I'm the custodial stepmom to 2 beautiful girls. BM doesn't do a darn thing for those kids. Not because she can't, but because she CHOOSES not to. It makes DH and I so sad, because her actions hurt the kids so much.

BM does not know what it's like to help SDs with homework. BM doesn't know any of their friends, or their friends' parents. BM does nothing to congratulate them when they do well. She doesn't know what it's like to care for them when they're sick. She doesn't know what it's like to see them get awards. The list goes on and on. I know these things because I'm there for the kids EVERY DAY! When we took her to court for custody 5 years ago, she tried get the kids to like her best. She was the fun parent. But when that didn't work out for her (because we got custody) she just dropped those kids like hot potatoes. It's so sad that some people will do this to kids.

Yep...it seems like a whole bunch of us stepmoms experience the real deal with stepkids and BM gets the play time and of course likes to take credit for a bunch of things she doesn't even do...like educate her kids on a daily basis, teach them good life values, make sure they become respectful honest people that will be able to fend for themselves and become independant (not dependant like their BM). She is not part of that process at all and then allows herself to put the kids in super difficult situations like the one mentionned by MALLY; asking the kids who they want to live with, telling them about adult problems and issues they should never even have to think about at their age. It's just wrong ! She tries to create tension and some sort of competition between her and me and my BF. Reality is...there is no competition, we don't even take part in that kind of thinking, what a waste of energy on her part...why don't you take all that energy you use trying to screw up our hard work and put it to better use like maybe actually doing something positive and constructive with your kids?? I understand you MALLY, I found with the years that letting go and brushing it off often helps me not to go insane or let anger get the best (or the worst) of me!
Don't ever give up Stepmoms out there, in your hearts, you know what you are doing is important and soooo significant for these kids.... and will influence the rest of their lives and who they will become. If we wait for credit or approval, we might be sitting around for a loooonnnggg time. Anyways, I know I am here doing this for these kids because I chose to and I try not to expect too much in return. But man.....I do get the frustration and anger and sick feeling in my stomach so often.

I wonder about this all the time. My SS moved in with us 10 months ago. Before he lived here full time he had the WORST school records. Zero average, and I personally think he was depressed. I assessed that it must have been very hard for this boy to visit his dad EOW in this big beautiful house where he has his own room and then have to go back to the projects to his BM where he lived in a 1 BR apt with his mom and sister. Here he was able to be a kid. I am the parent, I cook the meals, I do the laundry, I took care of him and his sister. Where as in BMs house HE had to care for the sister, run the errands, do the laundry, heat up the leftovers. In 10 months he has grown, he is happy, he talks, he has made friends. His grades are up he's talking about COLLEGE! He is being a teenager growing up in a healthy environment. I don't scream in the morning "GET THE EFF UP YOUR LATE!?!?!" I open his bedroom door, turn on the hallway light and walk away. He wakes up to a warm "hey kiddo what do you want to eat before you go?" DH leaves for work at the crack of dawn so I am left to get SS and BS on the bus before I go to work. I always wonder...Will he appreciate what I have done in his life? Does he even know that I have changed his entire future? I don't know...I guess we'll have to wait and see...

You're right it is horrible to make the kids choose. The judges think they are helping but they are not--they should ask "is there anything wrong that makes you not want to spend extra time with BM/BD?"

Why ask who, when they know they will say whoever they worry will get the most mad.

I want to respond to what you are saying NOT SO HAPPY NEWLYWED....when you wonder; are they ever really grateful? Will they ever appreciate what we did for them in their lives? Do they know that we change their entire futur? I would say, right now, probably not, but belive me, they will eventually. I had a step dad for 10 years, from age 7 to age 17. I lived with my mom and him full time and for that 10 year period, he was a very implicated, responsible stepfather. I cannot begin to express how he DID change my whole futur and also my life at that moment. He had a big impact on my life. If it wasn't for him, I would not have become the woman I am today. Don't get me wrong, my mom was and still is absolutely great and she would have kept on doing a great job even if he wouldn't have come into the portrait. But the fact of the matter is, a mom can't and will never be a dad. I had no positive male figure in my life and if he would not have been there I just cannot imagine what my relationship with men would have been like as a young woman and still to this day. I don't know what my perception of "family" would be. I definitly took time, several times in my life to tell this man how I loved him and how he was sssooooo important in my life and in what way he changed so mcuh for me....even if he eventually left, even if I was broken and angry when he did. Time healed most of those wounds and I still to this day bless the day he came into my life. So I guess there is hope, I guess some of us do realize the impact and especially even more when we become stepparents ourselves.