“[Am I A Jerk] For Telling My Stepkids That I No Longer View Them As My Kids?”

All relationships we have in our lives present their specific difficulties. The parent-child relationship is no exception – in fact, sometimes it’s the most difficult relationship a person has throughout their life. 

Well, at least the one in today’s story between a woman and her stepdaughters is definitely not an easy one. You see, it has potential to be a relatively sane one, but the girls’ biological mom, who shows up only very occasionally, tends to mess it up every time. One time, she meddled so much that it made the woman snap and become a wicked stepmother in her stepdaughters’ eyes.

More info: Reddit

Every relationship is complicated in its own way, especially the parent-child one

Image credits: Rajiv Perera / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Like in this story, where an absentee mom keeps creating bad blood between her daughters and their stepmom

Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

When she’s not around, the girls get along with their stepmom just fine; they even call her mom

Image credits: BABI / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Yet, anytime their bio mom comes around, they switch up their behavior and start acting hostile towards the woman they usually call mom

Image credits: Hot-Dragonfly-8813

So, one day, when that happened once again, the woman snapped and told the girls to never call her mom again if they think she’s such a bad stepmom

The OP’s husband has two daughters, who are 16 and 13 years old. The girls’ mom is technically in the picture, but only occasionally. She sometimes comes over, stays for a little, and then dips again. 

It wouldn’t be a problem; the girls spending time with their mom isn’t inherently bad, except for the fact that anytime this woman comes over, the girls suddenly forget that they view their stepmom as a mom too. 

The OP figured it just might be the girls trying to please their mom, so she tried not to take it to heart. Until one day, their mom came again, and the girls did the same thing. In addition to that, they started telling her she was a bad stepmom, in addition to saying disrespectful things to their dad and brother. 

Then, the mom left, and the girls started crawling back to their stepmom with nice behavior. Yet, this time she wasn’t having it – she told them that they shouldn’t call her mom, since she no longer views them as her kids. 

It’s no secret that all parent-child relationships face various strains and difficulties. From communication breakdowns and varying expectations to a lack of boundaries or excessive control, there are many ways parents can clash with their kids. 

Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

When it comes to stepparents, in addition to all of that, there’s also an element of blended-family dynamics that can make everything even more complicated. Here, as this article points out, there are family boundary ambiguities often involved in stepparents’ and stepkids’ relationships. 

That means that they have to figure out what kind of parts they play in each other’s lives, which means there can be quite a lot of uncertainty in the relationship. And uncertainty is known to cause conflicts between people, as it causes anxiety and/or fear that can make a person act defensively or aggressively. 

Granted, the post’s author herself didn’t say that the switch of girls’ behavior came because of what their mom said. But that was the conclusion that netizens drew, as it was the most logical one given all the circumstances. After all, this switch only came during the times the bio mom was around – so what could be the other reason, right? 

But the thing is that the OP isn’t really a wicked stepmom, is she? Nothing in the described relationship gives the impression that there was bad blood between the original poster and her stepdaughters. Probably the meanest thing she did to them was lash out by asking not to be called mom. And even this was her expressing her pain over being mistreated by the kids she loved. 

Do you think she was a major jerk to act the way she did? What would you have done if you were in her shoes? We always welcome your opinions in the comments. 

Netizens justified the woman’s harsh reaction, saying it was a relatively normal way to react given the circumstances

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