therapy due to step-parent

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I don't have much to do with skids recently after telling a co-worker about my fun weekend she asked how I have time to take long hikes and meet with girlfriends every weekend. Dont you have kids? No I said I don't parent his children.

Now I admit she was just being ignorant when she replied well you had better start or they will be in therapy one day complaining that their step mother never had time for them and obviously didn't want them around. I told her that if they need therapy to deal with the parenting of someone that had no obligations to do so they are going to be very unsuccesful in life and that was not my fault.

But it made me think will skids really have that much entitlement that their uninvolved step parent really puts them on a couch one day?

Methinks your co-worker has

Methinks your co-worker has some stepparent issues of her own. Or else she's very limber to make the leap from you going hiking to obviously never wanting skids around.

sigh I hate that crap.

*sigh* I hate that crap. Bad enough when DH makes the skids the smom's problem, but when random friends and acquaintances do it? Annoying.

OK, fine, yes, if you (general "you", not YOU, doglady!) are abusive in any way then SURE they might end up in therapy because of you.

They are NOT being damaged in any way shape or form by the smom going on a hike by herself instead of playing Candyland with the Speshul Snowflakes.

I agree and of course I am

I agree and of course I am not abusive their time is to be with their father if I am not encouraging that then she would probably have another reason to say I would put them in therapy.

Yes, just like a boss, none

Yes, just like a boss, none of the work and all the glory!

I very much agree with this

I very much agree with this and that is a message I do try to convey. I actually did get in a little bit of trouble with dh. SD7 was nervous her new teacher would be mean, I told her that sometimes people in life are mean but it is something that we all have to deal with even adults and while I am sure her teacher will be nice if she is mean it would only be a short time in her life. DH thought I should have told her she is wonderful and everybody loves her. yeah no

I sort of agree with your DH

I sort of agree with your DH on this one, based on her age. Sorry. At 7 it's probably more appropriate to try to reassure her ("Why would you think that? I'm sure she's very nice, we'll find out soon!") - and if the teacher IS mean then you can teach her how to deal with "mean" people. If she was pre-teen then your response was fine though.

The woman that introduced me

The woman that introduced me to DW happens to be a SM herself. I got a lot of advice from her over the years. She did not disengage from her SS. She was very much involved in raising him. He's an adult now, but the fact that the BM was a whackjob really messed him up and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it except parent this kid the best way she knew how.

There comes a time in every child's life when they realize who was there for them and who wasn't. In my friend's case, her SS only realized how much she did for him after she had called it quits, threw in the towel and decided that this relationship wasn't for her. She finally got her validation in an email from him last year; he said "As far as I am concerned, you were the only REAL Mom I ever had."

Unfortunately, for many step parents, this kind of validation is too little, and often comes too late.