What Is a Stepparent's Role? (And Why Getting This Wrong Costs You Everything)

It sounds simple. But if you're a stepparent, you know it's one of the hardest things to actually do.
Stepping back and letting the bio parent take the lead goes against every instinct you have, especially when you're living in the same house, watching things unfold in real time, and caring deeply about the outcome. But trying to parent at the same level as the main parent isn't just exhausting. It's creating friction you don't need to carry.
In this episode, we're talking about what it actually means to let the main parent be the main parent, and why it might be the most powerful shift you make in your blended family.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Step Parent T network. This is Lena Sine, and today's episode, I want to discuss something I've been pondering on for a little while. So when it comes to work, I find that it's so easy for people to delegate when it comes to, for example, your project lead in a project you're running at your workplace, and you find it so easy come in together as a team and just working. And you find it easy delegating as a project lead, what everyone else should do. So, for example, um, Tom is doing XYZ, putting the script together, while Sarah is putting together and formulating the thesis, and David is putting together the advantages or disadvantages of one area, and then you are presenting as a team lead on the day of presentation. And I find that a lot of times people find it so easy to actually delegate and work together as a team. So, if another example, if you run a school where you know that you can't run it by yourself, and so you need teachers. You get teachers, you get driver for the school bus, you get the cafeteria cooks, you get the cleaners. And common sense tells you to put these people and expertise together because you know you can do it by yourself. When it comes to delegation in a business, if you run a business, you just know for sure that okay, in this business, I need some people that have expertise or some extra hands to make it run successfully. And so you get two or three other people to join you and run this business or the day-to-day operations of the business because you know and you understand that you need people to make this work, that you by yourself cannot do it all by yourself. And so you work together as a team to accomplish a common goal. Even among your friendships, if you have a girl strip planned, you kind of come together to work together to make it work. So, for example, Sarah is going to be the one to handle every restaurant we go to. Um, Jennifer will be the one to handle all the logistics regarding where we go, Ubers that we take, and maybe Sandra is going to be the one to put together our hotel and the logistics of every place that we stay. And you come together to make this happen because you know that you by yourself cannot finish and do it by yourself. And delegation in all these areas is so easy, it comes easy to you because you know you need people to achieve a common goal. You know that delegating and working together as a team is important because without the other people, without the extra hands to make it work, it might actually not go well. You even understand that if you don't delegate or if you don't work together, you might burn out and you might feel tired. So your friends, your best friend's bridal shower or proposal, you work together to find a DJ. You know you can't be the DJ, you can't be the one catering to the event, you can't be the usher, you can't do it all. And so you find people to come together to make this common goal happen. Stick with me because I'm going somewhere with this. And even many of your friends or people tell you how much they love it when you delegate or when you take lead to delegate, because they know that with you in there, you're going to make sure that everyone does what they need to do and that the common goal that you're looking for or aiming towards will definitely happen and happen successfully. But I can't help but wonder why is it that when it comes to being a step parent, you feel like you have to do it all alone? Why is it that it comes so easy to you to delegate in every other area of your life? When it comes to being a step parent, you feel like you have to do it alone. These are questions we need to answer, these are questions we need to ponder on, these are questions we need to ask ourselves because there's a problem here. Why do we feel the need to do it all alone? Because we know in our workplace that we can't do it all, because if we don't delegate, or if we don't ask the team to help out, that we might burn out. But we don't recognize in step parenting that it's important for us to delegate or to make sure that we don't do things by ourselves, otherwise, we'll burn out. Let's talk about that today. Let me ask you this. Do you sometimes feel like you're always on? Like you're the clock that never turns off. You're always on, you always have to be present, you always have to overextend yourself. Do you feel like as a step parent, you always have to be on because turning off means that you're not present, or it means that you're not a good step parent? Are you in that frame of mind where you feel like you always have to be present when your stepchildren are even having their time at your home per whatever schedule that you have, or you feel like even though you just want it to be in your bedroom on that weekend morning, that you have to come outside and be