My Friend Equates Her Stepmom Experience With My Natural Motherhood and It Drives Me Crazy

[conuly]

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’ve been friends with Nicole since childhood. She’s been married to Joe for the past seven years. He has custody of his 13-year-old son from a previous marriage, and he lives with them full time except for every other weekend. He’s a great kid.

Nicole has really taken to being a stepmom. She never wanted biological kids, and still doesn’t, but her generosity toward Joe’s son is admirable: She reads lots of advice books and supports her stepson in so many ways.

However: I am expecting my first child, and Nicole keeps equating my motherhood with being a stepmom. She keeps trying to give me advice and platitudes about parenthood. Nicole has a lot of experience, but I don’t think our situations are the same. I’m getting ready to bring a baby from my body into the world, which is something she hasn’t experienced. While she stepped up to stepparent, and is doing great at it, I don’t think it is the same as being a birth mother.

She has said things before in front of other friends that frustrated them and made them think she was drawing an equivalency between being a stepmom and a mom. The problem is that Nicole can be really touchy and temperamental, so while I would love to politely tell her to back off with the mom platitudes, I instead just distance myself. I always thought she would be like an extra aunt to my baby. What can I do?

—Just a Regular Mom

Dear JaRM,

There are certain experiences—getting married, having a child—that are so special that we confuse the issues and believe that they make us special. Having a child, however wonderful and magical that experience is, does not make you unique.

I’ve read and reread your letter so many times. I wonder whether or not you have? My advice: You’ve written this letter and gotten something off your chest. Now let the matter go. Don’t confront Nicole about this. Don’t think about this anymore. Maybe most importantly: Don’t think this way anymore.

Maybe someday, after you “bring a baby from your body into the world,” you’ll have the perspective to realize that you’re not being a very generous friend to someone you’ve known for most of your life. Maybe you’ll chuckle at what a know-it-all you were, certain that a mere stepmom would have nothing to teach you about being a mom. Maybe you’ll be sheepish about the irony in asserting that your friend is “touchy and temperamental” when you’ve written this very touchy letter.

For your sake, I hope that’s the case. If none of that comes to pass, for Nicole’s sake, I hope she decides she doesn’t want to be a mere “extra aunt” to your child and finds some more respectful friends.

Comments

[cereta]

Dear LW:

As an adoptee, and a biological mother, I cordially invite you to go fuck yourself.

Sincerely,
Lucy, who has had it with this shit.

[fox]

Speaking as my kid's bio mom, this LW can shove it (and the "step-" prefix, too, though that's up to the actual family).

Anecdote: Close friend of mine, B, has a sister, A, whose relationship with her partner began soon enough after his previous relationship ended that his previous girlfriend was just barely pregnant. (That's a whole other situation.) So A has been in the kid's life since before he was born - she and his dad married when he was four-ish and now he's in college - but is not his biological mother, whom I think he still sees regularly. B's daughter is their parents' eldest biological grandchild; but one time when my mom was trying to work out how many grands they had all together, she said "Although I suppose - do they count A's stepson?" and I believe I was appropriately snippy when I said "Well, A does."

Nicole has no advice to give LW about pregnancy, postpartum care, or nursing. But about parenting? Sure she does, and the LW may be glad to have perspectives from as many angles as should ever become available.

[cereta]

Seriously. If LW were complaining that Nicole didn't have personal experience with infancy and toddlerhood, fair enough. But this whole "I am growing this child IN MY SACRED WOMB" crap makes me want to throw things, for reasons that are probably obvious.

[laurajv]

it’s wigging me out as well that she describes Nicole as being admirably generous with her stepson. Like....she’s raising the kid full-time, why WOULDN’T she read parenting books and support the kid? The LW seems to be approaching Nicole’s entire relationship with her stepson as this...kindly thing Nicole is doing out of the goodness of her heart (but demands cookies for in the form of talking about parenting) instead of...you know...being one of this child’s full-time parents.

[cimorene]

YES! "Generous"? It's like these people who claim that men "babysit" their own children.

[laurajv]

it’s super peculiar & if someone talked about my SIL that way, I would be hard pressed not to start an argument. (my SIL is my brother’s second wife, there are 3 kids from his first marriage)

[melannen]

Yes, I can see a version of what happened here where Nicole has read a lot of parenting books and is using that to give advice on pregnancy and babies, which she has no personal experience with. Maybe she is even using her stepkid as excuse for why she knows these things. That could be super annoying, especially if LW is already sick and tired of random parenting advice, as she probably is.

But if she's responding by saying it doesn't count because Nicole's "only" a stepmom and it's not the same, she has lost the high ground there, forever.

[cahn]

Yeah, this. Parenting a 9-year-old (I have no experience with 13-year-olds) and parenting a baby/toddler is so different it is only barely the same kind of job. (Thank God. But I digress.) I would honestly be annoyed too if someone who had only started parenting a child from age 13 was trying to tell me what to do with my newborn, whether that newborn had previously been inside my body or not.

That being said, the letter does seem to harp on the "stepmom"-ness of it instead of the age disparity, which is even more obnoxious than what Nicole might be doing.

[laurajv]

Nicole’s been married to this kid’s father since the kid was 6, so undoubtedly in the kid’s life since at least kindergarten and very likely since toddlerhood.

