Out of curiosity, what expectations should a step parent be meeting? What is considered overstepping? What is absolutely not acceptable?
For a 50/50 care arrangement.
Out of curiosity, what expectations should a step parent be meeting? What is considered overstepping? What is absolutely not acceptable?
For a 50/50 care arrangement.
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14 Replies
Honestly, depends on the mum, the dad and the child.
And how long you've been together.
New relationship = no rights. More like a fun Aunty.
Older child = they set the pace. Ask them what they think of you as and how they'd like to be treated.
Younger child = sisterly. Report incidents to father/mother to deal with until you establish your role in the child's life.
Different rules for different situations.
Be warned, step mum is a thankless job. You do all the labor and get little recognition for the credit.
Following the agreement that has always been, not interfering with communication, not breaking any agreements (even if you think its ok or helpful or youre just being nice/enthusiastic etc etc) basically providing a safe and welcoming atmosphere while the child is in your partners care.
It changes over time. New relationship you have fun with kids might do some 'light parenting' as if you were an aunt or babysitter but major decisions and bulk of parenting is done by the bio-parents. You follow the tone and respect the way bio-parents have always done things and don't insert yourself into care plans etc.
Over time you feel comfortable to take on some heavier parenting but I think you keep in mind if this is my child would I want step parent making this decision. Like as a step parent I'd never get a child hair cut/coloured, organise a birthday party, get ears pierced or take a child to major doctors appointments without first discussing this with bio-parents.
And I'd never ever list my self as the child's mother on any documentation. My nieces stepmum pulled this stunt with a psychologist, she had listed her self as the mum cutting my sister out of the contact loop, even though my sister was a very engaged mum who had majority of care!
Don't give "advice" to bio mum. I've seen step mums complain about such stupid stuff including things like how bio mum "only does hair in a pony tail". Unless bio mum is being abusive or neglectful, it's not your place to say anything.
And even then it should come from bio-dad.
Yes that is true as well.
i also think some dads push step mums to do too much. Just my experience. But I've dated a couple of guys who felt I should be starting to reareange my career and work schedule for there children after s few months of dating (my kid is an adult). They didn't see it as there job to be there for there kids, but as my job. They wanted 50/50 care but they wanted me to do all the child rearing. To me that's just wrong and as a mother I'd be pisssed, as a partner I made it clear dad needed to find a new babysitter!
So many awesome responses!!
In my case my OH is the step-dad he's there to back me up, we've been dating for 2 years. He can set rules and tell them off. He's basically my daughters dad and has been there for her she calls him daddy. But any corospondence between me and their bio dad goes through me unless bio dad becomes abusive and then contact is cut off until he calms himself down. But when we first started dating I was the boss, I made the rules and I handed out the punishments. He was the fun one who was building a relationship with them. He's built it now he needs to maintain it.
As a kid my dad had many girlfriends so from the child in these scenarios perspective, the main thing I would expect is that the step parent treat my children with kindness, love, care and willingly welcome them into her life.
If step siblings or new babies came along I would expect all the children to be treated equally (in my experience we were often not treated as well/equally to our step siblings. We certainly became second priority put it that way).
I would also expect my children's father to still do the majority of the parenting, it's not fair to expect their new partners/wives to jump straight into a full parental role (I've seen a lot of step mums post here that seem to deal with all the hard stuff, while the dads seemingly can't be bothered. Not fair at all.)
Lastly, I would expect the step mother to respect me and the way I parent. I'd be pretty pissed if I knew she was criticizing the way I do their hair, what I feed them, how I choose to discipline them or whatever else. Unless my children were being harmed I would expect her to accept the way I do things.
Definitely respect! My ex and his current partner are very disrespectful in how they talk about me in front of my two boys (12 and 10). As a result the boys would come back and be quite rude and disrespectful towards me. I ended up telling my boys that they are old enough to tell other people not to talk about me if they couldn’t be respectful in what they said. Also the ex and his partner have been banned from talking about me when visiting his parents and grandparents because of the way they would talk about me in front of the boys. There was s no need for it. No matter what you think of the other parent, show respect. Unless you have a good relationship with the other parent, you’ve most likely only got one side of the story of why the relationship broke down.
I agree with this one, as hard as it is sometimes 😂😂😂, never say a bad word about the other parent!!!
OMG can't believe I've stumbled across this
I was on here yday trying to work out what to write
But I couldn't get it out so it would be understood
I'm a stepmum to 2 kids one is 15 boy 11girl
Along with our 10week old Ivf baby
I'm having many issues ATM with how far to too far
I feel as though I can't have my say and disapline the kids
I'm in limbo so I will be following this post
Relationships, even with stepparents, evolve. It’s a fluid situation. My advise would be to remember your child is in the middle of all conflicts, even if you’ve kept it, just between adults, the children will know and feel it, even if by indirect sources. Please try to consider, while we may be hurt by current situations, there is always a calmer and constructive way to handle it. It’s not always going to be roses and sometimes even if you handle it the best way you can, the outcome may not be hopeful for.