Blended families are becoming more and more common. Statistics show that 20% of American households have at least one stepparent. Some parents might find it hard to treat their stepchildren as their own, which usually strains the relationship between the parents.
A man recently asked for advice about how to deal with the fact that his wife is being unfair to his son. At his stepdaughter’s birthday party, the wife told the boy to get out of a family picture because she wanted one with “just her kids.” The remark rubbed the man the wrong way, and he asked netizens whether he was right to get mad at her.
A guy went off on his wife because she excluded his son from a family picture
Image credits: jm_video / Envato (not the actual photo)
The man went to look for advice on whether he was overreacting
Image credits: RossHelen / Envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: MkUrF8
Stepparents don’t always automatically love their stepchildren immediately, but they must make an effort
It’s not easy blending together children from two different families: both the parents and the kids have to adjust to a new life. Studies show that presenting as a united front is the most important factor for effective stepparenting.
In an ideal world, a stepparent would love their stepchild as their own instantly and treat them like their own. However, psychologists explain that it’s not easy for people to make that switch.
“There is no ‘instant love’ between stepchildren and stepparents and in situations where a stepparent, particularly a stepmother is taking on primary responsibility for stepchildren, you can expect trouble,” parenting expert Dr. Gayle Peterson, MSSW, LCSW explains.
However, that doesn’t mean that excluding the child from family activities such as taking group pictures is okay. When two people with children from previous marriages become a family, they commit to be parents to all the children involved.
The woman in this story hasn’t been the 10-year-old’s stepmother for that long, so there is no affectionate foundation. Still, she needs to make a conscious effort to have a good relationship with her husband’s son.
Psychologist Joshua Coleman, Ph.D. writes that a stepmother doesn’t have to love her stepchildren, but she should try to find some common ground. “It is also key to having a life in a blended family,” he explains.
“See if you can find something, anything, that you might have in common. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy: a TV show, a musical artist, a certain kind of food, an author—just some toehold of similarity and compatibility to build a relationship from.”
The relationship between a stepparent and stepchild should develop organically
Image credits: prostooleh / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Certified stepparent coach Kristen Skiles agrees that a stepparent needs to show up for their stepchildren if they want a close relationship. And that relationship won’t magically happen overnight.
Many parents and stepparents have overly high expectations about what their blended family should look like. “Over half of remarriages fail, in part because of highly idealized visions of becoming one big happy family,” Gayle Peterson explains. The parent might expect their spouse to immediately love their kid unconditionally, placing unfair expectations on them.
The stepparent, on the other hand, may have unrealistic expectations for the child. They might even get hurt if the kid doesn’t immediately love them as their biological parent. “Allow these relationships to develop organically,” Kristen Skiles writes.
The author of this story, u/MkUrF8, details in a comment, how the wife takes care of his son every day. “She puts him to bed each night, brushes his teeth, she does a fine job of buying his clothes, taking him to school.” However, he also notes that it’s probably not coming from the right place. “[It’s this] lack of empathy that has bothered me,” he wrote.
In the end, it’s the parents who decided to blend the family and are responsible for each child’s well-being. “It is your responsibility to create an environment that works for everyone,” Dr. Peterson writes. “You owe it to your children and to your marital commitment to one another.”
He explained more of the stepmom-son dynamic in the comments
People agreed that he’s NTA, but needs to seriously reconsider his priorities
Many called him a jerk not putting his son first from the beginning
