The joys(?) of being an evil stepmom

In My Humble Opinion
1

So technically I’m a step mother to a nine year old girl. I’m not married to the father, but we live together and she lives with us every other weekend and longer on vacations. I’m pretty new to this gig, as Daddy and I have only been together about two years.

The child is your stereotypical only child, with severe “only child syndrome.” She’s got six grandparents (my parents consider her their grandchild already!) who spoil the living daylights out of her. I’m talking, whatever the child wants-she gets. This child will go online and look for stuff for people to buy her. As long as she’s getting her way, she is the sweetest, most intelligent and caring little girl you could ever wish for. But if she’s not getting her way? Clear the decks because she is going on a RAMPAGE. And when she goes on a rampage? Princess gets what princess wants.

I was raised very differently from this child. I was raised to respect my elders, not to talk back and to be the subordinate one in the house (as a child, not a woman!) She, on the other hand, is being raised to speak however she wants to adults, and to rule the house. She’ll be drinking a capri sun on the couch and when she’s done? Throws it on the floor, fully expecting someone to clean it up after her. When we drive somewhere she will wait in the car until someone opens her door. Plus, she expects to be fully entertained at all moments of the day. We were going to watch a movie at home one night and my SO and I were going to run upstairs to change and she yelled out “who’s gonna entertain me!!!” for those five minutes. Sometimes I just stare at her with my mouth agape, totally in shock at the kind of behavior she gets away with on a daily basis.

Now, these things should be fully fixable with a little discipline, right? Sure! Except, no one in her entire family will discipline this child. No one. Again, only child. Princess. Or, more fittingly, big boss lady. Now, as daddy’s girlfriend, I’ve been told by multiple parties that I am not allowed to discipline her. Fine. Except, I spend more time with her than anyone when she’s here. Daddy works weekends and won’t take time off to spend with her. Trust me, I’ve begged. So I’m stuck every other weekend with her all day for two days, until daddy gets home. Now, I do discipline her verbally because, quite simply, I will not take shit from a nine year old. So last weekend when she called her father and I idiots, I told her not to speak to adults that way and her father asked “why are we idiots?” :rolleyes: Way to back me up, dad! When we went bowling and she pushed me for no reason and then lied to our faces about having apologized, her father bought her candy :rolleyes: When I complain to her father about the way she speaks to me, he just says “you should see how she talks to her mother!” So, I guess I should consider myself lucky I’m not the only one?

Now, I would just grin and bear it. Not my child, after all. Except, like I said above, I’m stuck with her all weekend long, alone. It’s gotten to the point where I fear her. I’m 28 years old and I’m afraid of a nine year old! Also, her father says he fully expects her to be living with us by the time she’s 15. Her mother (a complete psycho) moved in with her father when she was a teenager and patterns in that family are pretty set. At this rate, the girl will be a fire breathing monster by 15. And since I can’t disclipline her (and when I do, dad doesn’t back me up because he’s got the whole “guilty weekend dad” thing happening) I feel totally helpless. I’m madly in love with the father, we’re talking about marriage and I am bound and determined not to let this child break us up.

But I’m not here to talk about how the way she’s being raised. I’m here to talk about our relationship, because it bothers me more than it should. We get along. I love her, she loves me (on a good day.) Which brings me to my last and biggest concern. Her moods change like the wind. When he goes to pick her up, I never know if she’s going to come running in and give me a bear hug, or completely ignore me. It’s got me tied in knots. Sometimes she’ll be all snuggly and loving with me and other times she’ll be downright hostile to me, for no reason whatsoever. And I’m the only one she’s this inconsistent with. Just last night we were watching the stars and snuggling and this morning, when I said good morning to her she totally ignored me and said “where’s daddy?” When I told her he was at work and would be home in a couple hours, she just said “wahhh!”. Now she’s upstairs totally ignoring me some more. What the hell? Again, she’s not my child so I don’t have the whole unconditional love/maternal instinct going. If anything, I want to say to her “look you little brat…” It’s a lot harder for me to get past the bratty behavior than her parents and grandparents so half the time I find myself avoiding her, then feeling guilty about it.

I don’t really know how to end this so, “the end.” Oh, and thanks for reading my novel.

2

Stop putting up with it, and tell your boyfriend to grow a pair!

3

Really? It’s that easy? :wink:

Trust me, I’ve done that many times. I’ve even gone as far as to say I would not marry him or have children with him if this was how they were going to be raised.

