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Where did the term STEP PARENT come from anyway?

invisiblestepmom's picture

Seriously where did that term STEP PARENT come from? I mean is it the term for parent who steps up, when no one else will? Is it the term for paretn who gets stepped on? Is it the term for parent who feels like they are stepping on others toes if they get involved?
Stepping IN?
Stepping ON?
Being Stepped on?
Stepping out? - that is the option I would often like to do!

In fact BM hated the term step dad so much for her new husband that she insisted the kids call him BONUS DAD (even though bonus dad put stitches in SS's head) he still gets called DAD or Bonus DAD..BM hated me so much she would not allow the kids so call me BONUS MOM or MOM...I dont even get the respet of being called step. It either my first namem that woman, SHE or HER, or half the time BITCH...and I never put stitches in anyones head. Somehow its f-ed up. I think for all my love and trying to to good for them i deserve a little more resepct than that.

Comments

vgill's picture

I belive the term cam from steping into a mothers place, but useually ends up being stepped on, She is SOOOOOOO Jelous of you!! take some comfort in that!!!

doingthebestIcan's picture

Well, look at all the children book that have "evil stepmothers." My ss5 brought home a book and instead of stepmother I just used mother. BM already hates me as it is and lets ss know that often I'm pretty sure...so I didn't want to give the "stepmother" name anymore negative thoughts!

invisiblestepmom's picture

yeah my friend bought me an evil queen bag so i could carry it around as part of my evil step monster role since I was alwasy treated like the evil queen step mom. As much as I want to be the evil queen some days and banish them from my home, I can't these are kids I still love. But the bag is really fun. See trying to establish rules and structure was considered being a mean step mom...mean would be to take back everything me or my family gave them through out the years..they would not be left with much then. Sometime I thought about doing it just to prove a point...like if I am so mean why did I do all this for you...if I am so mean why do I help you with homework assignments that your mom was not capable of...

Squillion's picture

Traditionally Steps filled in when the original parent died. There was no divorce/remarriage so overstepping on SF or SM's part was impossible.
That's why it's called Step.. and why it's called Parent. Because they were filling the place of a deceased parent.

invisiblestepmom's picture

that makes sense when you think of it that way. i fugured it had to do with stepping in as a replacement, I never thought of the situations when the biological parent dies. Right now it just sounds like stepping in and wanting mom to move over form her place...that was never my wish, I'd rather mom took her own role more seriously. Or at least split it equally and gave me the respect I deserved...She is just starting after more thant 10 years to accept that I have a positive role in her childrens lives...10 years of no acceptance makes it hard to accept that I really am being accept and still feel very much stepped on. My parenting skills and values mean nothing but I am always there to do a favor when needed and that is so annoying it makes me feel like a doormat.

Squillion's picture

Yep... Stepmomming is a pretty thankless job. That's why it's so popular to disengage Smile

No more favors leaves no more resentment over not being thanked.

DISbelief's picture

In my case its "STEP ASIDE B*TCH, let me show you what a REAL mom looks like!"

DISbelief~

~You have to BE crazy to UNDERSTAND crazy!~ Wink

invisiblestepmom's picture

yeah that is wah tI've felt like. It is also what I have been told is the reason by the new resentment my Skids haev for me, they know I am an awesome mom but for awhile there I was emotionally disconnected to them...kinda like if I pretended not to care their BS would not hurt me, but it still hurt and I learned that disconnecting that way just made things worse because they saw me being 200% there for my biokids and only 50% there for them. I would still do stuff for them but it felt forced and like I was jsut going through the emotions because I put up a sheild and stopped caring...but I still cared and it tore me up inside, got between me and DH and distanced skids from me even more...we are slowly coming bcak around. I told them I alsways cared about them but got sick of not getting any respect, care, affection or anything back so I shut down...We were all kind of on shut down mode for ahwile and it wasn't a fun way to be...Now fun is reenterring our family life little bits at a time....of course our financial strains make it hard no matter what

caitob322's picture

I know I'm like 3 1/2 years late on this, but "step" parent actually comes from the old English prefix "steop," meaning "related by marriage, not by blood." Anyway, I hope that the situation has improved since you posted this!