S4, Ep 4. "My stepson has two different lives, his Mum and I are SUCH different people!"

In this episode Katie talks to Becky. Becky is a Stepmum to a boy as well as being a bio mum to two young girls.

Becky has always had a clear idea of  the type of parent she wants to be and as she met her stepson when he was 18 months she has had a big role in shaping his life.

Becky talks about the difficulties of having complete parental autonomy over her daughters whilst not having the same for her stepson. She talks about the pull of how she is supposed to do everything for her stepson but never have the final decision on any matters concerning him.

She also shares the guilt she feels about having a different type of love for her biological children to her love for her stepson and how she feels the pressure to love them the same from her husband.

Becky talks about how her stepson needs a little "reset" when he comes back from his Mums, as the rules and expectations in Becky's house are so different to that in his Mum's house. She talks about how she worries that in the future his Mum's lack of boundaries might mean he thinks life at Mum's is more fun and that he won't want to come to their house any more.

A great conversation with another brilliant Stepmum! Thank you Becky x


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Transcript

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Hi I'm Katie and this is stepmom space, where each episode we talk candidly about fairy tales and scary tales of stepmom life. So whether you've been around for years, you're just starting out or you want to understand the stepmom in your life a little bit better. This isn't the main speaker. You know, we have a little celebration this week, folks stepmom stated one year old and what a year it's been we've reached moms across the world and almost 50 different countries. And I've worked with hundreds of you and once a while small groups, each one of you unique, brave and incredible in her own way. Over the next year there's even more to come so to ensure you hear news from several sites first please be registered by subscribing@www.cminds.com. So a massive massive thank you for all your support. It truly means the world without on a mission to make this bumpy journey a little bit easier for so I'm so so grateful to each and every one of you for listening and reaching out to share your experiences. Thank you so much. Now my guest today is Becky Becky to step up to one boy and a biological mom to two little girls. In this chat Becky shares her story of being in her words the board parents who are by her mom gets to be the fun parent. And he talks about how she won't compromise her parenting values
just to be popular. Hope you enjoy it. Hi, Becky, thank you ever so much for joining me today. It's lovely to see your face. Hi. It's
nice to talk to you. Thank you for having on your show. How's it going? Yeah, good. Thank you. Yes, not too bad. Just getting used to life after Christmas. I think with young children you have to settle down afterwards.
Yeah, I think we're recording this on what feels like this 470/4 of January.
It's really cold. It's really cold. It's a just okay, dive into my clothes, completely agree that everything's fine. And other than that everything's great. Tell me a little bit about your family. I met my husband. And I met him he had an 18 month old little boy. So straightaway, it was one of those things he told me when we met that he had a son and he had a tough time, which I thought was brilliant because as someone who always wanted children, it's nice to see those values. It's really good to have the children so it's great. That his son quite soon after we met because he was so young. He's kind of like he's part of my life. So I'd rather you met him quite early on so he could be part of your life as well. If things are something like 18 months, you don't have the same issues of things to explain and worrying about what they might say to the other parent, etc. Exactly. And I have to say that at the time he said that if if this had been six months down the line and he would have been able to talk in a bit more able to understand the situation, then I wouldn't have introduced you as soon but because he was so young, it was kind of I think they slept for six months before that. So my son had never really known his parents together, like so it wasn't like a strange thing for him. So I met him really early on, became close quite quickly. So we became like a small little family unit quite quickly, which was really nice. I mean, it was big challenge for me to take on this role of, oh, there's a child around not all the time but 50% of the time. And not just a child of a young 20 year old needing a lot from you. So it's gonna be time to actually at the time I knew I always wanted children so it was kind of like it. If you like practice one for me. And from the beginning that was always like, okay, I can treat this child on my own. I don't have that responsibility. I think to start with I didn't really find my police quite straightaway because I didn't know how to be I've never been in a position before so
and how was it between you and your partner in the early days with regards to kind of like looking after his son
