Strike 1 and 2 are absolutely on the mark for these children...including my own(he's from a broken home too) I have the unique perspective of knowing snowshyte BEFORE her parents divorced. She has always been the way she is unfortunately. Having a broken home just gave her more opportunity to manipulate adults. It's funny but for her, having a broken home seems to have made her a better person as far as being less shy and less awkward...she used to just hide in the corner like a mouse and now she actually speaks to people. The only thing I've learned to tolerate better from her is the fear that I'm stealing her daddy from her...that's definitely a result of divorce and really isn't her fault at all.
The small part i was disagreeing on was only pertaining to a part of my situation and only because i knew she was spoiled,snobby, and had excess manipulative tendencies before the divorce so it can't be blamed on the whole broken home thing. But I agree that for most children of divorce these are VERY real factors in shaping their personality. I gotta give snowshyte credit though, we were forced on each other but she's actually managed to adjust fairly well without being too terrible of course, she hasn't gone through puberty yet so we'll see!

Most of the problems in blended families can't be hung on the behavior of the children...but the reaction and skills of the parents raising these children. Coparenting can suck, stepparenting can also suck and I think when people split, coparenting classes should be mandatory...most people can't navigate a fair system and have healthy children with coparenting unless they have guidance and support. Then throw in stepparents and their biokids and it's a mix that will screw up both adults and kids. Bottom line, help is absolutely necessary in most cases because of things like strike 1 and strike 2. In a perfect world, all the BM's and other parents would be totally open to mediation parenting and things like that.

Awesome topic, really makes ya think about what we've been doing to handle our stepchildren...as a stepmom I KNOW for a fact that I'm guilty of not having the much needed sympathy for snowshyte and her situation and it's something I've been working on. No matter how bratty,spoiled,or "entitled" she is...based on her status of "divorced child" she deserves my sympathy and understanding about more things than I give her.

"We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled.”

But I really don't know how to answer them.

When I grew up, my dad was gone all the time because he was in the coast guard. I saw him 6 weeks out of the whole year (if that), and on top of that, my mom would work 2-3 jobs... so she was never home. I never asked for this lifestyle. I never chose to have parents who were gone all the time. Was I anything like my skid? Hell no. Why? Because my parents were fierce parents. They did not take crap from me or my brother like BM and DH do from Blabb.

We all have some form of obstacle in our lives. Just because we do, doesn't mean we have to label ourselves victims and have people feel sorry for us. That, to me, is what these divorced parents try to do. "oh, our poor child! he has divorced parents. poor child! poor, poor, poor baby!" I'm so sick of hearing this. DH and BM were divorced before Blabb could even crawl. Yet BM tries to make everyone feel so bad for Blabb and herself. "I'm a single parent. Blabb's dad is hardly ever in the picture. Boo hoo. Let's all feel bad for the ex wife and the daughter."

Sorry, but that's just silly. Granted, it's tragic that the child has to go through the divorce and have two homes, but you know what? It could be worse. What about those kids whose parents have died in Iraq? What about those kids whose dad molested them or their mom left them because she was more worried about her next fix than her own children?

Okay, so the fact that they're in these so called broken homes... it gives them a right to be upset... it gives them a right to act out here and there. But I refuse to feel sorry for them because that just feeds into the "oh feel bad for me! sniff sniff" act.

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Dr. Seuss

our bio-kids have the same two strikes don't they? At least mine do. My BD14 and BS18 are now from a broken home, and they also had no say in what has happened in their lives. I think it's just as hard on my BD and BS to not have their dad in their lives (only see him a few times a year) as it is for my SD8 to not have her BM in her life. (Actually, in my circumstance, it's probably much easier on my SD since she had never really spent a lot of time with her BM anyway).

I haven't been on the boards in a couple of weeks and didn't read the thread about s-kids and bio-kids being treated equally, but I am totally in agreement that they should be. SD8 gets so much more *stuff* (toys, clothes, etc.) than my two kids and my kids notice it. They don't make a big deal about it, but they have mentioned it and in reality, it IS unfair and probably makes them feel...I don't know...less important?

