Step-parenting frustrations
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| Fri, 04-27-2007 - 1:35pm |
Good afternoon ladies! I am so glad that I found all of you. It is so nice to have others to talk to besides my family. I often feel like it is unfair to them (especially my husband) to vent about the stresses I experience at home. I do hope I will soon have something positive to write about, but unfortunately today has been another test of my patience.
If anyone else out there is experiencing the stresses that go along with blended families, please jump in here. Ok, so today I took my step-son to the Dr. for stomach pains he has been having. The Dr. referred us to get some X-rays done, but when I got to the hospital X-ray dept. they refused to see us since I'm just the "step-parent" and not considered a legal guardian (even though my step-son lives with us!!!) The registrar said she could accept a verbal approval over the phone from either my husband or his ex. Well, of course, neither one of them answered the darn phone so we had to leave w/out the x-ray! I was embarrased and angry...and it took everything for me to bite my toungue and not take it out on the registrar. I am so tired of being treated like a second-class parent to my 2 step children. I have 2 kids of my own, so its not like I don't know anything about being a mom. I'm w/ these kids every day. I help them with their homework every night, I cook for them, clean for them, take care of them when they are sick...but I still feel like the world sees step-parents as less legitimate. I know I can't change it, it just annoys the heck out of me!

My mom always has me sign a "Child consent for medical treatment" form everytime she has the girls. Your local hospital should have them and all it does is it gives another party the ability to take a child in for medical treatment when the legal guardians are not available. It may be called something different at your local hospital. I believe that it is also good to take into the local doctor's offices as well. It is a really short form and all your dh has to do is sign it.
HTH
Tara
I will echo the PP; I write a note when Dylan is with her, something like this:
"I, Melanie XXXXX, give my mother, (insert name here), permission to obtain any medical care necessary for my son, Dylan K.R. XXXXX." Then I sign and date it.
Visit Dylan's Website!
"What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?"
Hi, I don't really have anything helpful to add to this but I am feeling your pain. I am step mom to to teenaged sons who we have had custody of for the last year. Their mother has NO finacial responsiblity for them at all and we have hardly seen or heard from her since she gave up the custody, with hardly a fight. Anyway now all of a sudden she is popping up coming to my house and generally acting like she has every right to be here. I don't like it and I am not dealing with it well. She shows up, like today for example, and just drops by to give the boys some conditioner and other tolietries....i am sorry, we are fully capable of buying them soap! I just makes me feel gross when she does things like that. She could never do anything for them when she had them but suddenly here she is....you know?
I am sorry, I just needed to vent to someone I thought might understand.
Thanks and I hope things work out for your situation.
Oh, yes. I totally understand your frustrations. My 2 step-kids' bio mom left them when they were 2 and 4 so she could have an affair with my husband's co-worker. She put up absolutely no fight to have custody...just gave them up totally. She also revealed to my husband that she was a closet alcoholic and was cutting herself because she was depressed. I also suspect she is anorexic. My husband raised the kids by himself for 2 years before he met me. Then once I entered their life...poof, she was back. A couple years ago she disapeared again so she could legally marry her first cousin (believe it or not it is legal in about 1/2 the states). She resurfaced about 1 year later, divorced her cousin and married the man she left my husband for in the first place. Now she lives here in town and forces me to excercise every ounce of patience I can muster.
The most annoying part of it is that now she plays this "perfect mother" role and acts as if she has done nothing wrong and deserves all of the rights she walked away from. She basically controls my husbands' and my life with her outrageous demands and tries to limit my involvement as much as possible. The other day she took issue with the fact that I signed off on the kids homework (even though she knows I help them with it every night). It drives me absolutely crazy!
-Godiva Mom