💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Has anyone else noticed that way too many stepparenting resources act like stepparents are child-hating morons who have never interacted with a single kid in our lives? I remember reading books that seriously said shit like "Listen, you're dating someone with a kid, so you might have to get used to Friday night socce…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Every parent needs a break from parenting once in a while, and that includes stepparents. Typically, society doesn’t accuse parents who need a break of hating their kids. Yet society loves to imply there’s something wrong with a stepparent who needs a break. Today’s pep talk is to remind you that you’re allowed to ta…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) The time, energy, and effort you pour into the relationship with your stepkid might not be reciprocated. At least, not yet. Then again, possibly not ever. Or else maybe it'll come back to you and then some! 🤷🏻‍♀️ The point is, you JUST NEVER KNOW which way it's gonna go with your stepkid. And that goes double or trip…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) The ex being high conflict can have a direct impact on how well you’re able to connect with your stepkid. If your stepkid's other home is dysfunctional or abusive, then even their most basic interpretations of love, belonging, or family could be very different from yours. Maybe more different than you’d ever guess. S…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) If your stepkid wants nothing to do with you, please know that's more of a reflection on what you represent to them than it is a commentary on your personality. Your stepkid doesn't care how great you are. All they care is that you represent change, and change feels scary — especially to kids who are still shaken up …

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Custody orders are not a matter of opinion. A parenting plan is an enforceable legal document that protects both parents' legal parenting rights. One parent cannot legally make arbitrary, unilateral decisions that affect the other parent's visitation time; that would be a violation of the custody order. And you have …

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) One of my biggest stepparenting frustrations was feeling blocked in my ability to make changes for the better in the life of my stepkid. Yet — trying to parent my stepkid ended up causing stress and friction between me and my stepkid AND between me and my partner. And when that happens, it’s probably time to disengag…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Sometimes we get so wrapped up in stepfamily life that we forget there's a big wide world beyond our blended family bubble. We can try so hard to be good stepparents that we end up losing track of who and what we are outside of our stepparenting role. When we define ourselves only by how much our stepkids like us (or…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) We tell our kids that big emotions feel scary, but that’s actually just as true for us grownups. Stepparenting is overwhelming a surprising percentage of the time. No matter how committed you are to building your blended family, you cannot be all in, all the time without some kind of pressure relief valve. Sometimes …

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Today’s pep talk is simple. I just want you to know you are not alone. You're not. As isolated as you may feel, as many cheerleading posts about stepparenting that you might read (and then feel guilty that you don't feel like a cheerleading kinda stepparent), know that stepparenting being hard is also normal. It took…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) You can’t coparent with someone who won’t compromise. If you're continually bending over backwards trying to make reasonable accommodations while the other co-parent keeps making unilateral decisions and refusing to meet you even close to halfway, I've got news for you: that's not co-parenting. That's you getting man…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) We all understand that becoming a parent is a major adjustment, yet we expect stepparents to become instant experts in their role. And by “we” I mean society, but also including ourselves. We seem to hold ourselves to this ridiculous standard — like we’re not gonna make mistakes, or there won’t be a learning curve. F…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) If your partner’s ex is high conflict, limiting how much contact you have with them can also limit the potential for drama. When I saw how ridiculous Dan’s relationship was with his ex, I thought most of the conflict between houses could be pretty easily resolved through clearer communication. I’m a great communicato…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Becoming a stepparent gave me PTSD. And I do mean PTSD in the literal, clinical sense, as in diagnosed by an actual counselor. Living under the constant conflict between houses and never-ending uncertainty of where the next attack might be coming from turned my existing anxiety issues into a full-blown trauma respons…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Knowing Dan had a kid and knowing what I was getting into are two totally different things, it turns out. It’s not that I made the decision to become a stepparent without thinking about it. I honestly thought I knew EXACTLY what I was signing up for, especially since I already had a kid myself. (Famous last words, ri…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) One person in a relationship sitting back and expecting the other do all the work is never okay. And that goes double in a stepfamily. I can't believe how many stories I've heard from stepparents who are accused of not doing 'enough' by their partners… and yet their partner, the actual parent, REFUSES TO PARENT. This…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) You can trust your partner completely and still feel jealous of the life they had with their ex. It's normal to feel bummed that you'll never share all those important "firsts" with your partner because they already shared them with someone else. It's normal to feel angry that you'll never enjoy an uncomplicated rela…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I used to blame myself when Dan's ex would go off the rails, like it was my fault I encouraged him to grow a backbone. Like maybe I never should've tried to create rules and structure for my stepkid. Maybe if I'd just kept my mouth shut, the conflict between houses wouldn't have escalated the way it did. Then I remin…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) If you're a stepparent feeling frustrated, stuck, or unhappy, change for the better is absolutely possible. But it's probably not gonna come from the direction you think it is. We keep waiting for our stepkids or partners or the ex to change so our lives become easier. We get increasingly frustrated when no one seems…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Let's talk about your partner’s ex for a sec. Anyone else gotten wayyy too obsessed with the ex for their own good?? 🙋🏻‍♀️ That was definitely me. Man anger is a tough emotion to shake. Especially when the ex is causing so much drama that you feel like you never get a damn break from their presence overtaking your en…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I found it tough to connect with my stepkid, especially in our early years. She came across as entitled. She spoke in a cutesy baby voice almost constantly. She had terrible manners, including frequently being rude to me. I’m embarrassed to admit how long I thought this was a problem with her. It literally took years…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) As the newest members of our stepfamilies, stepparents are the outsiders, which means it's easier for us to see any dysfunction or unhealthy patterns that have been invisible to everyone else. That's why, when we bring up issues that concerns us, we're told there either isn't a problem, or it's just OUR problem. Like…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) "No" is a complete sentence. And it's a sentence stepparents are allowed to say. It really is okay if you don't want to drop everything to watch your stepkids when your partner decided to change the visitation schedule at the last minute and didn't check with you first. It's also okay if you choose not to attend yet …

