yet if we try to weigh up the worth of a parent according to this logic, the people at daycare should also have a parenting stake in my child’s upbringing.
And i think this buys into the idea that working mothers are ‘less’ worthy than stay at home mothers – that your earn your ‘right’ to motherhood by the hours you put into being in physical proximity to the child – that choosing to work means you are less committed as parent because YOUR job is to wipe the bottom and pick up the food off the floor.
Doesnt this then also mean that the parents/step parents are competing? and the family court is handing out value judgements on time served when it awards custody? Isnt that better avoided?

I also think that you sell a good step parent short when you judge their contribution this way. My ‘primary carer’ after my mother died ( the woman who was having an affair with my father while my mother died) was also quite violent. I don’t give a crap how much washing she did for me – I’d still like to shove her under a bus. Extreme? maybe. But I still have the scars on my shoulder from being hit with a cane… and the rib she broke – and never sought treatment for – still shows up on x-rays.

A relationship with a step-parent strikes me as being similar to a relationship with an in-law. It’s one we have to deal with because they love and want to be with someone we are related to. It can be a fantastic relationship or a terrible relationship or anything in between, depending on the people involved. I still love the woman who was my mother in law for ten years. we only met – and spent time together – because we had her son in common, but she was a wonderful person and I believe that I am richer for having her in my life and in my children’s ( her grandchildren’s )lives. We no longer keep in contact at my ex’s request, and i agreed because I did not want to make her feel like she had to compromise her loyalty to her son. ( though i have sent her things re. the children over the years.)
It would be nice to think that a step parenting relationship was a relationship that could run alongside a parenting relationship. I don’t think that can happen if it is a competition.

thanks again stephanie for sharing your experiences with us.

I do not think I could take on a step parent role. I recognise it as extremely difficult.

Whether or not Stephanie is doing the ‘right’ thing in her situation is so subjective, I would have no idea, and no basis to make a judgment on her specific circumstances.. Her reactions to the situations she describes, the choices she makes, sound like reasonable and rational responses to a difficult situation.
my reaction was to the very distinct battle line that is drawn when she shows her contempt, even if it’s not directly to the people concerned. the line is in the sand – we see that she judges the choices this mother is making for her child.
Being on the other side of the fence, this was exactly what I feared ( and I don’t think this fear is uncommon) and exactly what I have encountered – and even though this attitude was not initially expressed directly, it came through very clearly in my ex’s comments and in very strong emphasis on ‘correcting’ certain behaviours, which at first I didnt even notice, but then became very visibly critical ( in my case, my then 12 year old was not allowed to wear black clothing.( and sometimes dark clothing was a problem too) I noticed it after black shoes were returned with a note.)
If mothers and stepmothers are not going to be pitted against each other, then judgement has to be suspended.
In my experience the relationship between parent and child can be an intense intimate space and to step into that space is a fraught thing. To step into that space and judge and criticise is a blow directly to the heart.

Deborah – You say a woman shouldn’t be asked to give up her opinion to the point of not having one?
If as a step parent your opinion of the child’s mother is that you don’t like her and don’t like how she’s bringing up her child, then you might be entitled to it, but you can hardly expect the mother to be thrilled about you being included in her child’s life, and inevitably, by extension, in hers.
This is not about the judgment on the flamingo pink that stephanie is making. – if you look at it the other way, how would someone who is feminist react to a stepmother who insisted on pink tutus and and bratz dolls and disney princesses every alternate week? or decided to include the child in a diet programme?
I’m not sure I’d call the child occupied territory here – we all want what we think is best for our children, and having that either criticised or undermined – I think – can effect a parent in a very visceral way.

- I think the best outcome for children has to have the adults in their life finding a common ground on parenting. To try and get on. And yep, I think in some cases the step parent has to suck up the fact that the two biological parents had certain ideas about parenting that were established before they came onto the scene. I admire the way Stephanie has chosen to be friend rather than parent – I hope that works for her.

I also realise all this is not always possible.

and I wish stephanie all the best with the road ahead – a peaceful, calm resolution BEFORE the kid hits adolescence.( though sometimes adolescence means the kid’s behaviour will put you all on the same page if you weren’t before.)

