When Someone Asked: “Who’s the Mom” | The Truth About Bonus Parenting

At a party, someone greeted us with an odd question that carried a lot more weight than they realized: “So who’s the mom?”

For bonus parents and step parents, moments like this can bring up complicated emotions—love, pride, insecurity, and sometimes feeling unseen.
In this episode of Breaking Curses with Excellence, Christi Russell shares her personal experience navigating the role of a bonus parent and the deeper truth about what it means to show up for a child who didn’t come from your body but still lives in your heart.

This conversation explores blended family dynamics, healing generational cycles, and redefining what real love and real parenting actually look like.
If you are a step parent, bonus parent, co-parent, or part of a blended family, this episode will remind you that showing up with love matters more than labels.

The parents who do the work's breaking generational curses anthem! 

Heal For You-LLoyd Nick's

https://youtu.be/PMShzkraWmM?si=FhpzGc1_BEplNNXS

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to this episode of Breaking Curses with Excellence. I'm Christina, your host. This week, as previously mentioned, we're going to talk about bonus parents. I'm going to give my perspective as a bonus parent. I hope that this episode starts the conversations that are needed surrounding this very unique position. Not only with the bonus parent, but for the bonus parent. In the home where the bonus parent helps, steps in, helps out, loves and guides. But maybe even a beer conversation with people who don't have bonus parents in their lives. You see, some have caused bonus parents, especially stepmothers, to have a bad name. They have been jealous, they have been envious, they have been mistreating, abusive. So it's not as if the position in itself has a great reputation. Fathers usually get more kudos. I mean, every cartoon movie, right? The step parent, even some of the real life with real people in it. The story used to have real people in it. Sorry, I can't get my words together here, reflect as badly. So it's unique to step into that position for that reason and so many other. I think as a bonus parent, I didn't realize the effect that so many factors would have on me, right? In that moment when the lady greeted us, or not really even greeted, right, but greeted us with the question of who's the mom. Um, I felt angry. I felt disrespected. I felt as if she was trying to minimize my value. Now, we had had some issues uh with the friendship between our little guy and her daughter. So um, you know, my wife kind of thought maybe attributed to that, you know, she was kind of making a big deal because my wife was the one who said for a period of time, you don't need to talk to her. We don't know. However, while I will never know the full intention of what she was trying to say in that moment, um, what it made me feel was hurt. It sent me through these different feelings. You know, I expressed it to my wife, I told her I felt like or minimized my value in our home. But as days went on, it hurt still. Like it it stung in a way that usually a stranger can't get to me. And here's the thing: when a stepparent or a bonus parent comes into that role, right? There's several influences that can affect how that goes. Is the other parent, the previous partner, spouse, okay with you being in that role? Do they still have feelings for your now spouse or your now partner? Do they use the child as a tool, right? As a tool for letting them know what's happening in your home? As a tool to even in some extreme cases, right, uh use it to cause problems, right? As far as the custody agreement. Um do they say things about you that is disrespectful and the child just comes and reflects that feeling, right? Or do they get upset that you play the role that you play and tell the child, remember, they're not your parent, right? You can't even have the normal disagreements that regular couples do because you've got a child who will report back to the other parent. Obviously, we're not talking about abuse, we're not talking about verbal abuse, we're not talking about physical abuse. Now, um, I hesitate to use that word because it can get in some trouble, but