i also felt better just getting it out and to here that there are others who feel the same way.

warts home remedies

I understand where you are coming from, but that is trying to control the world with your moral compass. I mean this in the nicest way possible and am not trying to start any negative back and forth, but I agree with the initial poster on this blog that it would be nice if the climate on this website was more "live and let live" with less judgmental posting. There are 6 billion plus people on this planet and an equally large number of diverse situations.

It is simply not accurate to broadly generalize and say that if someone posts negatively on their skids that they aren't loving or good step-parents. ALL parents feel negatively towards their kids at some point. Does this mean that their kids can tell and that it traumatizes them for life? No, of course not. I have outright detested my skids and posted about it on here. Thank God no one criticized me because I really needed support and understanding, not attacks and judgment. This is supposed to be a safe place to vent and explore feelings and thoughts, not a submission to the Vatican. I have thought and written horrible things about my skids and having a safe place to vent and express those feelings has actually IMPROVED my relationship with my skids. I am going to think the thoughts anyway and have my feelings and reactions no matter what I do, so if I have a place to post, where others going through the same thing can say, "hey, i've been there, I understand how you feel" it is a much, much more positive solution than repressing the feelings and feeling increasingly angry and resentful. I am only one SM, but in my personal situation, my skids adore me. They have no idea about the internal struggle i've gone through and I don't think it would be appropriate for them to know. Maybe when they are adults I can talk to them about the struggle of step-parenting, as I now talk about it with my step-dad. I may get extremely frustrated and angry but I have never once taken it out on the skids and have made every effort to be the best SM possible. I take wonderful physical care of the kids, cooking for them, helping them do their laundry, cleaning, buying them nice clothes, giving them their vitamins, setting up a cozy and appealing bedroom, getting them toys and books etc...I also work very hard on them academically, helping them with homework, science fair projects, reading projects, research projects and going to teacher meetings etc...On the emotional front, I am probably at my strongest as a SM. I give them tons of one on one attention, talk to them about their lives, school, friends, opinions, dreams etc.. and provide them with a good role model. I am a very fair disciplinarian and care a lot that they grow up to be polite, kind and thoughtful. I put a lot of energy and thought into how better to raise them. They totally and completely adore me and want to be with me constantly. SS11 has a picture of me as the background pic for his cell phone and a picture of him and I on his laptop as the background pic. I am very physically affectionate with lots of hugs and cuddles and they love all the attention and affirmation. All around I am a pretty damn good SM! This is just my situation, but I can say from experience that having horrible thoughts and feelings about your skids does not necessarily translate into being a bad parent. My skids do not know about the feelings I have struggled with towards them and I would never hurt them or cause them distress. No matter how frustrated I get, I keep everything in perspective and I am protective of them and proud of their improvements. I am at a good place with them now especially, and they are very affectionate and have special nicknames for me. They both have told me, H and their friends and grandparents that they love me more than BM! They definitely don't have any anxiety about me loving them or liking them at all and it's just not an issue. Even at my worst emotional level, I put their needs in high priority and if I felt like I couldn't be around them without being obviously upset, I would not be around them and stay in my room or go out with friends.

Anyway, my take on this is that people are going to criticize and stir up trouble no matter what. Everyone on here has a right to post their opinions, even the negative and critical people or even those that lack tact when giving advice to get psychological help. There is a nice way to say and do things, but we can't control the people around us. I totally don't care if I get negative reactions on here because I know who I am and feel extremely sure of myself. It just helps me weed out the people to ignore in the future! I do think, however, that it would be really nice if people were more tolerant or gasp! supportive when people get on here to vent or to express some upsetting negative emotion. This is a site for venting. It is also a site for advice and support and there are a lot of opinions and differing points of view, so it's inevitable that some people with find some things offensive and some people won't. I personally, don't find it offensive at all when a step-parent posts that they hate their skids. Being that this site is for people to vent and confess feelings that they can't in other places, I take it for granted that the people posting negative thoughts aren't abusive with their skids. I am great with my skids and they love me to death, but I absolutely went through the same thing where I thought and said horrible things about them. I'm lucky enough to have wonderful, supportive and amazing friends and family and when I posted on this site when I was going through my rough time, I got a lot of support that I will always appreciate. It's nice to be told that my feelings are normal and that someone else out there has gone through the same thing. I hope that my posts have comforted at least one SM who has gone through the same things and as my sister says, "don't hate the player, hate the game." Everyone on here has a different opinion and even though I don't think it's very nice to attack people or criticize people without really knowing them or knowing what their situation is. If someone tells you that you are bad with your skids or a bad person or bad step-parent based on expressing negative thoughts online in a step-parenting online venting community, just ignore them! There's plenty of great people on here who are honest and straightforward without being judgmental or attacking. They have the same right to express themselves as anyone else on here and my policy is to ignore them. If they are nasty, it helps me figure out who they are and I take it as a clue to who to pay attention to or not. I agree that there should be less criticism and more acceptance and understanding, but I also wish for world peace, so let's see which one happens first.

