Question for the step dads?
I am reading a book called Stepmonster (http://www.amazon.com/Stepmonster-Look-Real-Stepmothers-Think/dp/0618758194) to try to gain a little insight on this whole step parenting thing. I've known my step kids for about 2 years now and FDH and I are getting married in October. I just am looking for validation on my feelings, etc. The book has good perspective so far.
Anyway though, the author has been citing many statistics and has stated a few times that it is "easier" I am paraphrasing for step dads and that step dads are more apt to actually love their step kids. But why?
My FDH actually loves my kids. I can see it. He lights up when they are around, my kids tell him they love him he tells them back (my kids are young 5 (very smart mature 5 year old) and 2 (going on 16 lol). He plays with them when he comes home from work, helps them, spends hours building Lego's with my son, plays in the yard, takes them places. He really truly cares it oozes out of him. We were sitting by our pool the other night and my son was swimming and having a water battle with us on the pool deck and FDH out of nowhere said "I really do love him."
I am SO over the moon that I've found someone like this for my kids. Their bio Dad is great (as a Dad husband not so much) but he takes good care of them too during his custody time and we have a very good coparenting relationship and him and FDH are always civil. My kids I feel like got the best of a bad situation with my FDH.
This is so foreign to me. I don't look at his kids and get all giddy with love. When my YSD is coming for custody time I dread it. There has never been a moment in all of our time together that I could have willingly blurted out "i love her so much."
Is it truly easier for men to be attached to step kids? Is it because he's with my kids full time while we only have YSD 40%? I am just looking to gain some perspective and different opinions. I feel guilty I don't love his kids like he loves mine. Unless he's putting on an act for me; in which case he should be in Hollywood.
Step-fathers, like all
Step-fathers, like all fathers in general, are less attached to their own children because they have less invested in them. Almost any father will tell you given the age old question of which one to rescue if only one could be rescued he would say the mother as "we can always have more kids". Whereas the mother has already risked her life once to have a kid and is more likely to sacrifice the father as they're relatively easily replaceable from a propagation standpoint anyway.
The fathers attachment is therefore more easily transferable or widened. I hope your kids continue to feel that way as they progress towards puberty.
WAIT before some of you dear readers explode. There are always exceptions in both genders.
My husband is one of those
My husband is one of those guys who can love someone else's kids like his own.
Maybe it's harder for women because of the pregnancy/birthing process. Perhaps it's just harder for women to love children that another woman carried. Other than adoption, which is a totally different situation to begin with.
Men form a bond with their own child after he/she is born while the mother has had 9 months feeling the baby inside of her. So, it's not that foreign of a concept for men to accept children after the fact, so to speak.
I also think that in step situations, especially here on steptalk, there are so many BMs who make it sooooo hard for the step mother to love those children. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.
Amen to that! I truly
Amen to that! I truly believe this is 99% of my issue with YSD. I'm a terrible person for thinking/admitting that but really BM is over the top and will never change but makes it SO freaking hard for me to actually love YSD let alone barely tolerate her.
I agree dtzy, but would add
I agree dtzy, but would add that the conflicting force from a BM to a SM, call it the Mama Bear instinct? Its my baby bear, not yours... hands off.
Its kind of lose/lose. Show no maternal instincts and you're cold. Show them and you're trying to take over.
Step Dads don't have this conflict, its more knight in shining armour stuff.