Of course, he just responds with “well, we only have her every other weekend, whatever discipline we give is totally gone once she goes back to her mother.”

All of my stories about how I acted like a spoiled brat when I visited with my dad but totally towed the line when I was with my mom because that was what was expected of me fall on deaf ears. Also, he’s lazy. He’d much rather just give in than actually fight with her or discipline her. He figures he’s got limited time so he wants to make the best of it.

4

I wouldn’t worry about her spending time by herself in her room. I think it’s good for a kid to have lots of “alone” time to play pretend and think about things. I’m sure that I think that because I was an only child, but… I do.

Keep in mind that a lot of kids don’t develop compassion until pretty late, unless they’re actually taught it. I’m sure that, to her, there is a complete disconnect between how well you were getting along last night, and *this morning * when she wants her daddy and he isn’t there. I mean… overnight is a long time when you’re nine! It probably also doesn’t occur to her that you are *that much * affected by what she does.

Possibly you could start having little “talks” with her about how other people are feeling. For instance, “your daddy had to go to work this morning. Wouldn’t it be awful it you had to get up early to go to school on Sunday morning? I think we should do something really nice for daddy when he gets home–how about we make a nice lunch for him.” Then, she goes off and sulks by herself for a while while you do whatever you want, and by the time lunch needs to be prepared, she’s gotten used to the idea. She’s also learned something about consideration for other people.

All this said on condition that she’s not making a special effort to be rude. And that I don’t actually have any kids, myself.

5

What do you mean when you say you’re “not allowed to discipline her”? Does that mean you can’t give her a time-out, or tell her no when she wants something she shouldn’t have?

If it were me, I’d refuse to let her run roughshod over me, even if it’s only every other weekend and even if everyone else caters to her. For your own sanity, you need to set boundaries for how she behaves around you.

Failing that, I’d consider having plans of your own when she visits. Go see friends in another city, and hire a sitter for the little snot. Let dad deal with her alone for awhile, and see if he doesn’t change his mind about kowtowing to a tyrant.

It sounds like her family is proud of her willfulness, maybe thinking she’s “independent” or “strong-willed”. Good qualities in a child, but not when it makes others miserable.

I don’t know that I’d let her “get huggy” after she does something to hurt your feelings. Manipulate her a bit yourself, see how she reacts.

6

I never had to make my bed at home (and really feel that a made bed serves no purpose), but my grandmother had it as a house rule that all beds must be made every morning when I went to visit them once a year. And so of course I did.

Losing discipline from one house to another is fine, so long as the child can turn it on when needed. That’s what’s going to hurt you in real life if you can’t turn it on and off. Just like cussing. It’s fine to cuss, just not when you’re in an interview. If you can’t stop cussing that’s a problem, not whether you usually do cuss.

If she doesn’t obey her elders, make sure there’s at least one she does, because that’s something that needs to be gotten in there at least once.

7

Your relationship will not work if you can’t deal with this problem. What happens when you have your own kids and Princess models this behavior? How do you explain to your daughter that Princess can tell you to fuck off by not her? And I warn you now, she will be telling you to fuck off–probably soon.

It is complete bullshit that you can’t have a positive impact on this kid’s behavior when you only have her 2 days every other week. I got my step-son when he was 8 and the only people who taught that boy a thing about responsibility and compassion for others were me and mr.stretch. Kyle’s bio-mom is a liar, thief and general bad person, and yet Kyle has turned out to be a wonderful man–he’ll be 20 in a week. He learned a lot about how not to be from his mom.

Mr.stretch was an exemplary absent parent. We live 200~ miles from Kyle and he spent every other weekend with him, in addition to driving over to watch baseball and basketball games, taking the boy fishing on opening day, talking to each other almost everyday on the phone, etc.

Your SO should also be trying to arrange his schedule so that when Princess is with you, she is with both of you. He is not being fair to you or his daughter. Does he spend other time with her? A night a week of just dad and Princess time? How far away do you live from Princess?

I’m sorry, your SO may be a wonderful person, but he sounds like a not-so-good dad.

8

I haven’t had kids yet, much less been a stepmom, so my ideas on parenting should no doubt be taken with a grain of salt. However, I definitely can understand why you’re so upset about the kid acting like this. The real problem here, I think, is not the child. The real problem is with the father not backing you up.

