That is a very good link. Thanks for sharing. My skids are grown adults now, but there is so much truth to that. I have 3 skids. The oldest lived with us full time 24/7, from the time he was 8 yrs old until he moved out at age 22. The other two lived with bm and we had them eowk (generally quite a bit more) and we had them a lot in the summer.

My skids are great too, but I was different with the oldest than I was with the two that lived with bm. The oldest was in my care all the time and I made decisions based on that. I was mom. period. I didn't do whatever I wanted, but I did not check first with dh or bm, just raised him. If the school called, I took care of it. Dr. appt's the same. The younger two the situation was different and I never over stepped. If the sd that lived with me needed a haircut, she got one. If one of the other two needed a haircut I would take them if it was pre arranged, or if bm or dh. I did not make decisions though regarding their care....so yes, I think it is different.

This same woman posted another article (that was on the steptalk board yesterday) that was quite offensive and off target. I liked the paragraph where she wrote:

"If you are a step that has custody, then that is a whole other ballgame. At that point, you are basically the mom. You did not give birth to that child, but you may as well have. When a step is with a child all the time, except for the odd weekend out, it is like you have an adopted child and when you have an adopted child, you don’t treat that child as if they are adopted, you treat them like they are your own. Your boundaries and rights are that of a mother, so all bets are off."

I appreciate the respect she's offering to custodial stepmoms, but I don't think that being a custodial stepmother is the same experience as that of a mother who adopted a child. When you adopt, you're THE ONE AND ONLY MOM (in the child's life). Your nuclear family is the child's only memory of a nuclear family. True, an adopted child may wonder about his or her bio-mother, but he or she does not KNOW and LOVE the bio-mother. I may be closer to my skids, know them in a deeper way, have a much greater impact on the people they become, and do more care-taking than BM. But that does not change the fact that they have a mother, she's just an uninvolved and neglectful mother. It's totally different than adopting a child.

Nonetheless, the author's point is not lost. Being a custodial stepmom is a huge role and deserves respect and authority. It takes more than biology to be a mother, it takes time, energy and investment. 300 days out of the year, I'm the female parental figure in the children's lives (they are with BM a total of about 65 days a year). The fact that the children don't call me "mom" doesn't change that. I don't need to bow down to BM or have "boundaries" about my involvement with skids because my involvement provides something maternal that they would not get otherwise.

I still don't like the author. I think she's probably a BM from hell in real life. I also think that her blog is an avenue for her to spew her bitterness. She has no idea what she's talking about and seems to seek an avenue to justify her spite and poor behavior. The author may not like to admit it but a non-custodial stepmom is also highly influential and important in a child's life. The author wants to dictate how a stepmother should behave and be involved. But the reality is that it's not up to a BM to determine the relationship between the stepmom and child... custodial BM or not, BM has no influence over it and the more influence she tries to assert, the more difficult on the children.