we're being very clear and honest here, right? It can make you feel as though you have to shrink back, right? Because you don't want Calm Office too intrusive to this, to that, and it can be exhausting, right? Um you look at the child as your own, although they look at you as the extra, they don't look at you as one of their parents for a period of time. Um, and and and that can be fine depending on where you are, right? Um, and then like me, you can seemingly have gotten through a lot of that, and then only for a stranger to try to put you in your place, right? Um, but I struggled, I really struggled because I do I the whole premise of breaking generational curses when it comes to being a parent is solely in his benefit. Everything that I do in my self-work when it comes to my childhood, because if I'm honest, and I feel like this is true of many parents in general across the board, having a child has been the most triggering for me when it comes to my childhood. It has reminded me of things that I don't even think I realized were horrible in my childhood. I knew the big things were, right? I I talk about that, right? But just seeing the love and tenderness that he gets reminded me that nobody, nobody in my life, not just parents, but others gave me that soft landing. I think there were people who thought I was cute, that adored my little ways, loved that I loved the Bible, things like that, but I don't remember ever having anybody I could talk to. Anybody who would consider my feelings, who I knew my happiness meant a lot to. And so me working through those feelings, right? Trying to be nothing like I saw as a child with two biological parents, is in his benefit. It is because I feel like he deserves that from me. Imagine doing all of that work, praying over and over, thinking your head, trying to make sure that you are not what you saw, only for Hamadi to act like your position doesn't even matter. And that's what I felt in that moment. All the ways that we talk for hours, hence, is you know, my wife and and I about him. It's because I want him to be better than I was as an adult. Because I don't want him to struggle with certain things that I know others in my life have because they had no discipline, guidance, structure. They don't know how to emotionally regulate themselves. They're used to getting whatever they want. I have always put the future him at the forefront of my brain, knowing that the things that I say and do will affect him as an adult. And I've done that with all the love in the world. But let's be honest, sometimes, as mentioned before, bonus parents can be envious, they can struggle with jealousy. And to be honest, that's not even just a bonus parent thing. I feel like it's highlighted um with bonus parents even more because bioparents are just given this universal blanket of grace. Right? Like, you know, bonus parents can say something wrong and they get called out in a minute. People want to fight you, but if you're the bio parent, you know, you could really mistreat your child, you could do some serious damage, and nobody's fighting you about it. Nobody's coming to tell you your place. Nobody's making sure that you don't ever do that again to this child because it's yours. So these feelings of envy and jealousy aren't just unique to bonus parents. Many of us at this age, at this big age, are realizing that our parents had envy. Some of us have realized that since we're children, they were jealous of us and they mistreated us out of that jealousy, out of that anger, out of that frustration for what they didn't get, right? And so, you know, when it comes to being a bonus parent, you know that your spouse or your partner loves their child. But then you can get a sense that they love your child, their child, adore them, do the world to them because they still have a piece of that previous partner. You can feel like the attributes that the attributes or the qualities that the child displays that may not even be right are loved because they remind them of their previous spouse. They can feel jealous because this child or children are a constant reminder of what was. And you seem to be second place to what was. You know, in the moments where you have to shrink back, right? Where you you have