How to Be a Step Parent

I am not a step-mama but I am daughter to a wonderful mom who is a 'step' mother to some of my siblings. They lived with their mom for the first 5 years of my parents' marriage then permanently lived with us. My mom went through many struggles but I think what helped her the most and unified us a family was that she treated her husband's children as her own. We were never allowed to say we were 'half' siblings, for example.

If you are a step-mother you must also enlist your husband's support. He has to back you with this; the food issues, the discipline, etc. This is sometimes hard for fathers to do because they feel guilty at not being with the child's mom or whatever and are often more lenient than if their child or children lived with them full-time. My dad was much less indulgent after my siblings permanently lived with us.

And lastly, no matter what, do not ever criticize your step-child's mother to the child. Her parenting style may be different, the two of you may never be friends or ever get along, but she is the mother of this wonderful child or children in your life (who will also be siblings to any child you have with their father). They will forever be family so you should respect his mother and say kind things about her to him. When my siblings got older one of the things they said they appreciated about my mother was that she always asked how their mother was doing and never said anything nasty about her to them.

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