hmmmm. well for me, the one teenage girl who loves my daughter, I still feel very warmly for and am engaged in her life. My baby also has her 16 year old half sister and she was a little snot about my pregnancy and the baby because she was parroting her mom's feelings or maybe they were her feelings, I don't know, but it drove us further apart.

Fact for me. I struggled with infertility, so I was a mess emotionally no matter the situation, good or bad. Once I had children of my own, any drama related to SD was minimized. I think I was better able to see any good qualities in SD once I had my own children because the focus wasn't only on her. I no longer resented that DH was able to have children with someone else when that was all I wanted.

I was a SM first and then had my Bio. I didn't see any big difference in how I treated my SD at all. There was an 8 year age gap. Of course we had very little to no interaction with BM at all since she dumped SD and ran. The only time it became a problem was when SD became a rebellious teen and tried to say I treated BS different than her. Well duh....he was only 6 and she was 14. Of course there are different standards and punishments for those age differences.

Of course now that she is no longer technically my SD (her BD and I divorced when she was 17) she gets her panties in a bunch over the fact that I can do more for BS than her dad can for her. Sorry sweets. I would have gladly done the same for you had you not turned your back on me.

Honestly, I feel like my relationship with SS and SDs are the same, probably a little closer because I understand them a little bit more, but having a baby changed SO and my dynamic. Surprisingly for the better. I have always been pretty hands off with SO's kids but SO and I had a lot of animosity towards each other due to parenting and lifestyle differences. Having a mutual child showed him that I was not picking on his kids, I just parented differently. For example, he was always up my butt about watching his kid and I said no because I'm against changing a 3 year old diaper. I can understand potty training accidents but both SSs parents were lazy and nobody was potty training the boy. When I started potty training DS on his 2nd birthday, SO backed off on the whole you don't like my son because you didn't do x. Again that's just one example of many where SO kept putting his foot in his mouth. I on the other hand learned that BM1 is most reasonable and that BM2 is kinda reasonable as well, a Bi&@$ but a functional co-parent, and that SO was the pain in butt.

This is a wonderful topic as I am about to have my first bio and have been a full time SM for almost 2 years now. I am very curious how the dynamics in the household will change.

I sometimes feel it makes it harder. SS is not expected to rise above his situation. So much is expected and demanded of my girls. My one year has more demands on her than SS.