You are here

"you'll feel different when it's your own"

sunny_skies's picture

Submitted by sunny_skies on Mon, 07/29/2013 - 7:16pm

I'm so sick of hearing this from people, one friend said to me the other day, that once my baby arrives (in a few months!), that I'd let her get away with lots of naughty things when she's older, and not discipline her like I do SS. (by discipline I mean making sure he says please and thankyou, and putting him in the corner if he is rude, etc) 

My response was something along the lines of "do you actually think I discipline SS because I didn't give birth to him?! or that I don't like him?! I discipline him because I love him, and in turn want him to grow up to be a decent human being, someone that others enjoy being around! the same will go for my daughter!"

anyway, regardless of that, I'm just a bit sick of hearing people essentially state that I will not love my SS as much as my DD. how do they know that this is the case?! is there anyone out there that loves their skids and bio kids the same amount? I'm just curious as I absolutely adore my SS, I have been in his life since he was a few months old, and I can't wait to see if my love for DD will be different. 

Comments

Bojangles's picture

Submitted by Bojangles on Tue, 07/30/2013 - 3:55pm

Yep

herewegoagain's picture

Submitted by herewegoagain on Mon, 07/29/2013 - 7:29pm

lol my DH used to say this to me...his kid is a loser 13+ years later...of course, NEVER did I allow our son to get away with what she did, he is a very polite kid and everyone comments on how sweet and polite he is...it is truly a CROCK

Bojangles's picture

Submitted by Bojangles on Tue, 07/30/2013 - 3:59pm

Also my experience. As our children get older I am sometimes gobsmacked by the difference in DH's parenting of ours vs his.

AliceP's picture

Submitted by AliceP on Mon, 07/29/2013 - 11:09pm

That's weird thing to think I am a lot harder on my Bios than my steps because we don't get the steps because we don't see the steps often and I don't want to parent them really.

dragonfly5's picture

Submitted by dragonfly5 on Tue, 07/30/2013 - 7:18am

So true, we expect more from our Bio children. We raised them, we taught them our value system.

Our skids come to us with someone else as the parent and they have that parents expectations or lack of.

My skids do not think like me, act like me, react like me, they have become more like me as time passes but their core is someone else.

Bojangles's picture

Submitted by Bojangles on Tue, 07/30/2013 - 4:13pm

The real issue is not whether you love SS as much as your bio child but whether SS is able to love you as much as his parents.

In my experience its not the stepparents willingness and capacity to love that is the real issue, its the stepchild's willingness and ability to accept and return that love. It's extremely rare for that to happen, although it may appear that he does if he is a young child and still very open and affectionate. Many of us get drawn in to believing that we love our steps at that point and that the love is returned. It is very hard when it later turns out not to be the case.

If the strength of feeling is not there on his side as he gets older, in the way it will be for your child, then your relationship cannot be the same. You can treat them the same to the best of your ability but the difference will be there, and it will be there in his reaction to your discipline rather than in your implementation of it. As steps get older and go through puberty they naturally begin to separate from their parents and rebel, it's even more difficult for a stepparent relationship to survive that stage and stay close because the relationship is just not as secure. They don't want to listen to their own parents a lot of the time and are looking for any excuse to reject parental authority - stepparent authority is often the first to go. Not saying this is always the case, but it's a very common situation.