Taking on a partner's children in a new relationship can have its challenges. Kiwi stepmothers tell the Herald what it's really like. Photo / Getty Images
Three Kiwi stepmothers tell Sinead Corcoran-Dye what life is really like parenting a child who’s not biologically yours.
Three stepchildren aged 11, 9 and 6
‘I felt like the third wheel in my own life’
The question I get asked the most when people find out I’m a stepparent is what my relationship is like with the children’s mother. People are always interested because for so many people it’s a source of conflict. I’m fortunate that that’s not the case for me but I think my husband and his ex deserve a lot of credit for working hard to prioritise the kids’ wellbeing above all else and making sure the impact on the kids in having divorced parents is minimal.
They say it takes 7 years for a family to fully blend so we’re almost there – but there are plenty of ups and downs. You have to work harder at maintaining the bond than with biological kids. That can be hard in a really busy household where there are now chores and homework and things, but we try to balance that by doing lots of fun things and getting out of the mundane as much as possible.
We have a 50/50 custody split and I was fortunate that the kids were so young when I met them so they were really adaptable to me coming into their lives. They liked having an extra person to play with and do things with. They took to me pretty naturally and I am constantly grateful I met them at that stage in their lives.
But for me, it was a massive shock. I was flatting, going out all the time, doing lots of travel and living a fairly independent and easy life. For advice, I read books and listened to podcasts but most of all found a therapist who was a stepmother herself and she’s helped me immensely. I still see her on the odd occasion when something crops up. Speaking about some of the issues around stepparenting is really taboo and something I don’t think you can really understand without having been in it yourself. Occasionally now I’ll meet a stepparent and we immediately have an understanding and a bit of a bond, like a secret club we’re part of.
That was really important for me - I’ve never had any friends, family or even colleagues that are stepparents and I’ve found that really difficult and isolating, especially when I first stepped into this. It’s bizarre to me that for something so common, I just don’t know anyone. No doubt that will change as I get older and one day I’ll be able to be the wise old stepmothering oracle to others, but for now people do tend to respond with wide eyes when I tell them I have three stepkids. Combined with the stereotypes and misconceptions of what stepparenting is, I really struggled with finding my role in the kids’ lives and the expectations of me.
My husband is without doubt their primary parent when they’re with us, but I do take a hands-on role in terms of daily, routine care and family life. But I try to be more hands-off when it comes to the bigger life decisions. I consider myself a parent but not a mother to them - the kids have a very capable mother and father; they don’t need me trying to add to that and that feels like overstepping. But it’s a fine balance between being seen to overstep and being seen to not care I think, especially as a woman.
When I first became a stepparent, I really struggled to come to terms with the fact that my partner has to be in such regular and consistent contact with his ex, and not just any ex but someone he loved so much that he had multiple children with and thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Sometimes when things are really busy with the kids it verges on feeling like my husband is running a household with his ex and I’m a third wheel in my own life, so we have to work hard to communicate and make decisions together. Along with that, I found it really hard to accept that there were lots of firsts we didn’t get as a couple. He had already been engaged, married, bought a house, become a father, and there is a bit of grief around your partner having already experienced that with someone else.
One of the harder parts is also the insane expectations put on stepparents, particularly stepmums (I think mums get a much harder time than stepdads who tend to be seen as heroes for stepping in and rescuing a family). There’s such a huge societal expectation to take on the kids 100 per cent and sacrifice whatever you have to for the good of the kids, and to love them like your own. But you’re not adopting a child – they already have a mum, and they don’t love you or know you like they do her. It’s a special relationship but it’s a different relationship, so it’s unrealistic and unfair to put that expectation on stepparents.
The hardest time throughout all of my time stepparenting has been experiencing years of infertility / recurrent pregnancy loss while stepparenting. It’s a difficult thing to experience in itself, but I found it excruciating in that people would often dismiss my feelings by saying “At least you have the step kids” and I wasn’t even on the same page as my husband about it – he was already a dad so as much as having another child might be nice for him he didn’t feel as strongly about it. It was incredibly tough wanting so badly to be a mum and my life was all the care and responsibility of mothering with drop-offs, helping with homework and doing laundry but I didn’t get the perks of having someone call me mum, being their favourite person that they run to, and having them loving me in that way.
Eventually adding our baby to the family has been the most beautiful experience and the most incredible thing for all of us. My stepkids have been phenomenal with my daughter, in a way I could’ve never expected, and that’s made me love them so much more and look forward to them coming over almost as much as my daughter does. I think it’s also helped cement us as a family and helped the kids see me as a permanent fixture in their lives with a solid link to them.
There’s a huge shortage of resources and support for stepparents. I think there’s not much around because if people were honest about their stepparenting experiences they’d probably be vilified. All you see online are pictures of biological and stepparents hanging out at a kid’s football game or a stepdad being asked by his teenage stepdaughter to adopt him - it’s sweet but it’s not the usual experience.
