5 Pieces of Bad Stepmom Advice You Should Ignore

STAY STRONG.

If I hear those words one more time, I'm going to vomit on the supportive person telling me that.  To me, that's equal to telling someone in the middle of a freakin' tsunami to avoid getting wet. Okay, I know how that sounds.  In all fairness, I know that the well meaning person I'm rattling off all my recent SM tragedies to has no clue what to say other than, "Stay strong." 

I jump on a lot of stepmom boards and there's so much advice flying around that I just don't agree with.  I think it's terrible actually.  I've been doing this step thing for a while now so I can see through these but what about the new stepmom trying to find her way?  It's just not fair.

Here are the top 5 that make this stepmomma's skin crawl:

1.  Stay positive.

No thanks, I don't want to.  I choose to be realistic.  This means that if my life sucks at the moment and I want to wallow in that feeling, I will. I am allowed to take a break to vent and bitch about everything without feeling guilty about that.  Period.  

2. That's still your stepchild's mother.  

This is just rude.  Again, we know.  We deal with this "mother" more than we care to.  Forget everything the stepmom does for this child, sometimes even more than this "mother".  You can't compete with the fact that you did not give birth.  But please, continue to state the obvious anyway.

3.  Just be supportive because they are from a broken home.

Are you kidding me?!??  A broken home shouldn't give a child a hall pass to act out or be disrespectful.  SMs suffer, DH feels guilty and poor SK gets to be a little shit. Yes, it's difficult for a child to have to go back and forth to different homes but it's happening.  There are children that have endured far worse that have risen above. Man up, kiddo.

4.  Never wish bad on their mother.

HA!  Whatever.  My DH and I have always taken the high road, treating that gross beast with respect she surely didn't deserve from us.  We have always lifted the BM up in front of the kids, she doesn't think twice about tearing us down.  No one will ever convince me that my own private thoughts aren't valid. 

5.   Step back and let their father and their mom work it out.  

In my home, I am the mother, my husband is the father and together, we make decisions about the children in our home.  That's it.  To relinquish this control, to step back, means I become a resentful outsider in my home.  Talk. About. Poison. Good luck coming back from that one.  

I know a lot of what I'm saying isn't the popular opinion but it is the real stuff.  I wear the weathered human face of this stepmom life.  Not every thing about being a stepmom is hard and I've experienced some of those rewards.  Ignorance is bliss everywhere but in stepmom land.