[cahn]

lol, I should read better! Thanks. I'd say even K is pretty different from a baby, but if she's had the kid from toddlerhood, there's not much time between babyhood and toddlerhood, even if it involves different parenting mechanisms. So I take that back :)

[rmc28]

she was drawing an equivalency between being a stepmom and a mom

Because if you're doing the work of parenting, then the exact biological relationship doesn't actually matter, and what name you want to put on it is up to the people involved. GRRRRR

(Anecdote: my dad has stepkids, and has been helping parent them since they were little, less than ten years old. They don't call him 'Dad', because that's what they call their biodad, but they came up with a diminutive of his name that literally no-one else ever uses, and they use that like I use 'Dad' to him.)

[ashbet]

I seriously want to slap those words right out of the LW’s mouth.

She comes off as contemptuous and denigrating about stepparenting, and obviously doesn’t see her friend’s role in her stepson’s life as being as valid as a “natural”/biological parent. It’s really gross.

I understand that unsolicited parenting advice can be annoying, but (a) she’d better get used to hearing it, because it’s not going to stop, and (b) her whole “MY HOLY WOMB IS THE PINNACLE OF MOTHERHOOD” schtick is *not* a good look.

[tielan]

“MY HOLY WOMB IS THE PINNACLE OF MOTHERHOOD” schtick is *not* a good look.

It is a terrible look and she should feel terrible about it.

[dragoness_e]

“MY HOLY WOMB IS THE PINNACLE OF MOTHERHOOD”

Yeah... I only know of one woman who legit gets to say that, and she ran to her older cousin for advice instead of suddenly turning into a know-it-all about parenting.

[tielan]

:D

[sporky_rat]

Good one!

[cadenzamuse]

HA!

[lavendertook]

The LW is super obnoxious in privileging her biological experience of motherhood over Nicole's lived experience as stepmom; ie., adoptive mom. Unfortunately, it sounds like she has a whole friend circle who share this sense of superiority, so it's going to take her valuing Nicole as much as these other friends to make her entertain changing her attitude.

Also, Nicole is super obnoxious in giving unbidden advice and platitudes to LW as pregnant women get inundated with unasked for advice and judgement. If she's defensively trying to compete with this circle of friends who devalue her experience of being a stepmom, it's not going to make them give up their superiority complexes but enforce it. No wonder Nicole is touchy.

Would Nicole's unbidden advice really be more welcome and less annoying if she were involved in what the LW judges as "True Motherhood"? If the LW's answer is yes, then maybe keeping her distance is the kindest way she can deal with Nicole.

But if the LW can see the reason in this, the LW needs to stop looking down on Nicole's experience and tell her how exhausted she is with all the free advice pregnant women get--hopefully Nicole will note that and can it accordingly. If not, the LW will need to get more direct and ask Nicole to please refrain from the free advice, respectfully since Nicole is dealing with a lot of crap from the whole circle.

[eva_rosen]

It would be one thing if LW was annoyed with the uncalled for advise, but she specifically says it's Nicole's advise she resents because she didn't push out a baby herself and thus isn't a 'real mom'. So she can, as previously been said by wiser people, go fuck herself.

[ayebydan]

thiiiiis

[minoanmiss]

So much this.

[lavendertook]

You're right--I was giving LW room for something she doesn't say. She is specific it's Nicole's "step motherliness," not the free advice that is annoying her. Get out of there, Nicole!

[azurelunatic]

Yikes there Mumsy, yikes.

[mommy]

I am expecting my first child, and Nicole keeps equating my motherhood with being a stepmom.

Stepparents are parents. Nicole currently has more experience as a mom than LW. She has been a mom for the last seven years, and she most likely was in her stepson's life before she married Joe. This shouldn't even be an issue.

[eleanorjane]

Many people are so weird about blood mattering more than choice. This is another reflection of the attitude seen in the reply to the "BUT SHE'S YOUR MOTHER" letter we saw a couple of weeks ago. To people with this mindset, Biology > All.

[rosefox]

She keeps trying to give me advice and platitudes about parenthood.

This is obnoxious from anyone, and pregnant people hear a lot of it. Step off, Nicole. The LW is going to be a mother for the rest of her life; there will be plenty of time to give her advice later, when she asks for it.

I’m getting ready to bring a baby from my body into the world, which is something she hasn’t experienced.

That's a good reason not to take advice from her specifically about that part of things. It doesn't mean the rest of her advice about parenting is useless. One of the friends I rely on most for parenting advice is the adoptive parent of her sister's kids, who came into her life when they were nine and ten years old. My kid is three. The advice is still relevant.

While she stepped up to stepparent, and is doing great at it, I don’t think it is the same as being a birth mother.

Of course it's not. I'm a non-bio parent and it's not the same as being a birth parent. But there's even more difference between parents who parent and parents who don't. I'm very close with the bio parent who raised me and very distant from the one who saw me for three hours a week and sometimes drifted out of my life for years at a time. I have several stepparents; I'm warm and cordial to the one who got together with my mother eleven years ago and has only been kind to me for those eleven years, and I don't speak to the one who came into my life when I was four years old and was distant, snarky, sometimes cruel, and mostly baffled by me for most of my childhood.

Parent is a verb. It sounds like Nicole stepped up to parent, and is doing great at it. Once you've got an actual kid and are wrestling with actual kid things, I hope you will realize both that every child is unique and that every adult who puts in the work of parenting probably has something valuable to teach you.