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) A lot of folks act like stepparenting is easy. If it’s easy for them, that’s great. But stepparenting being hard for you doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. So many books and articles I read in my early stepmom days made it sound like there'd be this brief adjustment period and then we'd all be BFFs. So I thought, fe…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) At first I thought my stepkid just had terrible manners or a bad attitude. TBH, those might be true too. But after years of this with no improvement and actually seeing her behavior get suddenly worse, I finally realized my stepkid was being super shitty to me & Dan on purpose; she wanted to drive us away. And that i…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) One of the few things stepfamilies have in common with a traditional family is that your romantic relationship acts as the foundation. In a traditional family, we know exactly what would happen if we continually neglected our partner to tend to the kids. We know the kids can’t come first at the cost of our relationsh…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) The vast majority of stepparents enter this role with a reasonable amount of respect for our partner’s ex as our stepkid's other parent. We don't want to overstep. We want to do right by our partners and our stepkids. So we take any suggestions that we're overstepping very seriously. The last thing we want is to make…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) As a former single mom, all I wanted was to give my kid a "real" family. Even if it killed me. The thing is, meeting Dan and then trying to force 4 strangers to feel like a family just about DID kill me. Because at no point along the way did I remember to put my oxygen mask on first. All that self-care advice I’m alw…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I’ve been sharing all these little tips and reminders and pep talks and advice for many days in a row now, so I feel like maybe this is a good time for a disclaimer. Please remember that no stepparenting advice applies to every stepparent. If what you're doing works for you & your family, keep right on doing it! Feel…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I talk a lot about the need for us to have realistic expectations about stepparenting, and once in a while someone gets snarky with me about that statement. They’ll say things like they shouldn't have to lower their expectations for their stepkids. That they deserve to run their household the way they want. It’s real…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Over on Instagram, I used to host Tiny Victory Tuesdays in my stories. New followers initially felt discouraged by this — they'd DM me saying they didn't have any wins to share. I'd remind them that all we're looking for is tiny victories and no win was too small to celebrate. Gradually, even the most stressed-out st…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I’m not here to armchair diagnose anyone or water down the word ‘narcissist’ — which is an actual diagnosable mental disorder — but I do want stepparents and their partners to be aware when they’re involved in a dysfunctional co-parenting situation that goes way beyond the realm of standard post-divorce stuff. So her…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I used to shy away from using the word “stepmom” like it was a dirty word. But “bonus mom” squicks me out even worse so… “stepmom” it is. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I got to wondering, why am I so uncomfortable with that word? Introducing my stepkid as my step kid shouldn’t seem like an insult — it's a fact. That is our legal relationshi…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I used to kind of go off on Dan when I thought his kid was being kinda shitty to him & taking advantage of his generosity. And he’d just let her get away with it. UGH. Dan's sweetness & generosity of spirit are qualities I LOVE about him, so I get a little wild when anyone plays him for a sucker. (By “anyone” I mostl…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Stepparenting guilt can lead you one of two ways: down into a vicious shame spiral, where you end up silent, scared, and paralyzed. OR you can let that guilt propel you upwards, forgive yourself for your mistakes, and keep growing. Just like regular parents, stepparents mess up sometimes. Just like regular parents, s…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) So many stepparents think the success or failure of their blended family lands entirely on them. But that’s not now any of this works. Both partners need to work together to blend a family. Stepparents are like guests at our partner’s cocktail party. We really need someone to invite us in, show us around, introduce u…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I spent A LOT of years trying to protect Dan from his own crappy decisions. In doing so, I inadvertently buffered him from the very real consequences of his actions (or inactions). In fact, I protected and buffered him so well that he had zero incentive to change. 🤦🏻‍♀️. If I could go back in time, I'd save both of u…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Okay. I know it’s super easy to take everything about becoming a stepparent and blending your family really seriously. And understandably so — there’s a lot of worrying involved in stepparenting. What if the kids never warm up to you? What if that initial awkwardness never goes away? What if you always feel like an o…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Yesterday I talked about how we don’t need anyone else’s approval to move forward as a stepfamily. This goes double or maybe triple or maybe exponentially times a million for not needing approval from your partner’s ex. I know on some level, wanting the ex to sign off on your presence in your partner & stepkid’s life…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Because stepparents start out as outsiders, we have this tendency to kind of hover around on the sidelines, like we’re waiting for someone to give us permission to participate in our new families. Or maybe we want someone to fill us in on the rules of this new game so we don’t piss anybody off. This can happen even f…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) There's a tendency to act like parallel parenting is the shameful option we only resort to because we've failed at co-parenting somehow. But when you're dealing with a high-conflict ex, co-parenting is not possible, because they will never compromise. In fact their inability to compromise is literally the thing that …

