Fall in love with a man who has children. Fall in love with a woman who has children. These children are young, and then you are thrown into the flow of these children’s daily lives. Possibly completely against the will of the other biological parent, themselves and maybe even you. Custody can put a strain on children, biological parents, and the new marriage involved.
This is not always a fairy tale as it is. These children were raised by different people. by different standards. They may have a very different moral upbringing than yours or your children’s transition into the image as well.
How do you think you will marry the father:
It’s easy to say “They’re just kids, and they will come” or to say “I’ll leave the parenting to the biological parents and be friends with the kids” or “I’ll be the wonderful parent in their lives,” but these sayings don’t solve every situation. Custody can affect any family that shows the “best interest” for the children.
Custody is not contingent on who “loves” them the most. When brought up with custody issues, stay-at-home moms and dads should have some authority to discipline when the biological parent is at the store, work, or school. They need authority in the home to gain respect and not walk or be taken advantage of by either biological parent during custody disputes.
It’s always easy to judge from an outside perspective and think you’ll never really have much hands-on time. Especially when you and your husband work. But consider that you are marrying someone who has a young child. They decide to run off to the store, will you stop potty training, refuse a nappy change, or not feed them until that parent returns? Would you ask a child to listen politely and not draw on the walls because it is not your place to discipline when they are caught doing something wrong and let them continue? Are you going to make sibling fights completely spiral out of control because you don’t have the authority to get them to listen?
For your step, children, I hope not. In some cases, parenthood can be a great step. Both biological parents may be mature enough to understand that love will exist after they separate and that embracing more people who love your children is what is best for your children.
How do biological parents act?
In other cases, there is not always maturity. There is bitterness, anger, resentment, and even pure hatred. Breaking children and turning them against one parent or the other. There may be a parent pushing their children and forcing them to say or speak bad things in order to get custody. And when a parent scores in this type of situation, it becomes the biggest target on that parent’s back.
In my experience, Step Parenting started fairly easily. The kids took me in quickly and all of my extended family loved it. Once their biological mother realized I was here to stay, things took a sharp turn for the worse. Nursery became an issue as things deteriorated for the children after my arrival. And with that, parenting became a battlefield in my home to demand respect, to ask my husband to support my play, and to make sure the kids weren’t there to replace anyone.
Picking up and dropping off passengers has become panic driven. How will children behave today? Are they unspoiled and excited about the week we have planned, or are they forced to think that time with us is just being mean to their mom? Is our birthday party as good as hers? Will they complain again about every meal I cook for their mother? On this holiday, the children will be excited, or will they cry again because of how sad their mother is that they are with us? Will they come to the custody hearing and say what their mother told them this week? How many weeks will this last? For me, it will last 3 years.
There are resources for blended and foster families such as therapy and family counseling that can help. But if there is no concrete team in your own home, no amount of therapy can handle the pain of being caught in the middle of a situation you weren’t a part of from the start. Finger pointing, bad behavior, and resentment in children will build so rapidly in some of their formative years that it can take God’s hand and wisdom to undo the bitter work of men and women in their lives.
I’m not saying it can’t happen, but the journey to perfection when starting out on such a bumpy road seems unbearable. It may seem as if there is no end in sight. It might be best to bow to them. But it is not. You are a single parent, you and your spouse, who are ready to fight for what is best for them, then you need to understand that there is a goal.
We may not understand the journey. Or why the road is so rocky now or why the nursery has to be questionable, but kids thrive on consistency. Be there and be a light in their lives. They will come to see her. You have to hope you are there to see it. Otherwise, have confidence that God has brought you together with the person you were meant to be with. Only the two of you can face the powers of the world together. Only the two of you can get through this ramshackle date together. Dig into the dirt road and start building pavers that will guide you to a better path than there was before.
In the end, marrying someone is not something to be taken lightly no matter what society pays for marriage to seem. And when kids are involved, time and understanding is the only thing that will help you persevere. Especially when custody is in spite of the court. Sometimes it feels like we’re wandering through the woods with no humanity in sight, but there’s always humanity outside the woods and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.