because my partner said business he was quite early on that he would often go to work for an hour or two and I would be left looking after his son. I don't think at this point. His ex even knew I existed which at the time to me it was like it's fine. I'm just looking after this little boy you around at the time but that's the problem. And my friend's family had concerns about that they actually raised me and said, you know, this isn't your child is very young. Your partner shouldn't be leaving you with that responsibility if something happens to that child in your care. Not sure that the ex doesn't even know you exist. Like how how does this dynamic work? Should it doesn't sit right, have those challenges with family or friends and to me I was always like no this is fine, but at least it's having children of my own. I now see that I would go crazy. If I found out some strange woman was looking after my children and I didn't even know they existed. And it's really interesting that you kind of describe yourself as some strange women. Because it's funny, isn't it? And maybe it's because he was so young, but you felt more like that because they're at the point where you sort of think naturally and I talked to a lot women about it. You know, when the child is the dads, the dads decision is final kind of say whoever he wants to look after the child is final. But then I also hear a lot of women say Well hang on a minute. I want to know who my kids are, particularly if they're young kids. So it's really interesting to see it through different eyes. Now you've got biological children. Definitely. And I think part of that is because how soon after I met my partner that I wish I was having my stepson on his own. That was kind of what might be the contents of my family or friends. Well, you are still kind of strange at him. Because you haven't gotten a new partner so you were saying to him you know you're a stranger to this little boy who obviously he's gonna trust you because he sees the deadly trust you so why would he not do what happened? Did you raise it with him? I just because in my head I didn't see that. I didn't think anything. was wrong. I just thought it was kind of how how we were and I loved it. Love my sex. I've always had quite good relationships from an early age. I thought he saved me. I knew I wasn't gonna do anything. So we'll come on later to the expert. She it was it was his place to tell her about me not were placed to make it known that existed on him a little bit to say, well, it's your child is your responsibility to to make those calls. And notice you said you had a really good relationship with yourself. And I guess I can sort of see for your face that that's possibly the case. We do. We do have a good relationship. We pick up a lot and from experience of speaking to other moms, I'm quite lucky in the relationship I have with him. I think a lot of that comes down to the role I play in his life in the sense that I probably take more control over his sort of activities and education and things like that than his own money, perhaps us. So because of that, I think I almost am entitled to have a bit more of a say in how his behaviour is or what he does and normally has maybe not tied to that might be the right word, but I have a say in what he does because of everything that I kind of evolved in with him. And it's always been the case that because he's been around since such a young age, he now doesn't know any different. And if I didn't treat him the way I think he would never find it strange that I changed. So he's only seven. Let's see what the future holds in that respect. And you mentioned that you'd always kind of looking at his clubs and all those types of things. So what's the school with his biological mom? So the his biological mom, just to give a bit background we have very different lives in the sense of my partner and I have a very family life we go to work we come home we do things as a family weekend's my son's mother is much more of a she doesn't work. She lives with her parents. They live in a big house and have a lot of money coming in from my dad who brings a lot of money into house. Never really needs much because they do everything they want people and just have different values to life. So life is a bit more of a party in comparison to what we would perhaps do and we can for example, so in that respect, it's very different. It's very different setup. We have quite strict laws around bedtime around doing homework and even before I split son started school, it was things like setting routines, setting boundaries, that we're not married at his mom's house. probably been one of my biggest challenges ever, to be honest. And you mentioned that his mum lives at home with her parents. So do you mind me asking how old she is? Well, she did briefly live on her own with my stepson. He also has an older child as well. quickly realised that life was much easier living on that when they pay for everything and move back home. So she's just always lived at home with them, which is quite difficult because my son will often ask me, why don't we live with me and why not? Why do I live with anyone that mommy's but not here. And it's been explained to him that although it's nice, generally people don't tend to live with their grandparents. That often. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not the norm kind of thing. So we're fixing that to him is quite difficult. He just thinks it's really strange that we don't live in this massive house with all of our family together so the open houses why can't we all live in one big house?