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they will kill you." ~Oscar Wilde

Yep, I think that's a good point and of course people will get different responses depending on what they say. I have to say though, that no one should have to censor themselves unnaturally just to gain the approval of the members of an anonymous, online forum. I value honest expression and would much rather someone stuck out like a sore thumb on here with their real opinions than the other extreme of only saying politically correct and mild things about their skids. Whatever is going on with them emotionally, they should feel safe about expressing themselves, especially when they're not attacking other people, just expressing themselves about their own families and lives. If you have to change yourself in order to get people to help you, something is wrong. I would much rather get one comment from someone I admire and respect for my one allegedly outrageous post than post some watered down, disingenuous post about loving my skids and having thirty people pat me on the back and say they love their skids too. I think it's safe to assume that when someone writes what seems like hateful vitriol, they are probably venting and not looking for advice! There's not much advice you can give someone who hates their skids. In most cases, it is just a phase and things improve, but other than obvious things there isn't much people can do and so in those cases the only thing that helps is letting them know that they aren't alone and that they aren't evil people for having these inexplicably negative feelings about their skids. It's a horrible, disillusioning experience to get married with the best of intentions and lots of enthusiasm and find out that your new skids are a million times more difficult than you thought they would be. I would have been out the door faster than roadrunner if I didn't love my husband so much and I wouldn't have worked through all my issues with the skids, so I'm grateful I have him! I wanted so badly to be the best SM ever and have always loved kids and been one of those ones who names every single one of her stuffed animals as a kid and comes home with random abandoned animals (luckily for me, my mom loves animals as much as I do, so I was allowed to keep all the animals that I brought home, including three baby birds that she let me hand raise). I can't have bio-kids and although we are going to adopt and I was planning on it before meeting H, I was beyond excited to have two little boys as new step-sons. I realized very quickly that I was in over my head and that they needed professional intervention. I have arranged for them to both have counseling and am much more realistic than I was initially, but it was a huge letdown to find out that the man of my dreams and soul mate had two slow, socially barbaric and rude children that I suddenly lived with! It was a very, very, very, very, very hard thing to transition to and it took me a long time to come to terms with it and figure out a way to make everything work. I want the skids to be happy, I want my husband to be happy and I want myself to be happy. It takes time and a lot of effort, but it is do-able. The only one who came out of the situation even more miserable than at the beginning is BM. She's not happier, but I don't give a rat's ass about her happiness and it's up to her to create her own anyway. Basically, I know that you can love children, be a nice person and still have a nightmare experience with step-parenting.

You all are right and it basically comes down to not worrying about who posts what. There are enough members that even if some people are negative or overly critical, there are still plenty with constructive criticism and support. You can be honest and tell people what you really think without hurting their feelings and those are the people that I appreciate the most. Honesty expressed in a kind way rocks my socks.

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they will kill you." ~Oscar Wilde

I'm just giving a possible explanation as to why some members may appear to "attack" the blogger. I'm not saying it every instance but pretty darn close...lol

Stepma,

This comment is a brilliant epiphany that many can benefit from IMHO.

"2. I was projecting my hatred for Psychohosebeast onto SS."

I have been extremely fortunate in my own little blended family (Rags, Wife, Son (my SS))that we are a family. We extend significant effort countering the toxic crap our son (my SS)has to suffer with during his time with the SpermClan. We try extremely hard to avoid blowing a gasket on our son over behaviors he obviously inherited from the spermidiots.

Unfortunately we occasionally fail in that effort and express our frustration in less than acceptable ways. When we step over the line we apologize do the family group hug and move on. Our son (my SS) knows that he is ours, that we love him and that he does not have to apologize for the polluted half of his gene pool.

However, we have never shied away from using the factual discussion of unacceptable SpermClan behaviors as examples of what not to do when addressing issues with the kid (SS). As he has gotten older he has more frequently exhibited historical BioDad behaviors and decisioning (or the complete lack of decisioning as the case may be). Interestingly we are dealing with these behaviors better now that he is approaching adulthood than we did when he was younger. He can use his head much more effectively to address his own behaviors than he could when he was little.

I absolutely love my son but I could not detest his SpermDad and most of the spermclan more than I do.

Great post. Thanks for sharing it.

Best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)