to be like, okay, um, I'll let them make the decisions. It's a reminder of what was. You can wonder if the things that they do together for their child doesn't bring them close again like it did before. Like there won't be some kind of spark ignite it. You can worry that if you're not in the room, things can easily go back to the way they used to be. You can also be very clear that maybe that other parent is trying to get things back to where they were, and they disrespect your relationship, they push boundaries, they disrespect boundaries. They feel like they have this place where place in space where they can do wherever they want because they are the other parent, right? Doesn't matter that you're married, doesn't matter how long you've been together, it's just you know, this is my all of this, including your spouse, your partner, it is my playing field because I am the other parent. And yeah, you're on the side over here, contributing, loving, paying for, doing all the things for it, but you know what? You're still on the outside, and that can cause stress in your relationship and also your bond with your bonus child. In this moment, I, as a bonus parent, am going to validate every single one of those feelings. I think how we handle them, however, is where we can go wrong. I think the feelings are very natural, right? You want your family to be your family. You want to pour into this little person or these little people as they are your own, but constantly having the reminder that they are not. You know, something else that struck me in that moment where she said that, not in that moment, it was actually a couple days later, was that I wanted a child that no one could take away. I wanted another child. I wanted one where I didn't feel invalidated when I walked in a room. Anywhere that child went for the will-being, I was there in the room making the decisions and helping. And no status of relationship could change that. I'm not gonna lie, I wanted that in that moment, and I really struggled with the reality that while God has the final say, I am beyond the years that I feel comfortable bearing a child. I we we've talked about adopting, but the reality is I don't have the energy, right? Um, you know, I got a lot of things as a woman going on at this age, right? Where it's hard for me to sleep well, it's hard for me to handle not sleeping well, it's hard, you know, there's just a lot of things that come into place. And so the likelihood of that is slip to none. It made me think maybe I should shrink back, maybe I should do less, but the reality is, is if my family appreciates what I'm doing, then one mere comment shouldn't change that. One mere reality check shouldn't affect how I show up. So I had to, as usual, like pulse, validate all of my feelings, but really work through them. Right? My family loves me. My wife helps me be even more balanced in my my way of parenting, right? I help her be more balanced in her way of parenting. I can talk honestly when we're in person with the other mom about him. We share our happiness and pride in him. There are times where she has really shown appreciation for the way that I parent him and how I am about him. Um, and I'm very grateful, and that outshines any moment of someone else saying something rude or disrespectful, right? I know there's moments where, you know, maybe I'm not the favorite person, you know, and I'm for me when it comes to parenting, it's okay if sometimes you don't like what I say or do. You know, it's a hard place to be because as a bonus parent, you want them to love you, to see you as somebody on their side, see you as somebody that they can come to with their problems, with their difficulties. But sometimes I need to be that person who speaks direction and guidance into an area that maybe others have not felt the freedom to do. I'm big about gratitude and being grateful for what you have. And so, you know, it doesn't come from a place that I think people a lot of times think it does. It comes from a place of if someone as a child, when I was a child, had set me down and consistently worked with me on seeing the positive. You know, I was in survival mode. There were so many things that were bad.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