Wow. Yeah, wow. That's reality TV show. I think
it's the things that children say sometimes that make you really realise well, you that is how we you see the world through your eyes that we should all just love each other. And live together and why can't wait. I mentioned about it being difficult in terms of like the different values between your houses. So how does that affect daily life and how does it show up in your relationship with just for example, bedtime routines, we have mostly bedtime routine that we can't follow the 567 to dinner by five or six or seven. And the same since I've had my biological children. We try to follow that same routine for them because I think it's good children five and routine at his mom's he sleeps in there to basically when he wants has the iPad all night, that kind of thing. So completely different setup. It doesn't make it a challenge that because 50% of his time is there. And 50% The time is here. He's like to the people, not hard enough as a seven year old, and as a young child growing up into houses to then have to deal with those kinds of things. And so the phones when he's like transitioning between houses that you're almost have to reset and come back to a different trial to try out the left. Yes, definitely. So we have what we call transition period during school time. That is at school, he'll be dropped to school by Islam on a Saturday and then we will pick him up after school. So his transition into that school when we have into the holidays or for example during lockdown, and there was nowhere else to go. It was just one house to the other. We now heard we've got to the point where like like just taking our play game, just have a timeout just to adjust to where you are and we have like a little saying our house which is like remember where you are now. It's not that sort of telling off. It's just remember your manners. Remember your tonal language and the way you speak to people because we don't speak to each other like that in this house, which is just different I don't want my biological children hearing some part of the tone of voice that's used from him thinking that that's okay. We have a transition period where we make allowances for certain behaviours. I love that phrase like remember where you are now? How does he respond to that? Initially, it was like I say, I didn't advance my idea here, which I think is probably quite common phrase for stepchildren to use,
I would say for people who are listening, I was accompanied with quite a sassy shoulder shrug.
Definitely. We do kind of get that going back quite a few times. My husband and I have very strong feelings towards you never say anything bad about your house because they steal his home and it's to his family to each other. Obviously. To him. We always say people choose to make decisions and if people live different ways, there's no right or wrong. But we've decided in this house we don't speak to each other like that. We don't do this. You know we don't bounce back, we'd have attitude, so you can leave that door. That's, that's what we're gonna do. And actually, when he when we first have to say to him, we didn't get pushed back to say what we want to do. I'm doing it but I think now again, where it was so young. I think we now have kind of overcome a difficult period of competition if you like, but we haven't hit the preteens teenagers yet so
yeah, but you know, I do hear what you're saying about getting those things in place early and him even being really familiar with you guys going remember where you are now. And I think the way that you've expressed it in terms of an eye is to say the same you know, different families have different roles, and that's okay, and when you've got your own house, you can have your own roles and that's also okay. You know, I used to say that okay, my mom in the back of my head, he said to me, when you've got your own house, you can think it's important for children to know that and really good for you to feel that actually, you're confident in your own home, setting your own boundaries, because you know, a lot of women who I work with in coaching situations will be in a place where they want certain boundaries, rules in their house and they don't have to support their partner. So have you always found yourself on the same page as your partner?
Life not? Not always at all? I think a lot of things for example, I've had a lot of people will use the iPad as a tool of distraction or entertainment for children. You know, I grew up in quite strict family whereby something like that was a privilege. You had to earn it, you had to earn it by doing chores or homework or behaviour. Whereas my stepson had whatever he wants, his mom was and from a young age, my husband's a great success, or he could have hidden because he didn't want to look like a bad parent and a lot of our conflict between myself and my partner is him wanting to keep my stepson happy here. So he wants to be here. And he's saying, Well, hang on. I'm not actually prepared to put my mom's my boundaries, just because they do something and you want him to be able to do things. So that's where we have a lot of conflict on things like homework, reading off school that we've had there times at times. Actually, we aren't quite on the same page about setting other things. There are definitely boundaries that I set that my husband might not necessarily be to play with. And I am aware of times when I'm not here where those boundaries will just be thrown out the window to keep him happy.