present because you have to turn on every time you're around your stepchildren. It's because you haven't mastered the art of delegating. Delegating is a skill, it's like a muscle, it has to be worked out. In the beginning, it might feel a little bit cringe to you, kind of like when you among your colleagues who are very friendly with you, and you're all friends at work, when you suddenly are promoted to be their supervisor. You know how that cringe feeling is when suddenly you have to tell your friends who are once your colleagues things that they should do in order to make the work go smoothly. And at the beginning, it sounds a little bit and feels a little bit cringe to you because you by yourself recognize that these used to be my friends and now I am their leader. And the more that you learn how to delegate skillfully and with wisdom, it becomes almost second nature, it becomes almost natural to you, it becomes easy and it takes a lot of stress from you. In a marriage where there's no stepchildren, meaning in a marriage where it's mom and dad and children, you know, the traditional kind of marriage, working together and teamwork is almost natural. It's almost like expected, it's almost common sense to just work together to get things done. And so maybe mom is making dinner and dad cleans after, or mom takes um the shower for the kids, takes the bath, and then dad probably takes them to bed. And these are things that you kind of work out with your partner on how to run your home together, whichever way that works best for you. Now, in blended families, it is not always like that because the child who may not be biologically yours may have a routine in place that you came to meet, and may have things that they like to do or ways that they did things that you came to meet. And now, somehow, somehow, you feel like you have to fall in line. And so you fall in line with what is already there, and you make room to accommodate what is already there versus building it from scratch with the biological parent. And so that in itself makes delegating very blurry and almost non-existent in our homes. And it can be tricky because in this case, they're not just two adults who are responsible biologically, emotionally, maybe financially for the child. There are probably three, even maybe four adults if the other home has a two-parent household. And all four of you somehow are to work together to bring up this child in your home, which makes a step-parenting role so blurry because there are no fine lines of authority. You're not sure where your path is, and you're not sure where your mode of authority is, you're not sure when to speak up, and you're not even sure if you should speak up at all. And get this, you might not even like how the children are raised, but you may not have a say in that at all. I remember I was talking with a couple of friends of mine, and some of them are newlywed, and some of them have children. And in our conversation, one of them started to talk about how they don't even necessarily like the way that their spouse or husband parents. And I couldn't help but think if this happens even in traditional homes where mom and dad and children, biological children are present, how much more in blended families where you may not even know if you have a hand or how much of a hand you have in parenting a child alongside with your partner, where you may not even like the way your partner parents their child, or even how the other parent parents the child, but you have to stick with it. You have to live with the child and watch that child grow as the child is being taken care of by their two parents, as they should. But you get to see certain parts of their lives that need help or involvement, but you're not sure how to help in that area. The art of delegation in a blended family is not the same as you do at work or with your friends or in any other relationships. In a blended family, it simply means letting the main parent be the main parent. What does that mean? It means letting the biological parent take full responsibility of authority and discipline for the uncomfortable conversations, for taking away privileges, for decision-making for their biological child, and for setting the routine. So, where does this leave you as the step parent? It certainly does not mean that you don't have a role in the house or in your home. It certainly does not mean that you don't have a role to play in the life of your stepchild. Actually, it emphasizes your role as the step parent. It emphasizes your role as the supporting parent, not the main parent. And yes, I know a lot of times when we become so emotionally involved with the stepchildren and we love them like our own, it gets even more difficult because we don't want to create a disparity between how you treat your child and how you treat the stepchild. But it's important to understand that your stepchild does have two biological parents, especially when they are both active and present in your lives. And so the best thing you could do for that child is to become or remain the step parent, the supporting parent that supports your spouse to your parent, and not necessarily the main parent. And when I realized that there's actually nothing wrong with being a step parent, there's actually nothing wrong with being a bonus parent. There's nothing wrong with being the third adult that cares and loves these children, I realized that it gave me a lot of freedom to actually perform my role, that it's okay not to make it for every sporting event or event in