It's usually stepparents who are thought of as "wicked," but these step kids will take your breath away with their bad habits and poor behavior. These stepparents knew that blending families is difficult, but they had no idea that it would be this hard.
Whenever She Tries To Intervene, She’s Accused Of Hating The Kid
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“My husband constantly accuses me of hating his son, and I am sick of it. We’ve been married seven months now, and only have my 7-year-old stepson every other weekend. I love my husband so much, and I know this comes from him feeling helpless to his mom’s bad influence, but how do I stop it?
His mom is a spoiled, hysterical, and high maintenance woman who babies the crap out of stepson. He cannot dress himself or even put on his own shoes. He is morbidly obese (not chubby, obese) because she allows him to eat constantly. He cries about everything and is extremely focused on being the center of attention at all times.
I have grown to dread his visits. It has shown. However, my husband, his dad, also sees these traits that his mom is instilling in my stepson and agrees that something must be done. He agrees that my stepson is becoming a spoiled brat. Yet, when I suggest any method of creating a structure or, god forbid, point out any of the obvious qualities we are trying to curb, my husband starts in on the ‘You hate my son,’ bull.
We just fought about it, and I don’t think I can take much more of this. This is the worst argument we’ve had about it. I am at the point where I almost just want to have nothing to do with trying to parent my stepson and make myself scarce when he visits. Obviously, this isn’t ideal, but I’m so sick of being expected to love him as if I’m his parent, yet I have no say in parenting him because anything I say is construed as hatred and taken as a personal attack on my husband.
It’s so frustrating, and I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Her Son’s Hygiene And Glasses Caused Him A Major Headache
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“I’ve been with my girlfriend for two years. She has an 8-year-old son. We get on fantastically most of the time just day to day.
The biggest problem I’m having is he won’t listen. Not just to me, but to my other half as well. I feel like the only interaction we have with him is when we are telling him off for the same thing, time and time again.
I’ll give an example: L wears glasses all the time and has a huge problem looking over them instead of through them. We have tried everything from buying different glasses to straps to almost taping them to his face. I feel like every two minutes I shout at him to look through them and not over them. I’m absolutely at my wit’s end with it.
Other than this, he does have more issues with his behavior. He visits his biological father every other weekend. For one night. On holidays, he goes away for the week. He comes back this horribly impolite, messy, unhygienic child instead of the one we sent away. He knows how to take care of himself, hygiene wise and being polite, as well as cleaning up after himself at home. We have had many conversations with his father to figure everything out, but he is no use and doesn’t see a problem.”
She Used The Worst Excuse To Get Out Of Basic Chores
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“My 17-year-old stepdaughter suffers from anxiety and depression that runs strongly in her family and has been present since before we met.
She is chronically negative, often attributing bad motives to other people or assuming they dislike her for some reason, separates herself from family and friend situations, is usually moody and irritable, and generally apathetic and someone who doesn’t seem to get much pleasure out of life. We have had her in therapy consistently over the past two years, and have investigated getting her on an antidepressant, but haven’t done that yet.
She is also, to my eyes, incredibly coddled and has become quite comfortable with using her depression as an excuse for being lazy, acting defiantly toward her mother and me in those rare instances when we need to ask her to do something, and just generally being disrespectful and rude to everyone around her.
She will not speak to other family members (our parents) when they are over and sits there pouting on the floor and giving one-word replies to answers. This year, she began frequently not turning in homework at school and became angry, defiant or outright laughing at my wife if she questioned her about it. Several times in the past year, I’ve seen her on the street or the bus (we have overlapping commutes) where she has tried to hide from me rather than say hello. When we give her the slightest pressure to clean up after herself, look for a summer job, investigate colleges, anything, she is prone to explode, sometimes dropping F-bombs at us as she storms off.
Last year, my stepdaughter was transferred to a new therapist. At the end of their private session, the therapist called my wife in and told her that my wife and I are not to give the stepdaughter a hard time about grades or cleaning her room because my stepdaughter had been thinking about killing herself. This was the first we’d heard about thoughts of doing that. When my wife questioned the therapist about this, she said our stepdaughter had thoughts of killing herself a year earlier. Nonetheless, we are not to question the stepdaughter about grades or chores at all.
I am really dubious as to whether this is at all accurate since my stepdaughter is generally dishonest and has made other odd claims (like saying she ‘hears voices,’ then walking it back when pressed) over the years, always at times that are best calculated to get her out of any responsibility. My wife has subsequently told me that my stepdaughter has made similar threats for many years when she doesn’t get her way. My stepdaughter seems perfectly happy enough when she’s going to the mall or going to hang out with her friends.
