Before I say this, I know there are good people out there, and I’ve read some positive stories, but the negative stories far outweigh them.
Just yesterday, I read about mental abuse that led a teen to nearly commit suicide.
People need to ask themselves and I mean REALLY ask themselves if they can be in a relationship with a partner that has kids or not and if they’re willing to accept that the partner has a kid or not.
There’s a sub on here for stepmothers that I stumbled upon accidentally that’s truly scary.
What do you mean you’re jealous of a kid? What do you mean you hate when they come over to the house? IT WAS THEIRS BEFORE IT EVER BECAME YOURS.
They, as the partner of the parent, are the ones intruding on the child’s life, not the other way around. The kid was here and settled with whatever home situation they had with the parent long before you came into the picture.
I’m not saying to be a doormat but the absolute ridiculous rules that the step-parent has no business implementing by the way and the ‘my way or the highway’ bullshit they try to pull is disgusting and then they complain about the kid not liking them…fucking duh.
I guess I’m also extra triggered by the fact that I’m watching who I thought was my best friend (definitely reconsidering that choice) act as a stepmonster in real life to a little girl after acting lovingly towards her and then switching up after she got pregnant.
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As a stepchild of a man who is jealous of me because I came first to him even though he knew all about my mom being a single mom they are true nightmares …and it does not change when you get older in my case it’s worse because we can say “adult” words to each other
I think more parents should be asking their kids permission to remarry. They’re family they come first period. And any gf or bf that fails to respect that isn’t a good fit for a stepparent
There’s a girl who sits with my friends and I on breaks at work and 80% of the time, she’s bitching about her boyfriend’s kids. The oldest had a mental health crisis and was taken to the local mental hospital a few weeks ago apparently. She hasn’t stopped talking about how inconvenient it was to her and how his daughter “always does this to ruin vacations.”
If you hate his kids so much, why not fucking leave? These kids are clearly too much for you so why hang on? :/
i’m a stepchild, i never thought it was an issue really until my dad died and then everything became so clear. i was treated so poorly by my stepmum, and now she’s wondering why ive not seen her for 2 years.
one incident that really stands out is when my mum was in a really toxic situation with a guy, and he ended up telling my grandad that he was going to sexually assault me, then the following day he tried to kiss me. i told my dad, he was absolutely furious, i told my stepmum and she still laughs about it to this day
That’s such a weird opinion.
Some people are bad, some people are good.
It’s the job of the parent so protect their kid from bad people. If they let their partner treat their kid badly it’s their responsability to either keep them in check or end the relationship.
If the bio parent lets someone else treat their child badly they are a bad parent.
Birth parents can also be abusive
And grandparents ans aunts and uncles
Its not about step parents or not. It’s about child abusers
Always have been.
It’s wild how some people get jealous of literal children. If you can’t handle a partner having a kid, don’t date someone with one
There’s a reason why in fairy tales it was always the evil step-mother. Just saying.
But abuse can happen with anyone – adoptive parents, biological parents, aunts, uncles, cousins….
But I get your point and I believe it’s valid. You knew what you were getting into
It’s not a case of stepmonsters finding someone who doesn’t have kids instead.
It’s a case of abusers looking for easy access to someone vulnerable to abuse and or push out of the family of the person currently on their puppet strings (the parent). It’s all deliberate.
I agree with a few things that you said. Before engaging with someone romantically that has a child you need to be honest with yourself on if you can help raise a child that is not biologically your own. But also the expectations for SP‘s are all over the place, they don’t have much guidance because for the last few decades blended families have become more normal. We’re constantly researching and learning how to navigate these types of relationships. Because of this SP‘s have little to no guidance on how to be a “good” step parent and each family is completely different.
Some parents want you to be a second parent, while others want you to be a friend/auntie. Some SP take on full responsibility of the child and are expected to “love them as their own” or actively be apart of the kids lives while others aren’t!