Okay, so you’re not the “real mom”. That doesn’t mean you have to let the kid walk all over you. After all, teachers have to discipline children in their care sometimes even without being the kids’ parents.
So, you definitely need to be able to set limits with the kid - but that can only happen if the dad is on your side and backs you up. If you’re the only person who is trying to set limits with her, of course the kid is just going to end up resenting you and keep pitting you and her dad against each other. So, that’s why I think the key is for you to do whatever it takes to get your boyfriend to see how seriously messed up the situation is and get him to be on your side so you can present a united front to the kid.

If he refuses to take responsibility for the kid’s behavior no matter what you say, then maybe it’s time to think about leaving. You know this behavior will just get worse as the kid gets older unless some serious changes are made. If you can’t picture having a happy family with this man AND his child there is really not much point in staying around.

9

Yikes, what a situation. No experience with “stepping,” but almost every kid understands the concept of different behavior expectations for different places. What’s acceptable at home, at daycare (assuming her highness used to go), at school, etc. If you are the caregiving adult on your weekends, you have every right to establish house rules. If boyfriend won’t support the house rules, you may want to reconsider being the caregiver.

10

She lives about an hour away from us. Her mother, like mr. stretch’s ex, is a drinking, brawling sorry excuse of a woman. It’s been two years and I’ve never met her because she would physically attack me. The woman is 37 going on 16 and in her eyes, she’s mother of the year. Ugh. So I also wonder if some of the child’s behavior is a result of the woman’s life goal to get the child to hate me. She told her before I ever met the kid that I “hated children.” Yeah.

I would take off when she visits except I don’t want her to think I’m avoiding her, you know? I’ve done it before, but I can’t do it every time she visits, how would that look?
She’s not a horrible kid, she’s just being raised badly, it’s not her fault. Also, it would cause some problems between the SO and I. I know I wouldn’t want to be with someone who went out of their way to avoid my child every time they were around.

And I know she can be disciplined just here, I went through that when I was her age. Unfortunately, no one else wants to bother. And if I’m the only one constantly disciplining her, I just fullfil the “evil stepmom” role, she hates me, psycho ex wins and everyone is unhappy.

I’m just looking for suggestions on how to discipline her without her hating me or otherwise control her behavior so she doesn’t walk all over me like everyone else.

11

Also, for everyone telling me that I’ve got to work it out with the dad, I’ve tried. He does one of two things, the first being “oh, you just don’t like her. Sorry to break it to you, but she likes you.” Yeah, nice guilt trip there.

The second thing is the old, “what do you want me to do?” I say “back me up!” He says, “what’s the use? She’s going home anyway!” I tell him about the dual household rules, which falls on deaf ears.

As far as the speaking disrespectfully thing goes, he doesn’t think it’s a problem. He thinks it’s okay to call adults idiots. I guess we just have different parenting philosophies.

12

Maybe some of the problem is with your word “discipline.”

It sounds like a bad and mean thing to you, because you are seeing it as punishment and holding back. It also means voluntary self-control.

Maybe think of it more as socialization, and present it that way, showing the child how to be liked and valued in society. “This is how not to act like a dope.”

DON’T use this on the girl, but point out casually other misbehaving children, and characterize them as “needy.” Just negative enough not to be attractive, without being so trite as “babyish.”

Perhaps some active TV watching, discussing in as totally not a pointing-out-the-moral way as you can manage, more like a “did you think he was cute” way and segue into who acted like an idiot, that might help. Or movies–a couple of hours where you don’t have to entertain, a giggly soda afterwards discussing it and the character’s behavior–“in real life, there was no way a person would get away with that! What did you think?”

Are you into crafts at all? Another idea is some craft that would take many weeks to complete–things need to dry or something. It helps teach self-control and accomplishment.

As an addition, maybe if you and the girl got into talking shorthand using character names-- “look over there, that kid’s acting like sheila!”–the dad might feel a little left out, and put more effort into spending time with the both of you.

13

I believe you. I’ve been through it. It finally came to my sitting him down and saying “I love you, but our relationship is not going to work unless you do something about this situation.”
It turned out that he didn’t want his daughter to think he was choosing me over her, so he simply did nothing because he had very little time with her and he didn’t want to be seen as the “bad guy.” It took all weekend for us to work it out, but eventually we all sat down and he told his daughter in front of me “Mo is my wife. You don’t have to call her mom, you don’t have to love her, but while you’re with us, you do have to respect her.”
I won’t lie to you and say everything was happy fun land after that, but it did start getting better by increments.

