cause thats what and who he is not just today but every day no matter how he feels or how badly you treat him he will be there with a hug and a pooper scooper to make your day better because we are family and love each other.
How does it feel to be raised by step parents?
My parents split when I was 7 or 8. My step-dad moved in when I was 10, and we moved to Missouri and my father moved to California when I was 12, so I rarely saw my father after that. I wasn’t super close to my step-dad, but we got along. I’ve been much closer to him in the last 25 years.I raised my step-daughter since she was 5, her father rarely saw her, I can count on both hands the number of times he saw her until she was an adult.I was as good to her as I was to my son from my first marriage, or her half sister that her mother and I had. We had a “yours, mine and ours” thing. In both our minds, they were all our kids.She doesn’t think I was a great dad, and I probably wasn’t. I was a good dad, but I could have been better. And it had nothing to do with step-kids. I just didn’t live up to my potential, and I wasn’t as understanding of a few things as I could have and should have been.We actually have a 4th, an unofficial “adopted” daughter. She was my youngest’s best friend, went on vacations with us, still calls us mom & dad, even though she’s grown and my youngest is gone.BTW, when your parents, or step-parent, yells at you, there’s probably a reason. That doesn’t make the yelling okay. There are better ways to communicate. But your friend probably isn’t entirely innocent.