Stepparents are quickly becoming a staple in American culture. People get married, have children, then get divorced and remarry. No, I do not think that there is anything wrong with this, as long as both the marriage and the divorce were well thought out. In fact, I come from a family full of divorce--both my mother and father have been married and divorced twice. My father is on his third wife, my mom is currently single.
That being said, I've had a great deal of experience with stepparents. My first stepmom was an absolutely horrible woman. The very epitome of the evil stepmother. She took it upon herself to come up with punishments most people would consider unusual, if not cruel. Hauling wood from one side of the yard to another in one day was one such punishment. A less severe one was nearly making me eat soap after I said something (though I believe it was calling her sister fat, not something most parents would find incredibly offensive for their 6 year old daughter to say).
Where was my father in all of this? Good question. I honestly don't remember much of him during that time, and shortly thereafter I moved to live with my mom. My sister, however, stayed with my stepmom and dad. During their messy divorce, my stepmother took custody of my sister, despite the fact that my mom and dad had joint custody of us at the time. She also referred to herself as our 'real' mom, whereas our actual mom was simply our 'birth' mom.
It was then quite different moving in with my mom and stepfather. My stepfather would yell at me as a sort of punishment, but never did more. My mom would always be the one to punish me, or to tell me to do my chores. I am eternally grateful for this, since my stepfather is very mean with my sisters.
What made me think about this topic, though, was the attitude of my sisters' stepmom (my stepdad's new wife) towards them and my mom. This is the first instance that I've encountered where both parents and a stepparent are actively involved with the children's lives. And I'm finding things are quite different than what I'm used to.
My sisters' stepmom has recently become very agitated that people keep assuming she is my sisters' mom. So, she has taken it upon herself to avoid doing anything that would give people that impression. Not bad, right? I mean, I hated it when people would assume that they were MY children (I was 10 at the time my youngest sister was born; when we got a little older, people would always assume she was mine), and I can understand her wanting to prevent that.
However, I think it becomes a little extreme when she takes care of my sisters (my mom and them switch off every other week), and she refuses to sign their planners for school, especially when a lack of a signature results in a lower grade in school for them. When she refuses to show up to my older sister's soccer game because she doesn't want others to think she is her mom. When she won't take my sisters to the dentist, even though she works in the town they go to school and my mom works 40 miles away.
So all this makes me wonder what responsibilities stepparents should actually have. Should stepparents act as parents, or be sure to distance themselves? Should it be the stepparents who punish, even though the child is not theirs by blood? Should the stepparents support the child, or leave that up to the parents? What do you think?
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My stepmom and older sister were best friends growing up and her and my father didn't marry until I was nearly an adult, so taking on the responsibilities of a parent, in our particular situation, just doesn't make much sense to any of us because of the oddities of the situation.
My mom has never gotten remarried, but has lived with her boyfriend since I was 15 or 16. We're closer to him than his own son, but even so, he never tried to punish us or anything. My mom's grandkids are his grandkids though, so he takes responsibility for punishment there when it is needed... but I don't suppose that's really the same thing either.
I guess I'm saying in a roundabout way that I'm not really sure where step-parent responsibilities begin and end. I do think, though, that step-parents should take some of the responsibility, even if it is just acting as back up to their partner or to both parents.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -Huxley
"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." -Gandhi
While my parents have been happily married for over 25 years many of my friends have step-parents. Why is it 99% of all kids with step parents hate at least of them? I think it's because you aren't accostumed to their ideas and views on things.
Or that they aren't used to yours, or that they try to take the place of your actual parents. Both of which have happened to me.
~C
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I like my step mom, then again I'm an adult and almost out of the house,lol. My brother likes her. But seriously I have more in common with her then my actual mother, who I perfer no to talk to.
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I think there are actually two types of step parents: the ones who try to take the place of your natural parent through kindness (sometimes bribing) and then there are the step parents who just see kids as kids and should be treated as such. I've had the interesting experience of having both.
I can completely relate to the weird punishments, though I'm not sure any of mine were as bad as yours. On odd coincidence is that when my step mom and father were together, I never remember him being home, ever. She drove me to school picked me up (when she was in a good mood), and fixed dinner (again, when she was in a good mood). My step sister and I shared a room which was expected to be cleaned and resulted in punishment if we didn't. My step sister never seemed to get it as bad as I did, and so I would clean it by myself. I remember one day I refused to clean it all by myself,and so it went dirty. Our punishment? She had to clean the room and I had to stand on one foot with my nose touching the corner of where two walls met without using my hands for support for the duration. I stood there for an hour, all while my step mother took pictures and made fun of me. Needless to say, I never again refused to clean.
On the other hand, my mom's husband growing up (they're divorced now) was one of the sweetest men I've ever known (and in typical fashion my step mother publicly declared he was a pedophile). but I remember my mom would get upset and accuse him of coddling me, in which case I would argue he wasn't, and so in his good intentions, he would actually help to create these rifts between me and my mom.
I think a lot of them, especially the ones who don't have other children (like my step father), don't know what to expect because tis one thing to punish someone else's kids, but when you don't really know how to deal with kids, its just a complete shot in the dark. Needless to say though, I enjoyed the time with my mom a lot more than my step mom.
My mom has been married three times and she's about to get divorced again. Since a very young age, I have had a stepdad. My first stepdad I was very attached to and I actually called him DAD. My second stepdad was like big brother to me. My third stepdad I didn't really get to know him because for some reason I knew he wouldn't be around that long. Only my first and second stepdads punished me by yelling and my third stepdad never did anything. In my eyes, there only responsibility is to be married to my mom and to pay the bills.
Was your mom every married to your dad? Just curious...
~C
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have the responsibility to raise children in the proper way, no abusive behavior, no preferential treatment for one and not the other, make sure they eat their veggies (ha!), but seriously, a parent (step or real) is a position of authority over the children and should treat each child as if they are the most precious thing around. Sadly many do not do that, and they take exception to the fact that a Step-Child may cause problems between them and their new spouse. Then they try to make the step-child look bad in the eyes of the birth parent. Step-children do this too, don't get me wrong. I've seen them play off their birth parent against the step-parent in such ways as to cause fights and divorce.
Happy to say my parents were married for 66 years before my mother passed away, raised 10 kids, had innumerable grand-kids and lived their lives happy together.