Since the session with the therapist, my stepdaughter’s behavior above has become more consistently negative and worse, and she frequently tells my wife she’s going to kill herself if my wife gives her the slightest bit of pushback. I believe she’s been emboldened by this therapist to pull out this trump card whenever things don’t go her way, and it’s worked pretty well on my wife.
When I bring this up, people think I am nuts to react with anything but fawning concern. Personally, I find this behavior to be emotional bullying, and I am now miserable enough with this situation that I would almost certainly leave if we didn’t have a young son. I am very concerned about how this environment would affect him if I were not given custody.”
All They Do Is Fight And Make Messes
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“My husband has two boys (14 and 11 years old). They stay with us for six days, every other week. They are lazy, disorganized, and are constantly arguing and trying to outdo one another.
My husband tends to ignore them, and then just blow up at them, often because of accumulated annoyance. He’ll end up shouting over something small, such as forgetting homework and not something more important, like telling lies or bullying. They never know if they’re going to get into trouble or not, and they’re constantly pushing him to his limit.
He loses his cool and shouts almost every day they’re here. He never sits down and talks about why they need to do something and what will happen if they don’t. This would be my preferred method of discipline.
We had completely different upbringings. There was hardly ever any shouting in my house, whereas his dad shouted at him a lot. I hate the shouting, and it’s clearly not working. He said to me, ‘I hate being a shouty Dad.’ He doesn’t know any better, he struggles with his temper.
He threatens them with consequences, though they’re mostly not thought through because he’s so cross, and are often out of proportion. He never follows through with his threats because he can’t and they’re often too severe.
When he does make reasonable threats — such as the 11-year-old missing a rugby game after he lost his team shirt for the fifth time this year — he still doesn’t follow through as it makes him ‘feel like a bad dad.’
They have next to no chores, which they don’t even do most of the time. Their chores are: open their bedroom curtains, make sure dirty clothes are in the wash basket, make their own beds, and don’t leave rubbish and cups around the house. They don’t do any of these things without being asked or reminded. I feel like most of these are basic things that a 5-year-old could do and that for their ages, they could be helping out around the house a bit more.
I suggested to my husband that we hold a family meeting and discuss responsibilities with the boys. We got them to think of their responsibilities (these are the ones listed above) and family responsibilities such as walk dogs, empty dishwasher, empty bins. They wrote them down and stuck them on their bedroom walls if they didn’t do them – no pocket money. All well and good, but they’re just choosing not to do them and have no pocket money. Not once have they done any of their chores without being asked and even then half the time they say, ‘I’ll do it later’ and don’t.
I feel like the whole discipline system in this house isn’t working. I hate the shouting and resent the boys for being lazy, which means my husband is mad at them a lot. They don’t know where they stand, most of the time, and they’re not been set up for the future very well.
It sounds horrible me, but I think basic behavior and consequences weren’t taught to them when they were younger. Now they’re teenagers, it seems impossible to start from scratch. How do I approach this without upsetting my husband because his discipline sucks?
I know their mum is being driven to despair as well. Especially with the 11-year-old, who is greedy, lazy, unorganized, and he can be quite mean and rude to people and tells a lot of lies.”
A Fun, Family Outing Was Ruined All Because Of Him
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“Yesterday was pretty horrible. My sister was visiting from out of town and has a son who’s my stepson’s age, 10 years old. We decided it would be the perfect opportunity to take them to a very expensive, yet popular, theme park in my area. My husband had to work, so it was just my sister, the two kids, and myself. My husband prepared my stepson by explaining to him that my family would be spending a lot of money on him and to not ask for anything extra, although I had planned on buying him something if he was good.
We woke up early and my sister and I agreed the kids could bring their Nintendo DSs along for the car ride, although now I regret this. My sister’s son didn’t even play his the entire car ride, he just told us how excited he was that we were going, and planned out everything he wanted to do. My stepson, however, played his the entire car ride over, which was fine until we got there. We had already told them we were leaving the Nintendos in the car when we went into the park. My stepson fought me on this, he said he wouldn’t go into the park unless he got to bring his video games. I told my sister to go ahead and I would wait with him at the car until he forfeited the DS. He told me he hated me under his breath. He finally gave the games to me but complained about it for the next few hours.
Everyone else was having fun, but my stepson cried the entire time; every single picture we took, you can tell he was crying. He cried over not having his video games, over us not buying him snacks (we had just had a big breakfast), and over us not buying him anything at the gift shop, too. In one gift shop, where my nephew was buying something he had saved up his allowance money for, my stepson screamed at me and said, ‘Why won’t you buy me anything, you’re just like my mother,’ which really hurt me because of all the problems we have had with her in the past. It felt like everyone in the store stopped and stared.