So when you're in a situation where you disagree on those things, it sounds like you've managed to ensure that what you want to happen in home happens at least while you're in
it. Yeah, so I think while I especially while my biological children around and even though they're still very young, I want them to see that that is how we live our lives in the house because I don't think we should make exceptions for my stepson when he's here. If those are the rules that we're going to have in the house that they need to see. I mean, I'm not talking anything crazy strict but just things like the iPad for example, in a bedtime routine that are really important to me, by having a conversation with my partner, I successfully I'm not asking you to change the world. I just want you to stick to these set boundaries I'd like to replace when I'm not here, and if those get broken here, but I'd like to think that the routine point is the same. And I do it for the benefit of everyone. I don't do it for my own benefit. So I try to make my partner see that I think he does really appreciate that. I don't do it to be the horrible, we could step on that has always talked about homework, and we should probably do come across like sometimes that actually just won't help. But that's a real challenge in itself to embed that with my biological children as much as the children and how old are your biological children. So my oldest daughter's two and a half and my youngest is six months. They're still really young. On Tape to them when they came in. Interestingly enough, my eldest daughter was born during lockdown. So he was actually home being home schooled quite a lot. I think he really took awhile to having a sibling in this house because he's always he's always had a sibling at his mom's. He's got an older sister there. So when we had baby I think, initially it was really exciting to have this baby around. To begin with. My partner did overcompensate a lot with my stepson to say Look, you're so long as I kind of understood why he did that is that something really really goes on his sister, which is really lovely. When I gave birth to my second daughter, middle last year, it changed slightly because the dynamics of family change. So it was always the boys and girls and it was my partner, that son, myself and my daughter, it's the boys and the girls and naturally as a mother of a younger child, you spend majority of the time with the baby. Whereas when my second daughter came along, you've then got three children and two parents and dynamics change and retrieval. We're still trying to find our feet now, because it's quite a challenge that must come sometimes I think he wants all the attention on him because he's not been here and he wants to say oh, yeah, don't forget that me. And my two younger daughters obviously being the ages they are still really neither parents so yeah, we're still kind of on our feet with and I'm finding that quite a challenge sometimes actually, to find that dynamic. How to make this work with three children and two adults is really hard. I mean, I remember when our two little ones came along with 17 months ago, just feeling incredibly guilty because I was desperate to like play board games with my oldest son and my stepdaughters and just kind of talk to them and have that time but there's always somebody like hanging off me or crying or meeting a nappy change or this and as you say, you can't say we're setting up for an hour I'm playing Monopoly or whatever it has to be done. And then you wonder, well, actually, am I creating the story that the big children are finding it harder and harder? It's so difficult to wade your way through it and work out what is really going on? Yeah, I think I find it difficult with my stepson that he actually made a comment to me yesterday, but he said Why don't do anything with the animal. You spend all your time with the girls Why do you not do anything with me any more than I used to take him to private tutor and I used to take him to something and that was our after school activities. And then he finished because he didn't need any more and then swimming lessons finished because it was pretty complex thing I don't want him to do two years old, and he's just completed his course he doesn't need to do that anymore. But actually to him he sees that but I don't have time for him anymore. And that really made me realise yesterday that I actually don't spend any quality time with him since my daughter's coming home and it's difficult because I'm torn between the guilt of I want to spend time with him because he did us to have our full attention when he's here. And my biological children leave me and I'm their mom and that that that that's where my time should be spent now and every second I have free. I want to do with them. So it's not that he's second best to them, but they are my than my world at the moment because they're so young, so dependent and you know, I don't I don't feel like I don't give him my time. I just don't have as much available time to give him because of the opportunity. So it's a real tricky situation. I want to treat them in a different at the same time because he's older and he's more self sufficient. I feel like they need me I'm interested to know if you feel any different towards him. Since you've had biological children definitely feel more protective of my biological children. Whether that's because they're younger or because they are my children. I don't quite know. My feelings are definitely different. And I know that there's certain things that I know I have control over with the girls that I don't have to live with my stepson in terms of the way he is about certain things and the way he sees that certain things. I love that they're mine and I love that they're here or trying to park my house all the time. And I don't love myself