I did research on this during my undergrad and the expectations for SP regarding gender is even different!! Stepmoms are more expected to do the same things bio mom would do and are critiqued more harshly compared to men. It’s in our film and TV structures that we have today. The next time you watch a movie or a TV show with a blended family look at the different expectations that are set up depending on the gender of the step parent. And as you imagine, this can create a lot of issues within the relationship with their partner and the stepchildren.
Now I’m not saying that excuses step parents treating their kids badly, but I do think sometimes as a society we have unrealistic expectations for them. I think also being able to see the entire picture helps put more things into perspective about how hard being an SP is. I am not and have no kids, but from my observations and research it’s definitely not easy.
Also, I do want to mention as I’ve worked as a nanny. I’ve heard parents say awful things about their children, and they birthed them. They might not have them fully in the moment, but they were frustrated and upset. I can imagine having a kid go from house to house each week can create a lot of stress on the household and there’s an adjustment time. That could make step kid coming home very stressful and causes SP to say they hate when they come home. But I don’t think that’s universally just first step parents that’s for all parents.
And honestly, I don’t think it has anything to do with step parents vs bio parents. I think a lot of people need to do more research before they even think about having children. Not enough people actually hold a baby before they ever think about having one. That’s crazy!!
Overall, if people researched about children and how to raise them in the complications that go into them the way that you’ll check on yelp to find a good place to eat there would be a lot less traumatized children and much happier people on earth.
Lastly, there might be a lot of grammatical errors and I apologize for that. I’m using voice to speak because I’m too tired to text.!!
My sister (never had kids) was one of these asshole step-bitches. She didn’t like how the girl acted around her so basically refused to let her come to their home. The kid was 3 years old. The thing that makes her actions even worse (as if that could happen), we were children of divorce.
I feel like it depends on the person. I’m sort of a step parent. The kids come first (his kids, I don’t have any). For some reason when we have the kids, their mum gets mad that i spend time with the kids. To the point they aren’t even allowed to talk about me to her because it makes her angry. Shouldn’t you be happy that you’re ex has found someone that is happy to spend time with the kids?
If you’re going to date someone with kids, especially an adult child, you need to be able to accept that stepparent role. If my dad ever finds love again and begins dating someone, I am scared about the possibility that I may not get along with the stepparent.
I had hard time with my stepmother when I was a teen. I could have been a brat for sure but she really came with childish and abusive manners in her own and she never wanted to acknowledge it, we were really fighting for a few years. She had a very traumatic childhood and she was kinda jealous that my dad was a « good » father to me. Time did its thing, we’re closer now, mostly bc I would certainly not let her pass her bullshit now. My dad died 2 years ago, the succession went smoothly (even tho they weren’t married, my dad didn’t protect her, I didn’t not screwed her and she didn’t try either) and we are on good terms, I still go to visit her and she often ask to see me.
My mother was more instable and with my sister we had plenty of stepfathers, they were mostly ok. But our current stepfather (10 years) is truly something that can’t be explained, I never know how to define him. Only that my sister can’t stand to see him more than a few hours (and she’s the peaceful, calm one) and I can manage a bit more. He can be either great or a fucking nightmare, no middle ground. I avoid spending more than a few days at their home which is fine with me as I’m not close with my mother. But it’s a blessing he became our stepfather when we weren’t children.
But most of the time around me, the relation between children and step-parents are mostly toxic. I’ve met a few exceptions fortunately but there is almost always some kind of jealousy playing.
The worst cases are usually when the stepparent also has children and they are not treated equally.
My uncle has 2 kids, the oldest don’t speak to his father anymore as soon as he turned 18 bc of his stepmother and the lack of receptiveness of his father. The second one is 15, has showed a lot of stress signs all his childhood, was crying when he had to go to his father (alternate custody) now feels a bit better but is becoming sour of his father lack of reaction. We are pretty close as his father is taking vacations with his partner but had never take his children so I’m the one who take them in vacations, no later than last week…
I do like their stepmother, we do get along together and she’s done nothing to me or anyone else but god she’s unfair to her stepkids and manipulative (it would be too long to explain) but the most infuriating is the lack of reaction of my uncle who let her abuse his children (AND him) but we can’t say anything really to him or he would storm like a 3yo and never want to see you again. It’s staring to raise a lot of trouble in the family bc of that.
