The wicked stepmother syndrome
Hi all, I'm new here, just looking for some support and encouragement. As my bio says I have 4 children, my own from a previous marriage 11 and 7, my stepson who lives with us full time (BM is still around but has very little to do with the child and has no rights) and our baby we have together who just turned 1. Weve been together for 2 years and all lived together for a year.
For the most part we feel we are coping well, we communicate with each other when there are conflicts and all of the children feel love from us both.
My trouble comes in with my being a stepmother and where the boundaries lay. Being that SS is 4, hes troublesome, obviously I've dealt with 4 year olds before, but my BC understood that I am infact in charge and they can only push me so far. This realization doesnt exist for SS (quite possibly due to BM interfering) which often means tantrums over small things which result in a time out. I feel as if I'm in an impossible situation where I'm asked to parent without parenting. I've had comments from my own family saying that I shouldn't discipline my SS, it makes me feel like a wicked stepmother. In May I backed down completely and asked my partner to step in and handle his son fully, take him to school, day home, bed, handle dinner, etc. So that i didnt have to be the bad guy. Of course that doesnt work, any time I'm alone with him it escalates and it doesnt seem sustainable.
Am I a wicked mother? Should 1 child in the house be allowed to break the rules? My own children watch me ignoring SS misbehaving when my partner is home and feel its unfair. All I can tell them is they just need to worry about themselves. Please tell me I'm not alone in this boat!
Why is he not disciplining if
Why is he not disciplining if he's home? What do you mean it "didn't work" to have him take over everything?
If DH is home, he needs to discipline his son. Given that's he's only 4, if you are alone with him (which is hopefully not often), then you need to discipline, and DH needs to back you up when he comes home. Given that SS's own BM is not around to stir the pot or make him have divided loyalties, you and DH should be able to work as a team. But it sounds like he doesn't do any discipline. That's your problem.
I think around the age of 4
I think around the age of 4 is when my there was a general awareness that things were different at moms house vs dads house and that different players in the game had different rules.
It's primarily your DH's job to enforce rules and be the lead parent here. There's nothing saying you can't step in to help out, but he should be leading the charge on the child rearing of his child. It's hard when your partner doesn't really pull their weight, but that would be where I throw my energy first. Have a true sit down with him on what is/ isn't acceptable and what you're willing or not willing to do.
You're definitely not evil or wicked, you're just caught in the middle of a situation you shouldn't have been placed in the middle of! The good news is, at 4, he's still young enough to nip this behavior and be shown some firm, consistent boundaries that he can either learn to respect-- or face some agreed upon discipline
No you are not wicked. You
No you are not wicked. You and DH are equity life partners. That makes you both equity parents to any children in your marrital home regardless of kid biology.
So... PARENT! That includes discipline. Giving up and disengaging with a 4yo is not the thing to do unless you want this to get increasingly toxic as this kid grows up. Now is the time to establich your unequivocal parental authority in your home. To not do this is unfair to your own two children.
Sit the 4yo down. Explain it ... ONCE! Then enforce reasonable standards of behavior for all children in your home in an age appropriate manner.
If your SO doesn't like how you parent and discipline then he can step up and get it done before you have to or he can STFU and have your back until the two of y ou can discuss it in private. Enforce the rules. The same ones you enforce for your own BioKids. SS will either comply or he will suffer escalating consequences until it reaches a level of unpleasantness for him that he will comply.
ZERO TOLERANCE!!!!!
I should say that for the
I should say that for the most part my partner does do the discipline for SS but obviously with 4 kids we cant both see every situation. And example would be when SS threw food on the floor while dad was in the other room, I asked him to pick it up and he replied 'no you're not the boss of me' I asked again and the third time I got down on the floor with him to help look for it and the screaming crying tantrum started which was the first thing DH or my family who was over saw, mome of the lead up, so they made me out to be the bad guy which they never have done when I discipline my bio kids. I don't want to disengage with a 4 year old but I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place when even him getting dressed causes said tantrums.
When he parrots out the "you
When he parrots out the "you are not the boss of me".. If your DH is home.. Look SS square in the eye and say "Ok.. if that's the way you want to play this.. let's bring your father in to deal with you throwing things on the floor". To back you up.. your DH needs to then "double down" on his stern ness and say.. "well, if I just was punishing you for throwing food the punishment was going to be an hour in timeout.. but since you were rude and wouldn't listen to SM.. how about I make it the rest of the day spent in bed? You are not to be rude, I will not tolerate it".
The other stuff that you know is contentious with him like getting dressed.. DAD needs to take the lead there. I think you can stop a bad behavior like throwing food and tell him to pick it up... but the other stuff like getting dressed.. well.. DH.. I'm just busy with the baby over here..lol.
You are an adult in your own
You are an adult in your own home. You have authority over all minors in it. I doubt you would tolerate a friend of your kid throwing food on the ground. So, feel free to dish out consequences. And speak up when people tell you it's not your place.