your lives, that it's okay to support from behind sometimes, and to support from beside the main parents sometimes. And when you learn how to delegate and how to relieve yourself and release the stress, the extra stress of trying so hard to be a main parent to a stepchild that has two main parents already, your home becomes lighter. And there's so much freedom that you experience, and you're happier in your role as a step parent. I made my own fair share of mistakes in the beginning. In the beginning, I was trying so hard to overcompensate, overextend myself because I saw gaps in the parenting and I wanted so desperately to have these children. I didn't want them to grow up without having some of these experiences or these valuable skills or experiences that I thought they so desperately needed. And so I overextended myself and did things that were not even in my place to do. And then I realized over time that I was burnt out, that these were not mine to do. And so I quickly had to learn the art of delegating back to the main parent, back to my spouse, and watch him take up what was his to take up in the first place, that wasn't mine to hold and to support him while he carried them out. I'll give you a real life example. My stepchild one day comes home from school and says, Hey, I want to play video games. Can I play? And I said to him, Well, Daddy said you should finish your homework first. He says, Okay. He does his homework and then comes back and says, I'm done now. Can I play video games? And then I said, Well, yeah, of course you can. But daddy says he should play X video game and not Y video game. And so he starts to cry because he wants to play a specific video game. And then I say to him, Well, Daddy says, when he gets home, he will let you play that game. He'll be home in three hours. How about you enjoy this video game? And when he comes home, you can ask him, and then you can play that video game you want to play. And then he says, Okay. But even if he came back and he was complaining about still playing that video game, my answer is pretty much very simple. Hey, I'm just carrying out the message. I'm not the one making the rule. And almost every time that works because he recognizes I'm just supporting Daddy to carry out what he wants or what he said he wants, versus what I've done in the past, where I would say you can't play this game. And then it looks like I'm the one making the decisions. And then instantly, and even automatically, he starts to want to explain to me why he wants to play that video game so much. And then potentially we end up arguing because he wants to play, and I said no. And that frees my afternoon to focus on any other thing I'm focusing on. Maybe it's work or some other duties I'm carrying out, and he doesn't cry anymore. And I feel happier and I feel lighter. Why? Because I learned the art of delegating. And someone would say, Lena, why do you call it the art of delegating? Because you're not really delegating. Well, if a biological parent is the main parent, like you're saying, Lena, then why do you have to be the one delegating? And the answer is simple. It's because when you first form a blended family, you want so much to be a part of it. You feel like you're not necessarily a part of it, but it looks like you are, and you so desperately want to contribute. You want to bond with the children, you want to learn about their habits and who they are a little bit more. And you want to actualize this vision of a family in your head that you've carried for years and years. And so you end up picking up certain responsibilities and certain things that you were not meant to pick up in the first place as a step parent, as the supporting parent. And sometimes step parents might, not even being aware of it, spread themselves so thin that they fill up every space in parenting, such that the main parent has no longer has room to parent maybe the way they want to, maybe the way they used to. And sometimes it's not even because you don't want to do it or because you want to do it. It's because you feel like if you don't do it, it doesn't get done. Delegating is skillfully releasing back to the main parent, to the biological parent, while you support them. So for example, if your stepmom who takes care of the kids after school till the dad gets home, delegating or skillfully delegating might look like this. You can spend time with them, you can bond with them, and be the supporting parent, even when dad is not home, till daddy gets home, and maybe daddy gets home and it's dinner time, so the kids are eating, but then after the kids finish eating, they ask for a dessert. You can just say, ask daddy what dessert you can have. That is delegating because you're giving back to the main parent. What needs to be given back to them. And with time, the kids will learn that when daddy comes home, whenever you need something, ask him. And it's you delegating to dad what you're supporting him with while he was away and giving it back to him because he's back at home. Once you learn the skill and the art of delegating, your step-parenting becomes easier, lighter, less complicated, and less heavy. So learn your own way of delegating and the art of delegating back to the main parent and be the supporting parent, the best supporting parent, this main parent, your spouse, has ever had. Before we end this episode, if you've liked this episode, if you've enjoyed our conversation, go ahead and like, share, subscribe. There's more to share with you, and I'll see you in the next one.