The most horrific thing in all of this is mostly the lack of reaction of the parent who let their partner abuse their own child bc of cowardice, they are even more to blame imo.
Step mum here. I don’t think step parents are getting worse but agree it’s like the bio parent hid them under the stairs. Parent and their bio kids come as a package. They will never love you more than their own kid. Be v worried if they pretend to or do.
I know I should downvote you, but I just can’t. I mean, seconded. I now came to think that my father should’ve just let me be with my mother, rather than keep dragging me to this woman who obviously did not want me there, make me lie to her that he is not spending time with me, constantly reminding me that this is not my home, but that I still have to do chores for some reason etc.
The child already subconsciously thinks that it is their fault a parent died/left, and now you double that feeling of something being wrong with them by heaping a new parent figure on them, one who does not like them.
It’s frustrating that parents invite such shallow, selfish people into their lives, call it love and then allow their shitty boyfriend or girlfriend inflict damage on them and their kids.
A few months ago I got a text message from an old girlfriend apologizing for certain things and telling me that I’m a good person and she doesn’t know how to be with men who aren’t “total pieces of shit.” Sucks for her daughter, I guess. Can’t imagine the trauma that little girl is going to experience. The last time I saw this ex, I almost got in a fight with her abusive, cheating and stalking boyfriend and then I helped her move out of his house.
I guess some men and women are just drawn to bad people.
Furst odd, yeah abusive relations, certainly with a power dynamic SUCK ASS.
But I do want to also bring to the attention that your comment about “bad stories outwaying good ones” doesn’t really tell us much, due to swlwction bias.
If my stepdad is a chil dude, I will vibe and not write about it online, if my stepdad is a jerk I will most likely want to vent, and do so online.
if 90% of people complain about bad step parents and 10% of people will write about good step parents, then 9 in 10 step parents can be awesome and you’ll still see the same amount of positive and negative stories (and I think that 10% writing about goos experiences is WAY to generous, its probably somewhere between 2 and 5 percent if I where to guess).
doesn’t take away that every abusive situation is one to many, but I don’t think its faor to throw step-parents under the bus as a whole
I think everyone agrees that abusive step parents are a bad thing, how is this supposed to be unpopular… And if the claim is that it is getting worse, I am not sire that’s true? Isn’t “evil step mother” literally the oldest fairytale trope? I am not sure what about it is new…
My (ex) step mum is a terrible person who called her own 4 year old a whore because she spilled some apple juice and laughed at me because I had a huge fear of people, especially crowds. She also once quite harshly pulled me away from a person with an intellectual disability who wanted to talk to me about Pokémon Go, and told me “we don’t talk to people like that”.
My father isn’t any better tho.
My stepdad on the other hand is a genuinely amazing person who helps and supports me whenever he can
Though there is some truth to these statements, this is not really an accurate assessment nor is it your full fledged opinion. At least hopefully..
I say this because a lot of what you stated here applies to every guardian who engages in abusive relationships. In which case, yeah it’s certainly a freezing take to make and has little place in a subreddit regarding unpopular opinions.
You’re better off ranting about this topic elsewhere, especially because the main focus of this community is to explicitly disagree with OP and to a certain level even debate them.
>Step-parents are becoming horrific.
And then you proceed to describe how birth parents let that happen.
Step-parents aren’t “becoming horrific”, you just only now found that that child-abuse is a thing and it’s horrible, why you didn’t know before is honestly beyond me.
Parents are responsible for their kids, no one else. It is their responsibility to choose a partner who is fully prepared to be a step‑parent and genuinely good at that role. If they can’t do that, they shouldn’t be dating at all. The responsibility for the kids rests entirely on the parents, 100%.