I have to respond to this one from both a BM and a SM standpoint.

First as a BM. My son is from a "broken" home as well. He rarley gets to see his father, when he does it's not a father son relationship. It's a Disneyland vacation from all the rules and obligations, schoolwork, chores, etc that the evil mother, me, has bestowed upon him. My son has grown up, basically, without any male influence in his life. Until I met my DH I was the only parent in his life. If I would have made excuses, slacked up on him, or even felt sorry for him because of the divorce he would have walked ALL OVER ME. I had to be mom and dad. I had to punish more severly than I wanted to........I always thought moms got to be the good guys! So much for my fantsyland, I was and still am the enforcer of rules to my boy. I am glad that I've been the way I have with him. One day I know he'll look back and thank me, and DH, for being the parents in his life.

My son and DH have a great relationship. My son gets mad from time to time about DH telling him to do certain things (what kid doesn't), but that doesn't stop him from being a father to my son. When I married DH I married his life, and he did mine. I expect him to father my son, I really do. I need him to help me, I need his advice, and I really depend on him to help me raise him now. I don't know how I did it for so long without his help. DH treats my son like he's one of his Biokids. I wouldn't want to be married to him if he didn't. To spell it out, if there were ever a day (never has been thought) that I came home and DH told me he had to paint his backporch red, or send him to bed early, or take his video games, etc I wouldn't be mad in the least. I would be much more pissed if he took it easy on him, and didn't act as a parent because he feels "guilt" for the life my son has had to endure, at my hands none the less.

I do feel that my son has been through alot, he's been raised with just me for the majority of his life. And I'm no walk in the park somedays! But him and I grew up together, and learned together. I'm very proud of how I've raised him. The day he graduates high school will honestly be one of his, as well as mine, biggest accomplishments of our lives!

So no, I don't think he needed discipline, rules, manners, obedience, or even sympathy more than any child that is in a necular family.

On to my SM hat.

If my DH was a "guilt" parent like many fathers are here on ST I couldn't be married to him. Don't get me wrong, at first it was guilt all the way! But after time our relationship has grown beyond any real SK drama.....we just don't let it affect us any longer. If he ever sat me down and presented the same argument that you just did above I would in return present the argument that I just did above.

I realize that these kids had no choice in their lives, but WHO does? Your life can change in a second, a car wreck taking a loved one, a divorce, getting fired from work, the list goes on and on my friend. Just because you had something happen to you in your life that you did not choose does not mean that you should have "sympathy" bestowed upon you.

FYI, I'm not coming down on you, I know why you wrote this! It's just to make you see the other end as well. You are a loving SM, you really are. But I can tell you first hand that to show a child pity...or even sympathy for having to deal with SF life will only lead further and further into the "ME" generation.

~All you need is Faith, Trust, and a little bit of Pixie Dust~

i love my husban dearely. we have been married nearly eleven years. the only serious problem we have had has been over his daughter. i resent her so bad and can't stand to even look at her. the only time i really have to is when she drops her two kids off at our house. she's never there for over ten minutes but she and her kids lived with us for about two and a half years til i made her get out. sometimes i think God put her in my life to make me pay for my sins.

....even tho their mother abused them physically, mentally emotionally, told them horrific lies about their father, and finally abandoned them, I will NOT allow my skids to be victims for one reason. They were blessed with a biodad that never gave up in getting custody of them and a strong, loving stepmom who came into their lives and has put their needs before hers so that hopefully they would heal in some way and could go on to live a great adult life. I recognize the hurt they feel in having to accept that their mom was so defective in so many ways,,,but pity them?....NO WAY. God closes one door and opens another...I could have been a hateful stepmom who didn't care one bit about them and been worse that their BM was,,,,but from day one,,,I have busted my ass for them...By that fact alone...they are no victims. As some of u know, I was abused as a child. I would have given ANYTHING for someone like me to have come into my life when I truly needed someone. Not trying to blow my own horn..(toot toot)..LOL....but I think in the cases where skids lives have improved greatly with the addition of an awesome stepmom, or stepdad as in Rags' case......they must learn to appreciate all life has given them, regardless of whether they came from a broken home or not, and not dwell on what they lost!