We decided it was time for lunch, and my parents met us all at a restaurant near the theme park. It was pretty crowded, so we had to wait for about 20 minutes before getting a table. We told the kids their video games were staying in the car. My stepson complained the entire time and kept asking why we can’t go inside, even though we had explained it to him multiple times.
I went to the restroom once we got to the restaurant. The kids came as well. When we got outside, a rude woman asked if stepson was in a special education program. He was making a noise and dancing around when she said this. I calmly said, ‘That’s rude.’ I went into the bathroom and cried for a few minutes. Later, when my nephew and I were alone, he said he thought my stepson might have special needs. He said that when he goes into special education classrooms to help, some of the kids are ‘just like’ my stepson. I brought this up to my husband later, and he informed me that one of his teachers thinks he might be on the spectrum for autism, but has not had any further testing done.
Talking to my nephew and talking to my stepson are two different things. They are a month apart from each other. My nephew has full conversations with me, asks tons of questions, and even though he talks constantly, I love it! I wish it could be like that with stepson. My stepson gives us one-word answers, gets upset over anything, and is constantly focused on video games instead of the situation at hand.
To make matters worse, when I was dropping him off at his mom’s later that night, there was no car parked out front. This gave stepson a lot of anxiety. He cried once he noticed she might not be home. He went up to the door while I watched him, opened it (it was unlocked, apparently), and called for her. She didn’t reply, so he came back to my car crying. I went up with him, called her myself, and she finally replied.
I almost regret taking him to the theme park with my family, although, I did enjoy riding all the rides and seeing everything. I love spending time with my nephew, but I can’t believe the difference in the two kids.”
Even Though She Had Done The Most Fo Him, He Was Cruelly Unappreciated
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“My 6-year-old stepson came up to me while I was doing the laundry and said, ‘I’m going to be good so I get presents from Santa!’
I said, ‘Well, you should be good because you want to be good, not just to get toys.’
He said, ‘Well, I’m good when I’m with my real mom because she’s nicer than you.’ What?
She stopped by for 30 minutes yesterday, only because she was on her way somewhere else. And she gave him his Christmas present early, making it blatantly obvious that she doesn’t plan on seeing him for Christmas. These cheap little magnet toys are already scattered all over my house because she always buys the most annoying toy she can find because she isn’t the one who has to clean it all up.
It’s moments like this: the unprompted random ‘screw you’ from my stepson, that makes me want to just peace out of this whole situation. His mom’s always nice because she can only be bothered to see him once every several months for an hour, tops. She doesn’t have a chance to be mean because she’s never around.
I’m worried that one day, I’m just going to snap. He’s going to say something like this, and I’m just going to tell him the complete truth, that she didn’t want him and packed all of his things into garbage bags and sent him here permanently. But even if I said that it probably wouldn’t make a difference because the sun shines out of her butt and she’s a saint who can do no wrong.
But yeah, she’s nicer than me because she’ll buy a toy every once in awhile. I’m the one who cooks you three meals a day. I’m the one who does the laundry so you have clean clothes. I’m the one who helps you with your homework so you will be successful. I’m the one who bought you a car seat because when I met you, you were barely five years old and had no car seat. I’m the one who cleaned your open flesh wound when you got surgery. Twice! And then cleaned puke off of you when you threw up all over yourself and my car from the anesthetic. I’m the one who pulled strings so you could ride on a float in the parade. I’m the one who took you to the circus last weekend, even though I despise the circus because you begged me to. I’m the one who took you to the doctor a few days ago because I had a feeling you had strep, and I’m the one who got you antibiotics because I was right. I’m the one getting up in the middle of the night to give you cough medicine when I hear you coughing. I’m the one who has already bought you six Christmas presents and planned on getting even more next paycheck even though I’m broke because I wanted you to have a good Christmas. And yeah, I’m the one who actually has rules, unlike your mom, because I don’t want you to turn into a spoiled little brat, but it’s starting to look like that doesn’t make a difference.
I seriously cannot wait for my baby to be here, so I’ll have one child that actually cares about me. So I can be the magical unicorn mommy that shoots rainbows from her rear to at least one child. So I’ll have one child who isn’t telling me all the time that an addict, lowlife who abandoned her own son is so much better than me.
Later, my stepson said, ‘I don’t care about you, I don’t care about dad, I don’t care about my brother, the ONLY person I care about is my mom.’ Just matter-of-factly. What. I can’t stand this. He sounds like a psychopath.”
She Lied So Much, She Wound Up In Therapy
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“The backstory is about two weeks ago, my husband and his ex-wife were called to meet with the school social worker because my stepdaughter had texted her friends that she tried to kill herself. She also told them that her dad abuses her, and that her grandma (my mother-in-law) died.