"If he were my bio, you'd expect me to correct the behavior. I will not allow a minor in this house, mine or otherwise, misbehave in my presence and then tell me that I'm not their boss. This is MY home and I am AN EQUAL PARTNER in it. Therefore, I am one of two bosses. SS, pick up your food and go to bed NOW. DH, if you want to disagree with me, let's talk. As for the rest of you, if you have a better solution on how to handle a 4 year old throwing an tantrum and telling an adult no, I'm ALL ears."
When you stand up for yourself, people stop walking all over you. It's not wrong to deliver consequences to a child in your own house. It IS wrong if your partner won't back you up. No relationship is worth keeping if your partner allows their child to be disrespectful to you, and in not disciplining their child, your partner also shows you disrespect.
So be BOLD. Be vocal. Be a partner, an equal. Speak up and don't let the medieval moniker "wicked stepmother" drive you to be treated like dirt.
I don't see how you can live
I don't see how you can live in the house with a 4 year old, be responsible for him at times (because face it, if your DH is on the other side of the house and SS is in the room with you, you're responsible), and not discipline. As you said, his father is not always going to be right there when he's misbehaving, and with little kids, they need to be punished in the here and now or it doesn't always sink in. What I do with my SO's kids (3 and 6), is that if he's in the room and he's not doing anything about misbehavior, I quickly draw his attention to the behavior and bore holes in his head with my evil stare until he puts a stop to it. If he's not right there, I will discipline and he will back me up. They're usually with me for more time than they're with him, so I end up doing more disciplining than he does, but my expectation is that I will be fully backed up, and I am. We have the good fortune of having a sane BM who, while she coddles the kids more than we do, will not stand for bad behavior. As a result, the kids are pretty well behaved, but even really good kids need discipline from time to time. I don't have kids of my own, but I would think that it's even more important in your situation that either your DH disciplines right away or you do, because it is very difficult to have kids in the same house not being held to the same standards of behavior. It sounds like your husband is the problem - if I told my SO that his daughter told me I was not the boss of her, she would be a very, very unhappy little girl when he finished with her. Disciplining children is not being wicked, it's doing them a favor, and helping them to grow into civilized, functional adults.
As for your family, I'd tell them to MYOB because how the kids are parented in your home is up to you and your DH, and I'd tell your DH that if he does not back you up, or treats you like the bad guy when he comes upon a situation between you and his son, things are going to be quite unpleasant in your household. If this 4 year old's behavior isn't handled now, he's going to be an even worse 5 and 6 year old, and you'll be pulling your hair out by the time he's a teen.
Thanks everyone. Perhaps I do
Thanks everyone. Perhaps I do need to stand stronger in requesting back up. When i ask for back up I'm often told not to take it so personally from a 4 year old or that the issue was minor (I assure you I don't run a militant house, my rules are the kind that are applicable to life, or in the past. But as the last person pointed out, it may be silly to be offended by a 4 year old but they will grow to understand that rudeness and disobedience is acceptable, sooner or later they'll hit a brick wall in society with that one.
OK, let's look at this from
OK, let's look at this from the perspective of the 4yo. It's not really clear whether you are or you are not the 'boss of him'. You were and then you weren't (when you disengaged) and now you are again - sometimes...
You gave away your power when you disengaged, but only gave away some of your responsibilities toward this 4yo. You can disenage from older kids, but you can't from a little kid who is in your house most of the time.
So it's time to take back power - shared power with your dh.
4yo behaviour can be so astonishingly bad that I have stepped in to discipline strangers' children. (Not often!) Or stop them from doing things I know their parents wouldn't want them to do, like leave an area unattended. All those people who say you shouldn't discipline a child in your home - esp a little kid - are full of crap. Disciplining a 4yo - as long as you are doing it with an open heart - does not make you the bad guy, it makes you the good guy.
It worries me that you're being told not to take things personally. On the one hand, I hope you're not taking things 'personally' - 4yos say all kinds of crap and have no clue what the real impact is on the adult. My son used to tell me I was 'fired'. On the other hand, 'don't take it personally' is sometimes used to minimise and gaslight unacceptable behaviour. The unacceptable behaviour here is not a 4yo misbehaving - ok it's not acceptable, but it is expected, the unacceptable behavior is the biodad abdicating from his responsibility to back you up when you correct a child who has stepped out of line.
I suspect that there's a whole raft of issues going on here - including maybe your dh not upholding his domestic responsibilities re. his kid and your shared kid? Having different standards of expected behaviour? etc? You guys need to agree a household regime including discipline of all 4 kids and then back each other up.
When that happens.
Send SS to his room and let DH deal with it. If DH doesn’t deal properly, Then DH has SS all the time, when SS is at your home. If DH leaves, he take SS with him. If to work, he has to fine day care for him