"You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar"

Does that mean we were forced on them?

I tried very hard to consider the needs and feelings of these skids. I did understand that they didn't choose me and thus I did try to "win them over." I think most parents do try to win skids over.

Being a parent myself and from a large family, my expecations were reasonable. I am in general, an easy going person. I got along just fine with skids until even with their many shortcomings (they are entitled brats. Even the counselor was shocked at how bad they were. Even their own grandmother stopped wanting to visit them)

Once BM started PASing them, it was all over with. She became hatefully jealous and began telling them "I stole her family." I read statistics and basically, the success of a SP is largely related to how BM and DH handle themselves and less about how the SP handles himself/herself.

I now realize that my success as a step parent is largely due to factors beyond my control. So, it many cases, I don't think it makes a difference that they didn't choose us.

"Evil Stepmothers aren't born, it comes with the territory"

Very good points, Stick, and I think the people who responded have done a good job of looking at what the implications of those points are. I just have a couple of comments to add, mostly agreeing with other posters and adding my two cents. In fact, I may be doing nothing more than stealing others’ ideas and doing a synopsis. We'll see. Here goes:

I agree with Stick that a lot of stepkids’ problems can probably be traced in part to the two points she made. And they definitely contribute to the problems we stepparents have with them. Basically, our relationship to them is a theoretical no-win from the word go. As I have said to myself and to DH a number of times: “No one wants to HAVE a stepmom, and no one wants to BE a stepmom.” Just not something anyone aspires to. (Actually, Stick may be the exception in that she actively looked for a guy with kids.)

But I also agree with BBB that if we stop there, it’s easy to slide into pity. And then what would you have? Guilt STEP-parenting, to go with the guilt parenting. And here’s where SW19 comes in: no one has a perfect life or a perfect childhood. (Please bring me my soapbox... Thank you... Ahem...:) Kids today are allowed to get away with absolute murder because we’ve raised them in a culture of victimhood and tried to pad all the hard surfaces of their lives. I agree with Stick that we’d do well to have a little sympathy for these kids, because they don’t have a lot of choice in all of this. But I would hope that the result of that sympathy would be only in our inner processing of how we will treat them, and not in what we expect of them. And perhaps in a certain kindness enveloping the firmness with which we raise and discipline them.

I know my parents loved me to the point of near-obsession. I also know that they both felt extremely guilty that they were raising me in a home in which the parents were at one anothers’ throats a lot of the time. But by god, that did not mean that my dad held himself back from smacking me when I deserved it, and it did not mean that they tolerated disrespect or (the cardinal sin) if I challenged any decision they made that I didn’t like. They were raising me to be a whole, mature adult, not an emotionally-challenged adult baby who needed her hand held and burst into tears at the slightest disappointment. And this brings me to Vickmeister’s point, which she wrote so well I won’t even paraphrase:

“College professors and employers don't give a rat's that anyone comes from a broken home and had a stepparent they couldn't stand.”

Hear hear, Vickmeister. I AM a college professor, and I concur that I do not give one good g*d d*mn whether my students come from broken homes. Well, actually, I do, and I sympathize, but I will tell you that in the 20 years I have been teaching (first as a grad student and now as a professor) I have seen an incredible change in the attitude of my students. The majority of them cannot fathom that the answer to a poor or failing grade is to work harder. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me how many of them come to my office to cry or to beg, but almost never to ask for help understanding their homework. Makes me want to smack the lot of them. And yes, I feel damn sorry for them. I feel especially sorry for them that it takes them until they are 20 years old and arriving in my office for them to get the lesson that no one will do their learning or their work for them except themselves.

There’s my two cents. As a stepparent who is looking toward the day when my stepdaughters will be in college, I view my role as the one who expects a little more from them.

BB

- You are not second best, you are not second class. Do not ever let anyone make you feel that way. (2Bloved)