Have any of you current/former stepparents ever entered a relationship where you disagreed about the way your partner parented his/her kid? Like different attitudes on discipline? I assume that as a stepparent, you have no say on those things. How did it turn out?
I mean, yeah, ideally you probably should be with someone who already matches you on those things. But life is dumb and sometimes you accidentally fall for someone whose kid might be a touch…spoiled.
In my case, as a step, the bio parents shared custody. I take the approach of influencing from the outside, while letting the bio take the lead real-time. Discussions after the fact, sharing observations, etc.
Did your partner end up ever taking your suggestions? Sometimes it’s frustrating because the solution seems so clear but parents have a huge blind spot. Like, I’m pretty sure your kid will stop negotiating LITERALLY EVERYTHING YOU TELL HER TO DO if you stop bribing her all time.
General rule is to let the biological do the direct parenting. If you’re really interested, you insinuate your will through your half of the bio parents. About as far as you can go is to remind the step their behavior is not in line with Ma & Pa’s expectations and that you’ll need to refer the matter to your spouse for further action. Frustrating as hell, but you have no credibility with the step even if your spouse tells them you do.
And really, this is as it should be. The outsider may have valid and effective parenting ideas, but the bio parent has known the kid since before the docs toweled it off. Knowing the kid for that long goes a long way toward knowing what techniques work better.
It hasn’t been pretty. I’m convinced my spouse ruined the kid’s chances of having a normal productive life, and I was powerless to make much of a difference.
I was not given the authority to be a parent and now my stepdaughter is unable to function in the world. It may have had a genetic component, but being so close to the action I’m sure her problems are mostly due to poor parenting
When I was married, I stayed out of it for the most part. When it came to grades or curfew, I was hands off.
However, when it came to chores like, dishes, laundry, or taking out the trash, I never hesitated to let them know what my expectations were. NOT because I thought I was Daddy 2.0, but because I paid half the bills* there, and I would expect these things out of anyone living in my home.
*Actually paid more than half.
Did the relationship survive? Looks like yes and no, respectively?
Yikes! Mother Bear attacked me instantly – and I was actually only trying to change something the kids were actually doing to me, not the way they were being trained more generally.
Grrr! had much better success than I ever did.
I have no experience in this stuff as either kid or as parent. So some naïve questions if I may …
ISTM there’s a huge difference between the stepparent being a BF/GF to the bio parent vs. being married to the bio parent. Also a big difference whether the other bio parent is present or absent in the kids’ live(s).
And I expect the truly huge difference is how old the kid(s) are when the stepparent joins the family and how long it’s been since then. e.g. if I married a woman with a 17-yo I’d expect to have nearly zero influence before the kid moved out on its own in a few months. OTOH if I married a woman with a 6-yo I’d expect to be having full and equal parental influence by the time the kid was, say, 8.
How laughably far from folks’ experiences are my assumptions above?
I think the problem with a step-parent’s interference is that their motivations are often suspect: rather than a sincere interest in the child’s well-being, they more often seem motivated by loyalty to the parent (they don’t like seeing their spouse hurt), ideology (they have an idea about the “right” way to parent), or self-interest (they find some behavior a pain in the ass and want it to stop).
This is pretty much the attitude I’ve taken. I told my steps that I was their emergency backup parent, and that I would support them. Anytime I’ve crossed that line and tried to take a more active parenting role, I’ve regretted it. And they’ve pushed back, which I don’t blame them for doing - I think the youngest was 12 when I met her and the oldest was already 18. I was never successful in asking my steps to do chores, Grr!, regardless of how much money or other support I’ve contributed to the household. My husband simply told the kids that they didn’t have to do what I requested since he didn’t think those chores were important.
That said, my husband is definitely authoritarian and has poor relationships with all three of his kids. It’s sad to see since they mostly come around when there are gifts or money to be received. Their mom - I think to always come off as the hero - took the opposite parenting tack and was totally permissive. I find two of the kids nearly impossible to withstand when we do see them, though I make a mighty effort and remain pleasant. The other kid seems to be fine.
I, too, have kids, and mine are a little younger (one in college, one still in high school). My husband expects to have much more say in parenting my kids than I ever did with his, whether it’s holding them to what chores he wants them to do, requiring them to ask permission before they can do a daily activity, etc. Both of my kids have noted the inconsistency between what I could / did do with his kids and what he does with them, and neither is happy about it, though they remain polite, pleasant, and rule-following for the most part.
Oh, and I guess to provide a bottom-line answer to your question: If you and your spouse don’t agree on how to parent his kids or your kids, conflict is pretty much guaranteed. The degree, impact, and escalation of said conflict will vary with the individual couple. I’ve seen everything from a “Meh, they’re her kids” attitude to divorces over the issue.