any different to what I did. But I don't I don't think that that's quite the same for biological child stepchild. I can't really it's hard to put into words I guess feelings of just maternal protection over the girls and I don't know whether it's because they're younger or just me, towards them, which I then feel guilty for, because I feel like I shouldn't feel any different towards them than I do. And that's biology. So it's perfectly normal. And there's been tonnes of research, which is really interesting around actually people's relationships will help people will feel a stronger connection to people who they're genetically related to, even if you've grown up with somebody your whole life, there is still something about biology that pulls you towards somebody and I'm not, you know, other people listening who have amazing relationships with their stepchildren and the people listening who do feel the same and that's great. And there's not any part of me that's trying to like devalue the relationship with another innocent child. It's more for those women who have biological children and stepchildren to say you know what, it's okay to feel different. And I I struggle with it because I don't to me, I don't feel like I should feel different. And my partner's always been treated exactly the same, you know, for the same because to him that all his children so he does treat them the same and often the same, and he expects the same from me. So I think sometimes I feel a lot of pressure on myself to feel like I should be feeling that way. And I should be treating him the same and I should be looking at him same as I do today. I was I feel that pressure quite a lot sometimes. But then when something happens, for example, and all of a sudden I'm just and I'm like but you want me to treat them treat him the same and loving the same and be the same. But then when something happens that you want to call the shots on because he's your son. How does that work? So that's probably one of my biggest struggle with this. What do you want from me in terms of you always give him everything and treat him exactly the same? Or do you want me to be as loving the way that I do everything I do. Actually, you still get one place so it's really difficult and like, I remember talking about this with a lady I was talking to him not too long ago and some saying she's having a similar thing go on actually and she went home after a conversation and said to her husband, do you expect your son to love me in the same way that he loves his mom? And so it was like, Well, no, it's different. She's like, that's quite good to get to pick out. Because we all set moms know that we don't want to replace biological moms. And we know that it's good for them to have a healthy loving relationship with mom and a good relationship with their mom so that you can exist we do have different roles in my son's life. Myself and his mom have very different roles in his life. And I think he comes to us with different things and expects different things from us, which kind of works in a way I guess. For example, if my stepson gets to this point, and he's at his mom's for the weekend, and it's her weekend, he's with her. She will maybe message me and say are you happy for me to do this be this and I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that she knows that I do the majority of his work with him which the majority of time work for the private tutor. It's just more my field if you like helping him and it's something that I've always thought we'd passionate about to support him in his education. I think she feels quite strongly that if she she might be treading on my toes if like if she were to do something like that, which is a really strange thing. Because as his mama shouldn't be replaced, but the relationship between myself and her has grown quite a lot over the last six years. And she relies on me to help with things like that. And I leave certain things like if there's a new game that he wants to play or he wants to go do go ape or something like that. I say, Well, that's the money we'll probably really want to do with you. So why don't you do that with money kind of thing and transit if we kind of have our own balance of what we like to do with him. I think, you know, we're just different people. We have different views on what is right and what is wrong for a child. I really start with the fact that he has two different lives because I'm a foster family myself. I never felt like that at all. And I don't want him to feel like that. But I'm not willing to compromise the way I want my family to be to allow for how they choose to live financially is the main driver for that into like the financial position given that they have no qualms about spending money on anything. So if you throw a switch on Florida fit of rage you just be born you switch for example, where it starts that would be on her off. She's completely different, a completely different way of life, a completely different way of learning. So the values of if you want something, you've done it. It's fascinating how you were saying the dynamic works between his mum and you and she's kind of worried about treading on your toes because we don't really feel it the other way around. Yeah, and I think I think a lot of that is driven from the fact that I, especially in the early years, not so much now, but in the earlier years, she would often phone me on the weekend and say, Can you come in this weekend? I want to go to London to party with her here. I want to do this away with girls weekend. And I would always say yes, because in my head I was like this little boy just he just wants a normal stable family and we can offer the stability that she could. And I think I basically made her life easier because I did everything that was expected of her as a mom, but she still got the mom