Then last night, the ex and stepdaughter called my husband to say that stepdaughter didn’t want to come to our house on husband’s weekend. She didn’t feel comfortable, she would decide when she wanted to come. I told him, oh heck no. You do not want to give an 11-year-old that kind of power. But he has been fighting to stay in my stepdaughter’s life since before she was born. He is so tired of the constant fight, he was really defeated last night.
Today, my husband and his ex-wife met with a child therapist. The therapist asked them about the signs of depression and about my stepdaughter’s behavior. He said that the messages to her friends were for attention and that he didn’t need to see stepdaughter. The therapist told my husband that his influence will be very important in my stepdaughter’s life; she needs his guidance. My husband asked the therapist if they should let my stepdaughter decide when she wants to come over and he said, ‘No, don’t do that!’ He said my stepdaughter needs to be reassured that while they both love her, they disapprove of her behavior, but that is unrelated to their love. He said that she probably didn’t want to come over because she is embarrassed and doesn’t want to face the consequence, but that it would be best for her to keep the routine, even though it’s hard on her to go back and forth, that’s what is best. And my husband asked the therapist because one of my stepdaughter’s complaints was that he has to work sometimes. The therapist was like ‘So? It’s good for her to know that you work to provide, all parents have to do that.’
All in all, I’m kind of upset with my stepdaughter for the lies, the refusal to see her dad, me, and her siblings at our home. She killed her grandma in texts when her grandma does so much for her. She even makes stepdaughter her favorite meals when she is over. I’m not sure how to get over that. I feel like I have zipped up my feelings, I don’t even want to try to get close to her because I know she doesn’t care the same. The second her mom will let her miss our custody weekend, she is all for it. Why should I even try?”
He’s So Bad, She Doesn’t Feel Bad For Giving Up On Him
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“My 6-year-old stepson is the worst child. He doesn’t do anything. He’s useless, has no personality, is not fun or funny, doesn’t listen to me or my husband, and whines about everything. Most of the time, he’s quiet and boring, but a lot of times he’ll just throw tantrums. And that’s it. Everything has to be his way or he’ll either shut down or throw a fit. He’s laughed a few times, but it is rare. He’s mostly just ‘content,’ which is another word for blank. He’s cute, I guess, but I think I’ve just learned to find his pouts, frowns, and neutral face cute because his mom and dad think they are.
I have an 8-year-old daughter, and she’s so much better, objectively. She has more personality in one pinky nail than he does in his whole body. She’s smart, funny, happy, creative, and beautiful. I know how I sound, and I feel terrible. She loves to talk to my husband and me about everything, she asks good questions, she is obedient, she has no behavioral or emotional problems that haven’t been resolved. She’s even pretty good at calming down my stepson every time he starts acting up. She has interests of her own that are independent of my husband and me. She is so friendly and kind. She makes friends everywhere she goes. She has her flaws like all people do, but she is as close to a perfect child as it gets.
And before you ask, no, my stepson doesn’t act like this out of jealousy. Not only was he like this before my daughter and I came into my husband and stepson’s lives, but we make sure to compliment him often on his achievements and the good things he does. We end up giving him more attention and praise than my daughter because my daughter doesn’t openly need that kind of thing. It might even be giving her a complex because of how much time we spend trying to make my stepson happy, or at least compliant. Also, he doesn’t care about how we treat my daughter compared to him. He doesn’t care about anything unless it’s his personal toy or something he wants.
From day one, I’ve made myself open to loving stepson as much as I love my own daughter. This went very well at first, but I have started to realize that I love him because he’s my husband’s child and my husband loves him, not because I love him as a person. Anytime we’re all having a good time together, my stepson comes along and ruins it because we’re not doing what he wants to do, or something didn’t go his way.
He has no original thoughts that go through his head. Everything he says or thinks is a repeat of what my daughter or someone from daycare or mom/dad says. He’s lifeless. And my husband says that this is just his personality. His primary doctor says that may just be how he is, but I honestly think he needs a counselor. I don’t know what he’ll be like if he tries to go through his whole life being how he is now.
He shows no remorse when he acts up. Today, I am watching him while his dad is at a bachelor party. I told him to help clean up before his uncle came over to visit, and he said he couldn’t walk. I told him not to lie about any sort of medical problems, and he denied lying.
I called his dad, which he didn’t like. Now my husband is frustrated with me for not being able to handle him on my own. I’m frustrated with my husband and his ex-wife for raising such a little poop while I was able to raise my smart, happy, nice daughter on my own.
Needless to say, I’m disengaging. I’m disengaging so hard. I don’t care if me loving my daughter as much as I do gives him problems later in life. I don’t care if he grows up being as boring and selfish as he is now. I don’t care if people think of me as the evil stepmother. I’d challenge anyone to try to be a ‘good’ stepmom to this kid. It’s impossible. He makes it impossible. I don’t care anymore.”