So many things that were cruel, that were unkind.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

So I was used to looking at the bad, right? The little bit of good that I had kept me going, the little bit of the hope, the strong hope that I had, the belief in God helped.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Right. But I had to focus on the badge.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

I had to look for where potential landmines were. And so when I got older, that didn't change, right? I I constantly when big things happened, it was hard for me to keep a balance. Right. Um I kept going. Right, I kept showing up and doing what I needed to do in life, but emotionally when bad things happened, it could be all-consuming. I also pursued a life that I didn't get as a child. Right where everything went well, where things were smooth, where I could breathe, and because I was a lot of times not in that, I had this depressive mentality. So gratitude is what has helped me, and it's something that I got during my healing journey. So while he is the only child in our homes, I want him to learn to be grateful for the good. Because the minute that I incorporated gratitude into my mentality, into my daily routine, it changed my level of happiness. It changed the person that people encountered, it changed my contentment with being by myself. I no longer was running from one happiness to another. I could just be content because I had this and I had that, and I was grateful for those things. No things weren't perfect by any means, but I can be content in what I had. Um what has helped me keep a level of happiness is my gratitude. So when I push him to have gratitude, it's not just because I want him to learn how to deal with no or not right now. I want him also to have that underlying contentment and happiness and gratitude that people and situations can affect. So I push that. You know, as an only child here and at his other home, he doesn't um well, I can say here, he doesn't get no much at all. Um, but what I push and I try to emphasize is appreciate what you have because I know a lot of, I know a few. I shouldn't say a lot of, because I don't know all the only children in the world, but I am an only child, and what I've seen from my fellow Only children is this continuous unhappiness because nothing is ever enough. Their desire for more from people and of things is constant and it is insatiable. So they're never really happy no matter what they have. And other people who have been starved of these things can literally look at their how at their life and be like, oh man, I wish I had that. I wish I had the loving parents, the supportive parents, the parents who adored me, but it's not enough for them. Because they're used to constant consumption. It's the same thing with food, right? If we have consumed and consumed and consumed and never had any discipline towards food, right? That food seems to be less available, not coming in as easy, not being handed to us, the world has changed. Right? The world has collapsed. We still have enough food. We still can survive. We can still enjoy food. It's just not as much as we're used to. And so now we're miserable consistently. So I want him to learn that. I want him to realize the jewel that he has in his mother. The adoration that not even she received that she gives him. That many of us as his adults have not seen or experienced. He is unapologetically him at this young age, and I am just now entering, I shouldn't say just now, but it's it's more recent for me, right? To enter my unapologetic life. Kids have the right to expect that their parents will take care of them, right? But it is in the extras, it is in the details of what they are given that they should be grateful for. And it is in the things, and this is what I emphasize to him is that she doesn't have to. She does it purely for your happiness. What she has to do is make sure you're fed every day, what she has to do is make sure you're clothed, what she has to do is get you to school. What she has to do is obligatory, right? It's about responsibility. What else she does is purely out of the love that she has for you. And it should be appreciated. Not insatiable. Not never good enough. So we work on that. We do. And she's helped me work on ways to work with him. Um, he is a child, and every child is different. He's a kind of child that I can talk to. Right? We're still working through things. I still struggle with things because um I didn't get that as a child, right? Even what I give, would I have given him to be honest with you? Something else I struggle with as a bonus parent, right? The love that I have for him, the way that I don't play with him or about him, I didn't have that for my biological parents. It was a big, even bigger knock to me. That's just in me, and I never had it. And so those moments where, as kids do, they don't appreciate things, or as kids are brutally honest about things, it has hurt me in a different kind of way. Not just because he's my bonus child and I didn't have to, no, but because you don't even know the battles that the adults in your life are fighting to give you that. You don't know the way that their inner children are screaming for attention to give you what we give you. That's outside of what we have to give you, what we should give you. So there's a song I came across that I feel like is really parents who have done the works anthem. Um it's talking about I'll heal for you. Um I will include a link in um the description to that song. But we do it so that they don't know the pain that we went through. They we do it so they don't know the scars that we had. But I do all this for him. And when I said spouses who's um who are in a situation with a blended family, right, to please listen to this. I want you to give space, please, to the feelings of the person that you love. Don't condemn them, don't act like they're weird, don't post about them, help them through it if you can. I encourage bonus parents to have therapists, I encourage them to have their people that they can vent to that give them guidance and direction who understand their feelings, but I feel like a spouse is supposed to be your safest place. So when your spouse, who is the bonus parent, entrusts you with their feelings about the situation, please do not dismiss them. Because one of the things that I really one of the many things that I appreciate about my wife is she says, I don't know what it's like to be in a position. And if you are a biological parent, you do not know what it's like to be, there are some definite complete parallels that go into parents who are biological parents and bonus parents. However, there is unique underlying, and I know I didn't cover all of them in this episode, but feelings that go into being a bonus parent. And they're not always out of evilness, sometimes they're out of unhealed trauma, sometimes they're out of what they see that maybe you can't see because you're so close to the situation, right? Please just give them space. Give them space to say how they feel without being judged. But I still encourage, as always, my bonus parents to have their own spaces, right? Because sometimes those feelings are a little too low. And mom or dad cannot handle hearing you say this or that about their child.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

