Stepmoms often think they don’t have options when it comes to family vacations. They think they have to go along with what the rest of the family wants to do, without ever speaking up about what they’d like to do or taking time for themselves. Not so!

The relationship between stepparent and stepchild will take years to develop and forcing it may actually delay things, or prevent it from ever happening, as negative feelings and resentments build.

The biological bond enables parents to love, forgive and accept their children—even in the worst scenarios. Most stepparents aren’t capable of that, so they find themselves struggling with the fact that they don’t really like their stepkids.

Why do stepmoms often feel like such outsiders? Because they are. Non-stepmoms won’t understand this concept. But if you’re a stepmom you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve never felt so ignored and out of place in your life. Welcome to the Stepfamily.

Because the family of origin doesn’t include the stepparent, kids don’t have the instinct to say their name first or go to them for answers or comfort, or, in some cases, even say hello when they call.

There seems to be a belief that because you’re not the biological parent, you can’t possibly be suffering as much as they are, therefore you should just keep your chin up and mouth shut. I believe in most cases this isn’t an intentional diss by others.

The advice, or rather, instruction, that you should love a child as your own is bad enough, but the addition of “unconditional” is just preposterous.  If most stepparents were actually capable of unconditionally loving a child who isn’t theirs, don’t you think they would? Life would be SO much easier with unconditional love!

So there we were, judging the hell out of each other, blowing things out of proportion, taking lots of things personally, making ourselves and everyone else miserable... and the entire time, we’re all still feeling victimized.

Like something was being done TO us!

What might we secretly fear about the other woman?

What power are we attributing to her that we want to take away by diminishing her name?