A friend of mine had never been married and had no children when he married a woman with a 9 year old son. He actually took a step-parenting class the instruction basically came down to “stay the hell out of the way for at least the first year.” He was supposed to just observe and only offer advice if it was asked of him. He still follows that rule, only intervening when asked, and now has a great relationship with his grown stepson. Now, I don’t honestly know if the mother was a great parent or not, but seems she was at least pretty normal.
This situation is interesting. It’s hard to imagine parenting so bad that you literally destroy your child’s ability to function. I don’t mean to be nosey, but hey, it’s a message board, so would you care to elaborate?
Mine has survived, though its still rough at times. The spouse has realized some of the errors made in parenting which makes it somewhat easier, but the damage is done to the child…now adult.
I’ll note that I am the product of my dad and Stepmother. She was given full authority to parent us and they worked together. They never questioned each other or ‘took the kid’s side’ in front of us. It was a united front and worked very well. My dad was AWESOME. He picked the right woman to step into the mother role. My stepmom is AWESOME as well!
Thanks for starting this thread. I’ve always wondered what other folks are doing in this situation, and I’ve often questioned my approach. We disagree, but I mostly keep my mouth shut on this issue. I rarely share my opinion with her.
This is fairly close. We’re getting married next year and I’ve been with these kids for the last ~5 years. I’ve stayed out of it, unless I was directly disrespected or they were being unquestionably slack about something. That’s only been the case 2 or 3 times. I’ve *joked *that they “outta be glad I’m not your daddy, cause things would be different round here”. Oh, it can be frustrating. I moved-in with them for a bit, but it was tough for me to live there with little authority. I got my own place after about 6 months.
Now I’m frustrated in a different way as they reach early adulthood. They don’t have a sense of responsibility or respect for their parents. As mentioned, they aren’t going to disrespect me, but they do it to their mama often. Where it was just mouthing-off or not getting off the computer for dinner, it’s now progressed to the oldest being gone for 3 days and not checking in. His mama’s upset about this, and I bite my tongue while mentally putting all the pieces together to understand why he’s acting this way. Mom’s words/wants/requests have just never been that important to these boys. They’re really both good kids with these small exceptions.
What about this scenario?
Suppose each parent has children from a previous relationship. Having the step-parent defer to the parent would result in different sets of standards for different children in the same household. That seems like a recipe for complete disaster.
Interesting, this.
My parents divorced when I was 8 and my brother was 2. They both remarried within a couple of years.
We were expected to listen to our stepparents and treat them with the respect we gave our parents. The steps didn’t try to do anything outside of the norms WRT parenting. IF we thought something was out of bounds, we had to do it but we could talk to our parents about it.
There was no momma bear coming to defense of kid.
However, my parents rather unusually all came to agreements on parenting things, and included the steps. This actually worked out well, as my stepfather had raised ten bio and step kids before he married my mom, and was able to offset her tendency to be a worrywort about me with some real-life knowledge. “Mary, Grumpy is an honor student and holds two part-time jobs. I think it’s safe if she spends the night with a friend you’ve known since fifth grade.” That sort of thing.
In our case, I’m the biological parent and my wife is the step. We agree on 95% of stuff but, when there’s a conflict, she defers to me. But we also have another son together so our co-parenting skills have merged around that one and that affects how we interact with the first child.
This does happen. In our case the uneven standards sort of worked themselves out. Anyone inclined to dis the step got to see those with better attitudes get better treatment. The kids are extra vigilant about seeking evidence of double standards, and it’s really easy to turn it around: “T gets an allowance because he actually does what he’s asked and doesn’t hassle either of us about it. Get on board and enjoy the scenery, or not–your choice.”
I’m in that scenario (detailed above). It hasn’t been a complete disaster, but it’s led to resentment amongst all parties. For instance, my husband is extremely vigilant about my kids doing chores, but when his were around (they’re not anymore), he would simply tell his kids that they didn’t have to do whatever I had assigned. My kids hated that. His kids got poorer grades than mine, and my kids were aghast when grades that would have gotten them a lecture, if not some grounding, received no repercussions when the steps would bring them home.
I think the thing that really bothered my kids, though, was when one of my stepdaughters made a practice of saying things like, “See these shoes? They cost $100. My mom bought them for me because I told her to. I can make her do anything I want.” Meanwhile, my kids were shopping for their stuff mostly at used clothing stores. However, their anger may have more to do with common or garden variety envy than different parenting styles - though my kids were always well aware that my husband is intensely frugal and the reason (more than simple economics) that we shopped for used, not new, clothes.