I find this one a bit difficult. Stephanie says she has bitten her tongue on this one, and very much deliberately not said anything about it, to the child or to the child’s mother, even though she doesn’t like it. Isn’t that more-or-less the right thing to do? I don’t think a woman should be asked to put aside her own opinions to the point of not having them at all. The difference is whether or not the opinions are expressed, and in particular, expressed to the child and to the biological parent. Stephanie hasn’t said anything to the child’s mother about the flamingo effect, so isn’t that exactly what should be happening?

(Disclosure: I blog with Stef at The Hand Mirror, so she’s a friend of mine, ‘though I’ve never met her IRL.)

When my parents separated, it was under incredibly acrimonious circumstances, and my Mum (who I was living with most of the time) was living with her new partner almost right away (I’m talking within weeks!). Looking back, it is of enormous credit to my father that despite his own feelings around his marriage breakdown, he at least had the werewithal to recognise that it was the best thing for me to have some kind of constructive and workable relationship with my Mum’s new partner. God knows how they did it, but between the three of them they managed to raise (and/or contribute to) the relatively well-adjusted adult I am today.

The ‘battle lines’ statements I do find quite affecting… I see it frequently these days with separated parents – yes, there do seem to be battle lines drawn with the child as occupied territory, and child custody seen as some kind of moral victory reflection on the ‘winning’ parent (does that even make sense?). I know it’s not necessarily what is being referred to here between steph and rose, so please don’t think I am being critical of either of you.

And additionally, may I just say… Steph feels like the stepmother role is seen as being inherently ‘less’ than biological motherhood. Well, sometimes the ’stepchild’ role (or being a ‘child of divorce’) is seen as being inferior as well… There are people who like to infer that kids who have divorced parents/multiple homes are messed up, emotionally damaged, neurotic, insecure, ungrounded, and possibly even a moral contaminant to kids who come from good proper nuclear families. Well yeah, we might be, but living in a standard heteronormative nuclear family set-up is certainly no guarantee that YOUR kids will never have those issues. So off yer high horse! But yeah, I think I might be topic derailing here, so I’ll let you all get back to it….

I take your point that not all mothers do the right thing, and some of them do the wrong thing. Same with fathers, and same with either parent’s new partners. But I don’t think this is the majority of mothers who are coping with this situation. I don’t think it’s any fairer – or more accurate – to assume that mothers are at automatically at fault where there is a step-parenting situation than it is to assume that all step parents are evil.
But I do think that that the partner will take the side of the parent they are partnering when things get difficult. And this causes a whole raft of problems itself – new battle lines.

I don’t know what your situation is, but you are openly critical of mum’s choice of pink and the baby language she uses to describe body parts. the latter creeps me out a bit too, and obviously mum has her own taste, but what I hear when I read that is your contempt for mum’s opinions and choices.
And as a mother I have sat in exactly that place, where nothing is being said directly to the child, but it is made clear to me that someone else thinks that the choices they will make for my child are superior to mine.

It’s not like hearing your choice to be an attachment parent meant your partner was excluded and you’ve turned the kid in to a spoilt brat from some external source – you’re hearing from someone who is going to try their approach – on your child.

“So neither biology nor a relationship with a parent doesn’t automatically you a parent with all the parent rights attached, it’s the relationship we have with our kids.”

I think that this is a bit glib, it doesn’t seem to actually mean that much. My children have relationships with many people, parents, grandparents, friends. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that my relationship with my children is biological or simply that it began with them when they were in utero, but these relationships have an intimacy that is completely different to any other relationship in my life.
I prepared for their father to develop a similar relationship with them, ( he chose not to) but I was not prepared to have someone I had no feelings for or interest in to feel that they had a place within that intimate zone. I really did not appreciate ( and neither did the children, though that was apparently my fault too) someone continually pushing boundaries over what decisions they could/couldn’t be involved in. Now I think I am getting subjective – this appears to my experience and not yours, although I think it is an issue for many women.

all I can say the only way is respect and more respect. Mothers do need to understand that they don’t set the rules of behaviour in Dad’s house.
But I stand by the fact that a step parent – male or female – needs to respect the child’s relationship with the child’s biological parent is a unique one, and is not replaceable.