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) The rewards of stepparenting can feel way too few and way too far between for this gig to feel “worth it.” The bullshit outnumbers the wins by at least 10 to 1. That’s the thing, though: we can’t think about stepparenting in those terms — just like no one thinks about whether it’d be “worth it” to have their own kids…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) I talk a lot about how challenging my relationship with my own stepkid has been, but actually our relationship started out pretty decent… before it took a steep nosedive around 6 months in. Followed by more major issues right around the 2-year mark. Turns out this is super common — this exact pattern, timing and all.…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) When you’re in a relationship with someone who has children, by definition that implies that you’ve agreed to help parent those kids. Let me just say that again: you’ve agreed to help parent. Which implies that your partner should already be parenting their kids. Stepparents: you can't parent your stepkids unless you…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) It’s important to remember that the whole reason that you’re putting up with all this bullshit as a stepparent is because you really really really love your partner. So it’s also important to make sure that relationship is healthy, supportive, and worth it. Look, we can't do any of this without our partners' help. We…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) In a high-conflict step parenting situation, the natural process of blending your family gets set back over and over again with each battle between households. So if you’re blaming yourself for this whole blending thing being a hell of a lot harder than you anticipated, please knock that off right now. Stepfamily exp…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) It’s really common for us to judge our stepparenting performance based on one single metric: whether our stepkids like us. But believe me when I say it’s a huge mistake to base your self-worth on your stepkid’s approval. Honestly, most stepkids are standoffish with their stepparents, especially at first. There’s a lo…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) If you haven’t heard of Bill Eddy, he’s basically the king of kicking high conflict’s ass. And he’s got a fantastically simple tip to greatly minimize communication problems with difficult people called the BIFF response: B = BRIEF: Keep your reply short, and preferably in writing. I = INFORMATIVE: Respond with relev…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) Today’s pep talk is really just a list of reminders. Starting with the reminder that there’s no Stepparent of the Year award, so let's please stop destroying ourselves trying to achieve some gold standard that doesn't even exist. It’s okay for stepparents to say no sometimes. Or even a lot of the time. It’s okay to t…

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!) A huge challenge in defining your role as a stepparent is trying to figure out when that role actually begins. When you become a parent, there's a clear before-and-after sequence. One day there wasn't a kid around. The next day, BAM. You're a parent. Even adoptive parents and foster parents experience this. As a step…