14

First, don’t take it personally when the kid doesn’t want to spend time with you and goes from nice to sullen in an instant. You say she’s nine years old? Nine year olds tend to be moody-especially nine-year-old girls.

Second, don’t worry about her not liking you if you discipline her-you’re going to be, for all intents and purposes, a parental figure, and you can’t worry about being liked. She needs to have at least one adult who cares about HER NEEDS, not her wants, necessarily.

As for the boyfriend, you and he need to have a serious chat.

15

This raises a pretty big red flag to me.

He’s lying to you and being manipulative, rather than addressing a legitimate problem that you’ve brought to his attention. Are you sure you really want to be in a marriage with someone who treats you like that? I don’t think I could handle a serious relationship with anyone who responds to my honest attempts to work out a problem with manipulation or dishonesty.

Even if he were being straightforward with you in his response–even if he genuinely believes that his daughter’s behavior towards you is just fine–you might want to reconsider the relationship you have with your boyfriend. As you know, if you marry him, you’re marrying his daughter, too. No matter how much you love being with him, if you feel that he isn’t a particularly good father, but you have kids with him, anyway, you’d be setting yourself up for at least a couple of decades of major misery.

16

Just make sure that you have a logical reason for everything. So long as you aren’t being arbitrary, regardless of whether she likes it or not, she’s not going to hate you. (Nor can your guy complain.)

I wouldn’t see calling adults idiots an issue as, simply, it’s arbitrary. However, saying that calling anyone insulting names is something that can be done, it isn’t arbitrary and there are reasons for it.

  1. In the real world you can’t call people names.
  2. Writing people off as idiots is self-defeating. If you can accurately criticize a person’s weaknesses, or specifically prove them to be an idiot then fine, but otherwise you’re just burning a bridge. The person you’re calling an idiot today could end up growing up to be the richest man on the planet and perfect husband material.
  3. It’s not very creative. Say that she can only use insults if they are creative.
17

I think you’ve nailed it on the head there.

18

Yep! Your whole post raises red flags to me.

Parenting is a huge job, and your boyfriend isn’t doing the work. He’s not taking responsibility for raising his daughter, period. Throwing up his hands and blaming his ex-wife is inexcusable.

Discipline actually means “to teach” (as a previous poster illustrated). By not taking the time to teach his daughter how to behave in civilized society, he’s neglecting her. And she damn well knows it.

If you want to make it your project to help this child, I think you should enlist the help of a family therapist. Your boyfriend is dropping the ball in a major way and he needs to get his shit together and start being an adult and a father.

It’s not going to magically get easier as this girl grows up, much less when she comes to live with him. My 2.5-yr-olds don’t get away with the kind of crap that child is pulling. Yet, she IS a child; she is reflecting the reality of the adults around her, and it sounds like she lives in a crazy world. You cannot control her. The adults need to change their behaviors, and their expectations of her.

Personally, I think you should run the other way. This is a trainwreck in the making, and it’s not going to get any better without major changes.

19

Oh, yeah. I’ve already said this is why he doesn’t ever disclipline her. And I want to clarify, it isn’t just me she disrespects and acts bratty with. She acts like this with everyone. The hot/cold routine is the only thing especially reserved for me.

That’s the major problem. He can sit her down and say “you can’t talk to lezlers that way” but if she’s allowed to talk to all the other adults in her life that way, it’s not going to make much of an impression. Apparently, she’s downright abusive towards her mother. Not that the woman doesn’t deserve it, but she’s not doing the kid any favors by refusing to teach her to show respect for her elders/authority.

Sage rat it wasn’t her calling us “idiots” that shocked me, it was her speaking to adults that way. Now, if she is really disrespectful at a level that even causes my SO to do something, his reaction is totally useless. He’ll ask her “why did you say that?” She’ll say “I don’t know.” Him: “are you mad?” Her: “no” Him: “so why did you say that?” Her: “I don’t KNOW WHY!!!” Him (to me): “I talked to her, what else do you want me to do?”

Ugh! Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

20

Oh and he just called me to say he’s stuck at work and they’re “making” him do another loop (he’s a caddie.) Did I mention he’s not even supposed to be working today? He went in because a regular requested him.

I told them to tell them no and that his daughter will be home alone if they make him stay. I’d never leave her alone but they don’t know that. I have about 5 hours of studying to do for a class tomorrow and I was waiting for him to get home so I can go do it! Hard to study when you’re entertaining a nine year old! Oh, and did I mention that I also work full time so the only time I can get my studying done is on the weekends?

Yeah…