A seven-year-old stepdaughter
‘I’m waiting for the ‘you are not my mother’ backchat’
It was a somewhat unusual introduction to becoming a stepmum – I met my partner when I was 36 and his baby was born 6 months later. He had split with his ex before they knew she was pregnant. He didn’t tell me about the baby when we met, and I only found out when she was six weeks old. I met her for the first time when she was about 9 months old. I think my partner had some reservations about it which caused me anxiety at the time that he was keeping me away from her when others in his life (family and friends) had met her.
On the plus side, because she was so young I didn’t experience any of the teething difficulties others might have – she was so trusting of anyone who was with her dad and she didn’t grow up knowing any different. And because of that, we’ve always had a good relationship. I am waiting for the ‘you are not my mother’ backchat but I believe she enjoys her time with me – as we do different things together than she might at home.
I really struggled in the early days and felt very isolated. I didn’t know any other stepparents and I didn’t understand where I fit, especially within my partner’s wider family. I’d been in therapy for a number of years and that helped; mainly as someone to talk to about the situation and to vent without being a burden on my own friends and family.
Initially, it was a sinking feeling that I could have to deal with this for the rest of my life. I felt left out of a lot of decisions and arrangements, and I felt like I had to force my way in. I had to stand back and be second fiddle (and almost grieve) knowing his child was the first (and much longed-for) grandchild for his parents. And feeling that his parents would really have preferred their son to be in an ‘imperfect’ relationship with the child’s mother, rather than their grandchild be illegitimate.
Nowadays, I struggle as we don’t know what is happening in the other home. What the parenting style is, what boundaries are in place, what’s been said (about us), what promises have been made. Her other home is in a different city from us. We have her one week of each school holiday and my partner will also travel one extra weekend a month to visit with her.
The contact arrangements have evolved over the last few years. Before she started school it was very ad-hoc – with him visiting her at home (and/or travelling to our home with her) once a month or so. Now that she is at school and due to the distance between us, visits to our home are mainly limited to school holidays.
I’ve always been more hands-off with the parenting and left that to my partner – and even more so since we had our own child who is now 2 and a half. While her father and I are on the same page regarding discipline, he tends to manage that.
When our baby arrived, it was selfishly nice to have just him and me time and a child that I felt able to stand up for and make decisions for. I think my stepdaughter initially loved being the big sister, but I believe recently she has struggled with having to share her dad. In many ways, I wish now that I listened to the inner me in my head that warned me off doing this seven years ago.
Three stepchildren aged, 10, 7 and 6
‘I overthink every negative interaction with my stepchildren’
I wish I’d known from the beginning how emotionally taxing it would be to love and parent stepchildren. You have all the responsibility of being a mum but without any of the gratitude or rewards (like being called ‘mum’, for starters). That may seem trivial, however, it’s the little things that you don’t experience when you are a stepmum that can seem bigger. I also wish I knew how much of myself I would sacrifice for choices my husband made before we met.
I was only 21 when I met my stepchildren who were 7, 4 and 2 at the time. The first time I met them, we went away for the weekend so the kids were excited about that. The younger two were great. As expected, our oldest was slightly unsure but it was a huge adjustment in her life.
We definitely had difficult moments as we all adjusted. We had the children with us every second weekend but I spent a lot of time with them and their mum at her house which was a cool time where I got to know them in their own environment. I got to know their routines and what they liked/didn’t like. It helped when we moved into our own place and had them more often. We now share custody 50/50.
I’m the main parent in our home. It was very hard to begin with – I didn’t know any other stepparents and I moved to a new town to be with my husband so I really didn’t have any support except him. But I grew up in a blended family home with both stepsiblings and half-siblings so I had some understanding of the nature of this kind of family.
I’d love to see more support for stepparents even if that is just a safe place to vent. Two things can be true - you can love your stepchildren but are allowed to say it’s hard, which I think is a statement that is often replied to with ‘Well you knew what you were getting into...’. We hold stepparents to extremely higher standards than biological parents, in my opinion. You are expected to do just as much as bio parents with very little praise or ability to vent.
The relationship with the children’s mother has its challenges and there have been some very horrible times. We have had blowups and said things that, looking back, were disgusting. But over time we have worked on this and we are in a much better place. She and I have a lot more contact than she does with my husband, which works for us. She isn’t a bad person and at the end of the day, we all have the same end goal, which is to raise confident, happy children who grow up feeling loved. When we caught sight of this (and all the legal stuff got signed and sorted), things became much nicer.
We recently had a baby to add to the mix. It has been beautifully messy. Our big kids have experienced some big emotions and I have found myself feeling guilty for taking time away from them with their dad as he is supporting me and baby a lot. In the same breath though they love having a new sibling and are so beautiful with her. It also showed me how much love I have for my stepchildren as I expected to feel differently about my own children when I had our daughter, but I feel the same love for her as I do for the others.
Being a stepparent, I overthink every negative interaction with my stepchildren. I never want them to think that I don’t love them or am only asking them to do something/telling them off because I’m not their ‘real’ mum. We have also had times where they will manipulate situations to try and play both houses off against each other.
I love my stepkids with every fibre of my being. They are three of the best humans I know. That isn’t to say it’s without challenges. They can be challenging to parent in their own ways, however, following conversations with their mum and stepdad, I know these challenges aren’t isolated to our house.
* Names have been changed for privacy
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