I think more step dads are disengaged because mom is there full time but when his kids come he thinks he has to act like mom and disney dad/daddy...ugh!

I often wonder if DH could get on here and vent about something, what would he say. He is at work all day so he really does not spend much time with the kids. On the weekends he treats my daughter like she was his own. I don't think men see the kids as competition, when women generally do.

Nope......the reason why is guys don't blog a whole lot lol. Seriously, my husband would never in a million years care to sit at ST and see what everyone else has to say.

But he had issues with my son.

And I read people on here all the time saying how the DH's let the skids do what ever they want, but then they fuss at the wife's kids for the same thing the skids just did and it was all fun and games for them!

So you know those SF's are having issues, they just suck it up and roll on because a. they don't typically blog, and b. we rock as moms and they have nothing to fuss about

A) Society expects men to wield authority over whatever household they live in. Bio moms and step kids generally accept the stepfather's authority because of this. Therefore, they often encounter much less trouble due to the social expectations that they SHOULD have authority in their home regardless of who else lives there.

Men are not expected to love and care for children that are not their own. I have never heard anyone accuse a man of not loving someone else's kids. Culturally, we expect men to care about their own offspring and that's it. Tolerance of another man's offspring is generally considered "as good as it gets." Men who DO end up loving other men's children are considered miraculous exceptions to the rule.

I also think men are less prone to seeking help online or in any circumstance that involves opening up to strangers.

Stepmothers are basically just set up to fail. We're expected to unconditionally love children who are not our own and who often do not like us or who attempt to displace us. We're expected to "just deal" with whatever decisions our husbands and BMs make, our husbands because they are the "man of the house" and BMs because of the legal system and their position as "sacred mother."

I think it's time to pull out this article by Wednesday Martin again: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stepmonster/201106/why-its-easier-lo...

Stepfathers just flat out have it easier.

If you look at it from a very primitive point of view, (like a scientific anthropologist) males instinctively have very little to do with any offspring, even their own. They wander around sowing their seed all over the place, leaving the female to raise them alone. We may be "human", but when it comes to primitive instincts we have evolved very little over the last 10,000 years. What society expects us to do and what our instincts tell us to do are two very different things, and instinct seems to win out every time. I know Im gonna get a hard time about this from the creationists, but sorry....Im an evolutionist.

DH does about the same with\for my kids as he does for his when it comes to parenting, not much.

Sooooo, since my main #1 complain on here is DH not parenting his kids.....

The thing is, he doesn't parent mine, I do that. So he doesn't really have much to complain about except his invented idea that I hate his kids. I don't hate his kids, I hate their actions, behaviors and lack of discipline.