step children

Well you know i'm not a step-mum but I know the situation, so i'll give a little bit of a background for the rest.

Blondie is a step mum to a boy who is 8 1/2, he is a great boy but has had things grounded into him from his birth mother that blondie is a nothing and not to listen or do as she says. Its not a nice situation to be in.

The birth mother is to be blunt a bi*ch who doesn't make things easy for them.

Im a step mum, not full time, but have been in the past. My step son is 16....

Yeah I neeed to vent as he came back from birth mothers house in the holidays and always treats me like crap (I would love to know what she says to him)
School holidays are usually hard to get her to have him for her week and christmas day for the last couple of years has not been very nice.
On the other hand he is great with our other kids and is a really cool kid...

Hmmm, I have input here, ironically enough DSD came back today after 2 1/2 years but I had full time care of her from when she was 5 till when she was 12 (she's 15 now). BUT off to have a bath so will come back later!

OK back.
Short version of long story: DSD was 5 (6? I can't remember ) when Willie and I met. Her birthmother is intellectually handicapped (another long story, she hasn't always been) so we have no "ex" issues, but her mother's mother is the biarch from hell who blames me for Willie and his ex splitting up, even tho they split up when DSD was 7 weeks old, so years before we met. She filled DSD's head with nonsense, plus Willie was being a difficult bugger and not backing me up with discipline at home so things were nasty. She went to health camp twice, I went and did the parenting course there twice plus I did the birthday parties, parent interviews etc. etc. but nothing helped. Willie and I split when she was 10, I had her on and off over the next two years till we had a major parting of the ways when she got stood down from school for violence, at that point I refused to have her in my house so she moved in with Willie's cousin and his wife.
Have had very limited contact with her since then, in fact hadn't heard from her in over a year when she randomly turned up last week, and yesterday she called and asked to come and stay.
So here she is. Not sure how it will go yet, I am so sceptical coz of past experiences, and I have made it very clear to Willie that this is a temporary arrangement so will see how it goes.

We have on and off "custody" of Dss. Mainly its off, though, because there are too many rules here, EG no drinking, no going to parties, no driving our vehicles, no going in cars of restricted drivers, curfew, etc, and he is allowed to do all of that at his mothers. He usually comes here to "live" when he gets out of control and his mother can't take it anymore, but he soon goes home, as he hates our rules. Apparently we are trying to "ruin his life" and make him a nerd, cos "everyone else" is allowed... lol. Teenagers! His mother is on her own now, with a wee boy who is the same age as Jake, so she finds it tough keeping DSS in line, so often finds it easier to just give in... then things go bad, and we are back to square one. After a recent really bad incident, however, she has realised that the easy approach is in fact making things faaar worse. We had our issues at the beginning and things were pretty rough, me and his mum, but since I have had Jake, I think she realises that I'm not some random girlfriend (DH had ALOT of those, lol) so things are pretty good now. She even chats on the phone, comes round and the wee boys have play dates and go to each others birthdays etc, so it is good. It was really hard to get here, but we did make it in the end. I think we have all realised now that it is much easier to parent when we are all on the same page. Don't get me wrong, it was awful in the start, especially when I first got preg with Jake, some nasty things were said to DSS about things, but we have come through it all now. Even her family likes me, ha ha and my kids are extended "granchildren" and "nephew/neice" to hubbys ex wifes family which is really really awesome. We call Ryan (Dss's other brother) Jakes "brother from another mother".
Personally I think the pre teen to teen years are when you all really have to suck up the diferences and parent form the same page, because that is where things get messy...
Its a hard job, this step parenting thing,a nd probably one you wouldn't "choose" to do if you knew just how hard it really is.

Good luck to you, if you are still reading after this novel!

My husband is a stepdad to my daughter so we have a little bit of this in our house. Its tough, but I have found the best way to deal with it is to just be very firm as to the rules of the house.
She is very clear that DH is an adult in the house and therefore she is not aloud to be rude to him and must be obediant to what he says. I also add tht she must give the same respect to her dads girlfriend when she is at their house, or grandparents when at their house! The bad behaviours are not acceptable and if she starts up, then she goes to her room. she has threatened to go and live with her father if I don't let her do what she wants to (I think she is testing me to see how I will react), and I say "fine, because in this house we don;t do......".

When she visits her father, she often comes home with rubish in her head from what they have told her (like dad has to give mum all his money...pah, whatever!). I try not to engage in those conversations with her, and don't retaliate (sp?). I am hanging on to the hope that as she grows she will see the truth.

Good luck!

just like Jadey at the start we had trespass things on her from my hubby work and the txt messages from her and her family but thank goodness we dont have that anymore so thats one food thing.
I just think our life would me heaps easier if she was gone sometimes or lived in another region.
She never phones her son and once told me that im nothing thats shes the mum and DH is the dad and thats that! My step-son has been though heaps so hopefully he grows up to be ok well fingers crossed

And I like Chris and Ange too and Anges parents think of C as a grandaughter and C has Nana and Poppa,(Me and kelly's Dad)
Nana Bridget ( Chris's Mum)
and Nana Linda and Grandad Allen( Angelas Mum and Dad