We have 50% custody of my SS13 (newly 13) and SD11, no biokids. I have been in their lives since they were 5 and 3 respectively. I gave up my firm job 2.5 years ago to stay at home with my kids - I teach a graduate class twice a week and teach a variety of seminars and online classes, but I am the one who picks them up from school, takes care of homework, extracurricular activities, sports and maintains their relationships with friends. DH and I have a fairly decent relationship with BM and the kids' stepdad - not friends, but friendly enough (albiet sometimes forced), civil, as cooperative as humanly possible. I have to work very, very hard to maintain the cooperative and civil vibe. Mostly I work with BM on logistics and leave the substance to DH (we discuss it and he communicates it). This works well for maintaining a semblence of civility between the two households but often leaves me feeling frustrated.

BM and SF have a different life philosophy than DH and I. They are permissive parents and we believe in structure. I like to think that we believe in balance - we believe in good grades, sports and health but we also allow lots of time with friends, video games and indulgences when appropriate.

I am struggling mightly now with feeling diminished and as if the benefits of our influence is being mightly undermined by BM's permissiveness. Last year we went through a tense time when BM wanted to get SS (then 12) a cell phone. DH agreed to the cell phone but wanted to limit texting. BM fought him and they finally compromised on limited texting 'for some time'. Two months later SS had full texting and he's now obsessed with texting. I think texting is something that could have waited until at least 9th grade. I am not against it per se - but I hate to see SS missing the world around him all the time b/c he's staring at the little screen. He's so obsessed with staying in touch, just as we predicted, who can blame him? You give a kid a room full of chocolate and he's going to eat it all. So I have to live with this kid who has got a phone glued to his face, and if I ask him to put it away then I'm the bad guy. This is just one example of how BMs permissiveness results in consequences in my household and then I'm put in a really bad position. The same goes for junk food (unlimited soda consumption, no veggies, etc.), late bedtimes, no structured homework time -- no oversight of homework -- no focus on doing the best that you can do. No teaching how to properly use the phone, table manners. No intellectual curiousity. No nothing. Blank. blank. blank.

Despite all of this, the kids excel at their activities. They have lots of friends who are good kids. They are in soccer, theater, and debate, and they do really well because they are naturally gifted and b/c we make these activities a priority in this household. We balance these things with travel and friends and movies and tv time, but we make it clear that these things are important. I've always felt that the kids would be completely different people w/o their father's influence (and my time). In fact, SD11 has been involved in a school project lately that is part of a county-wide competition that goes on to a state competition. SD won. SD won, despite the fact that BM never once made time for SD to get together w/her partner to work on the project. I gave up substantial time w/SD, and invested my own time to work with SD, in order for SD to work on her project with her partner. During the project SD's partner's mother quietly said to me once that she felt as if her attempts to get her daughter to get together w/SD while SD was at BMs were unwelcome, and that she thinks SD is lucky to have me and DH around. She said this gently and nicely but boy was it nice to hear that someone else sees what I see.

Yesterday at SS's 13th birthday party, DH noticed SS was drinking a Rock Star energy drink. I think that allowing young kids to drink this crap is asking for trouble. They are unhealthy and potentially dangerous if the kids are not taught how to manage them. I also think it's low class. DH agrees and was disgusted by seeing SS guzzling this crap. Of course we didn't say anything at the party. We are firm believers in the right time and place and manner for a co-parenting discussion, and of course I wouldn't be involved in such discussion (because my involvement would send BM through the roof & that does not help the kids at all). But I have to tell you that it feels so awful to have to live in a situation where SS engages in behavior that I find wrong and distasteful, and then I am put in the position of living with it (yuck) or being the bad guy. I love my kids as if they were my own kids.

Notice that I call them my kids. They call me "Gwen". They are my kids. I am not their mother. This is emblematic of the paradox that we live with, the painful splintering and separation. I have all of the responsibility, obligation, love. And none of the influence or mom benefits.

No one who is not a stepmom can understand the pain of raising and loving kids over whom you have limited influence, where someone else can override you for absolutely no reason. Where you are like an aunt or beloved babysitter, but you have all of the emotions of a mom.

I hate having to live my life side by side with BM. I don't agree with her philosophy and I don't like her choices, and the only thing I can do is smile and put up with it, and act nice, because anything else results in terrible consequences for my kids. It's a hell of a frustrating life!!!

My kids are good kids, and I am thankful for that. I learn to pick my battles. I try hard to compartmentalize and look at the bigger picture so as not to drive myself crazy. It doesn't do me or them any good. But sometimes this feeling of resentment and frustration is so overwhelming I want to scream. I want to flick BM in the head for being such a dumbass, and instead I smile and talk about SS's birthday breakfast and ask what they are doing for her upcoming birthday, and happy birthday (you stupid, lame woman). This is my life as a stepmom, and sometimes it just sucks.