title. And even now that still applies that you're gonna do quite well with it. That's the hard bit. That's the boring bit but I want to be the font. So you take accountability for that. And you do that and I'll be the fun stuff kind of thing. So have you been about that? It's difficult, but I guess I look at it from the perspective of I want my biological children to grow up knowing that I did the best of them. And so my stepson I know that maybe I look too far ahead, but I think long term what I'm doing will help him and will benefit him. And if he's gonna be part of our family, which of course he is, because he says so much. If I invest my time in him, it will pay dividends. So yeah, maybe I've made my life really difficult for no reason and I take on things that I shouldn't do for no reason, but it's kind of naturally falling into this pattern of things like that with him and she does sort of the more fun stuff with it if you like and it works. So with completely different people. We still obviously do fun things. We still do a lot of fun things at weekends and weekend, family time. We do a lot as a family. Whereas the dynamics slightly different on the other side. So yeah, and it sounds like a lot of what we talked about causing a lot of anxiety for segments is that ambiguity around what's their role? So it sounds like you've kind of got that sorted in a lot of ways. Yeah. I think I still believe a lot of it is because he's so young. And I do worry about one of my biggest anxieties as he gets older and says, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come to us this weekend to understand moms and I know that's gonna have real impacts on our family, especially where my two biological children are so much younger. They are still gonna want to do much younger things like language Park, things like that. And whereas, as he gets older, and more independence, and we don't live overly close to his school, so is he gonna wanna spend more time with friends and that's what I think is going to be a challenge of how he grows as a person and then sees more life at months way easier. I want to be there, but my kind of thought processes. I'm hoping that he will still appreciate what he has here and it will pay dividends in the long run, but he's got some stability. He's got some routine and he's got a family set up here with us. I know with my son, he has no other children at his dad's house. And obviously, everyone's here in stepsisters who sometimes here as well, and I know he finds his little siblings annoying sometimes. So that's normal, if you'd like that he was here 100% of the time, but I also know he really feels like this is an old family home and he loves playing games with them and he's about a teenager building dens and playing hide and seek and doing all that with them. And it's just lovely. So actually, they you know, they get the best of both worlds in that way and if you've got a relationship where you're not having the houses of undermining each other so yes, we understand that you know, she can buy him a Nintendo Switch be dropped something but as long as she's not kind of saying, oh, what data Becky didn't buy you this, and you're gonna be okay.
We have a few comments made about that. It was at Christmastime actually where my stepson said, Oh, I can't wait till next month because it got way better presents. Yeah, and we're like, okay, how to tackle it. I
just don't know yet. So I think sometimes kids that age say things and they don't realise that they're hurtful. They don't try to be funny or they just when things come out who my six year old sometimes they'll say things and I'll say like were you talking to me is really really rude and just don't kick in then it really sad and you kind of have to say no like and just teach them
I guess I'm not quite you. I do envy her in some ways intensive she has this kind of carefree lifestyle where someone else is bringing up children in terms of like the boring stuff, if you like the discipline, the education that kind of thing. She gets to do all the fun stuff doesn't work lives that everyone gets holidays paid for left and centre. And then I'm here thinking we're doing our best to get by and provide a good loving supportive family home. And what's it all for if it's not an appreciated? So I think that underappreciated is what really gets to me, that's my kind of Achilles heel of, why can't you just appreciate what you've got here. Because I don't want in overtime is my daughter's didn't grow up and hear him saying, Oh, look at that presents that mommy's and then they kind of expect to why don't we? Why don't we get to go get better presents elsewhere? Why do we only get this kind of thing and thank everyone. It's not like they don't get anything good here. It's just they get what normally a normal household would give for Christmas not PlayStation five and Nintendo Switch and Xbox and a TV. Wow. Yeah, that's just it's just the kind of different kind of love I guess. And that's got to be hard for you. But,
you know, do you think we've had it? I mean, we don't have that level of extreme gifting. But I have had my biological son say to me about his quote unquote half brother because we don't use that term and quote unquote, half sister have hadn't said to me But hang on a minute. Hey, get presidents here. And they also get presidents insert other parents saints house, and I just kind of said, yeah, that's just how it is. And they're like, well, that's not fair. And obviously, I didn't find my biological kids twice as many presidents. So it's just kind of like, that's just one of those things. And it's, it's hard and I can see from their basis their thinking, and I remember wanting to you know, it's hard for them to say mom and dad both live in the same house. It sounds like one thing that's really nice. Living in the same house.