So I encourage safe spaces.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

I don't, at least in my case, I don't want to be the one that he. How can I say this? I'm not trying to replace anybody, right? Everything I do is because I want to. I don't want to be any of those things. I just want to be a bonus parent, right? Bonus parent comes in and fills the gaps, right? Who sees things differently, maybe can give a different perspective. Sometimes, you know, a bonus parent can be more inclined to what your child likes, so they have a different perspective. They can help them with things, right? Um, I've seen in some cases where you know the bonus mom is is is is is into a certain kind of sport, and the kids love that sport, so she became the coach, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Um please just give space to it.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Please have grace with it. You know, my wife has always been very clear about the times and the places and the spaces that I need to work on. So be honest about those two. Um, but try to see a little more than just um how they're reacting and talk to them about why they react in that way. Um, and it's the same across the board, you know, in marriage, right? Like let's try to figure out why are the people that we love the most that we are closest with are acting the way they're acting, not just assume the worst. Um but that's kind of my my perspective on things. I know that this, you know, if if if you like what you heard, please let me know. And I I will definitely do another episode about bonus parents, but again, let's have our spaces where we can talk freely, let's talk, be honest with our mates and how we're feeling, let's work on those feelings. Remember, I said I want to validate the feelings of a bonus parent. However, how we handle them is what is most important. If we feel jealousy, then we need to figure out and root out and dig out those feelings so that we do not take them out on the child. If we feel other feelings, right, that are negative towards the child that are not deserved, that are not deserved, then we need to figure out where that comes from and then find some ways to cope with it, to uproot it, to get it out of the way we treat our bonus children. And to be honest with you, I stand ten toes on the fact that parents should do the same. Biological parents should do the same. But the light is shining more on what we do. We can't step out of line, or we get called out, or we have somebody who wants to fight us, or somebody who says we're unsafe and all these things when bioparents have done so much more and never been checked in their lives, never had anybody want to fight them. So let's just ensure that we're giving our space the due discernment, wisdom, love that it deserves. And unlike me, never let another person's opinion about you the role that you play in that child's life affect even in your mind, even think about affecting how you play that role.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Your family is your family. You love that child.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Um maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, what you have poured into them will mean everything to them. So I'm gonna shift gears here for a moment, and I I just want to say this to the spouse or the partner of the bonus parent. Because I see that this is a consistent feeling, you know. I I tried my best in this episode to represent some of the different feelings that bonus parents can have, but this is another one of those, and this goes directly to the spouses or partners. I don't understand why we come from a time where our neighbor could correct us, and then if our parents found out, we would get it worse, right? Where we didn't dare have our parent hear from our teacher that we had disrespected them or acted up in their class, or we were going to get in trouble, and now here we are with the person that we say we love the most in the world, and we're trying to raise children, and that person's feelings just seem to be not that important. Debatable. Not our focus, not our worry. You see, when you make a vow in marriage to a person, you say you forsake all others for them. So the idea that their feelings when it comes to your children do not matter is insane to me. It is in fact disrespectful. I'm not talking about situations, and I always say these things so that nobody can try to worm out of it. I'm not talking about extreme situations, okay? I'm not talking about situations where somebody's trying to take over, right? I'm talking about a step parent feeling disrespected by your children, feeling like the effort they put in is not valued, and you don't care about that, or you you make posts and you put them down for those feelings. Those feelings are supposed to be important to you. The idea that a person could be pouring into your children purely out of love, not out of obligation or blood, taking care of them, buying them things, taking them where they need to go, helping you, stepping in where you can't do, but they don't deserve respect, they don't deserve to be treated with kindness, is insane to me. That part is debatable. But some people even use I shouldn't say use, because sometimes it's not use, it's just how things work out, but they can count on their spouse, who is not the biological parent, to care for their child while they are out doing things they need to do or want to do. Sometimes both biological parents rely on that extra parent to do that, but then you want to act like their feelings about being disrespected are invalid. That is insane. And there should be no place in a relationship for that kind of attitude. No place. Because if you allow your children who are being taken care of and looked after by this person who is choosing to love them, well, if their disrespect doesn't matter to you, you don't truly love them. Plain and simple. That that soapbox. Um I want you to remember each and every person who listens to this podcast, to remember to keep breaking curses with excellence. You are worthy. You are deserving of the healed version, the best version of you, the healing version of you. And so are the people around you. Remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. We will continue to heal during our life. There will be three things that are brought up to us, but we keep going because we know that we are worth it. Let's face those realities, let's face those deep-rooted struggles with bravery, with strength, and knowing that whatever issues that are manifested because of what we're healing from does not define us. Whatever problems, whatever struggles have shown themselves, it does not define you.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

How you go forward is what defines you.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

How you show remorse for the damage that has already been done is how you continue to break curses with taxwise. Until next time, peace.