But not always as easy as we think it's gonna be. So you talked a bit about what some of your worries for the future. What are your hopes for the future? I feel like they've really settled now and I think I heard something a while ago that said, becoming a stepparent can take between four and seven years to really settle into your role. And I do feel like I've established my role now as a parent, and there's certain things I would change to certain things I do differently if I could do again. On the whole I think we're doing okay, it's household. So I hope to the future. I guess it's just, I just want him to turn out to be a nice little boy, and I don't want him to ever resent me in any way for what I've tried to do, because I'm trying to do what's best for him. I just hope that he appreciates that, you know, I'm not perfect, and I've not done things perfectly, but I've done the best I can in the way of how I would have done if he was my own biological child and really want my biological children to see that as well that I never actually treated him any differently before you were born. I treated him the way I'm treating you because I want us to be a family. We are a family of five. And when we're not here, we do feel that he's not around and we noticed the dynamic changes. Sometimes it's nice that he's not around and I can focus solely on the girls and that's nice, but for the future. I guess I just want to feel more settled and we'd really like for his mom to be a bit more on board with him as person in terms of his interests. His education is in the after school. Class he wants to do he'll only do on days he's our house because she will take him and I just wish he could be a bit more on board with him because that would make my life easier. But I'm quite stubborn person in the sense of if I want to do something for him, I will do that for him and why not and is quite supportive of me. He has very high expectations of what he wants me to achieve as a stepmom again he doesn't know any different because he just thinks you're motivated differently. On Mother's Day, he always treats me as he does his mom so he would always give me flowers and things on Mother's Day which is really nice. I guess just don't want to feel resented. And condiment from what you said that your son's gonna be able to probably still sees now all the things that you do for him and as he as he grows older, he'll be able to see them even more. So. It sounds like you doing an amazing job. Watch out on your partner having those high standards for you on that one. Yeah, that is difficult. And I think sometimes he just because he sees us as a family of five. He just he's just not him. That's the only difference. There's no difference in his parenting. There's no difference in him having a mom elsewhere because I think quite frankly to my partner, his ex wife doesn't exist. So he just uses his his son goes somewhere for a few days, and then come back, whereas to me, it's very much we have our family for dynamic and then we have our family of five dynamic and I love both dynamics, but it's just sort of how I then have to change between here and there. I definitely feel the same about switching between having two kids for five years and
then the differences that brings you but look at it it's been so nice to talk to you. Thank you so much for giving your time and advice and wisdom and I think is that something lucky to have you
Wow, such domestic money. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. But really, really admire that at the same time parents students and for knocking the contest between the excellent which is something many, many sounds stuck in the middle. So thank you. That's it for this weekend. Folks. Had a lot of messages this week about when the next election is so I happen to be running some soon and my wait list is almost full. So whatever you do, do not miss out head to www.sedar.com forward slash workshops are great. So when data release to be not first in line, and you might find out more about the coaching programmes and how I help women transform their second life. There is plenty more detail on websites where you can email me through Facebook, or Instagram. And of course you got a story to share. Please do let me know if you put themselves out there to help and finally if you have enjoyed the show, please do rate me as it really helps. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next tim