And we thought Cinderella and Snow White had it bad.
Katrina Simmons is a stay-at-home mother of three who also has three step children who split their time between their home with their father and Simmons and their biological mother’s home. Simmons recently published an extraordinarily long, detailed account about how she dislikes her step children on The Daily Mail.
And while Simmons claims she speaks for many women who “secretly feel the same,” I am pretty sure I speak for a much larger majority of women who think this woman is the definition of the not-so friendly term “step monster”.
I am not a step-mother and I also never had a step-mother; my parents are still happily married. So I cannot claim to understand the difficult transitions that blended families undergo. I can’t speak to how hard it must be to welcome a whole new group of children into your life. I can’t make a judgement on Simmons’s personal thought that, “I sometimes wish we could drop the pretence and my stepchildren would all clear off and leave me alone.”
I believe that most step parents—and step children for that matter—struggle with these types of thoughts at some point or another.
What I take issue with is Simmons writing a 2,500 word op-ed piece about the disdain she feels towards her step children. Actually, it isn’t even the writing that gets me. It’s the publishing—this piece is out there on the internet. If she thought things were bad at home before, imagine how awkward things got after the kids read this dozy.
She also somehow managed to trick the entire blended family into posing for a photo shoot that accompanies the article. Sorry let me just pick my jaw up off the floor.
Here are some of my favourite, most mind-boggling lines from the article:
1. The fact is I didn’t enter willingly into a relationship with these three. I fell in love with Kevin, not his children; they just came as part of the package.
Hmmm… but you knew full well that Kevin had kids before you started the relationship; your kids are actually the reason you met.
2. That hasn’t stopped me trying to buy her affection. I’ve spent hundreds of pounds on girlie days out at the hairdresser with her, then hear on the blended family grapevine that she’d been sniping about me behind my back.
Maybe she is smarter than you think. Maybe she sees you’re just trying to buy her off with blowouts and she’s not having any of it.
3. It’s hard to love a child who obviously cares so little about what’s important to you.
Hello, welcome to parenting… do you really think your four-year-old gives a damn about what you want? Probably not.
This whole situation just makes me want to pull my hair out.
“I’m not a villain out of a Dickens novel,” Simmons claims. “I believe in a routine of supper, homework, a catch-up about their day and a little bit of TV together before a strictly observed bedtime.”
No, Katrina you are right. Giving your kids a routine to stick to does not make you villain. In fact it makes you a responsible mother. However, publically declaring your disdain for your step kids and spelling out every flaw you see in them for the entire world to read, that makes you a villain.
And hey if I was your step daughter Emma—who you just publically called “really hard work”, “mercurial”, “frustratingly mischievous” and snippy—I’d be boycotting you marrying my dad, too.
If my options are Katrina Simmons and an honest-to-goodness evil fairy tale step mother, sign me up for the poison apple, thank you very much.
I don’t even know where to start. There is a REASON that some secret feelings should remain secrets. DUH!! You know how some people think it would be nice to have a dog so they go to a shelter and pick out a puppy and bring it home and buy lots of silly toys and beds and sometimes even clothes for it, but is shocked at how much work and patience and carpet cleaner is required for teaching a puppy how to be a Good Family Citizen and within a few weeks it is obvious to EVERYBODY that this person had no idea what he or she was getting into and had no clue how to raise a puppy which isn’t just bad for that person, but could potentially ruin the life of that dog, all because she did not read the fine print before signing the adoption papers?
Yeah…I wonder how many puppies Katrina Simmons has adopted and returned.
A few years ago I became a stepmother to two teenagers. It was TOUGH! And sometimes, especially right at first, they very clearly tested me, and sometimes outright rebelled against me. But they were teenagers, and at that stage of development they ought to have been rebelling against everything! And, of course, the reality is that of COURSE they were going to resent me. I wasn’t their mother, I wasn’t part of their early family memories, and I was not the woman they thought should be with their father. I had to accept that this was normal and appropriate, and I had to give them the space and support to work through it. Being a mother of any kind means putting the needs of your children way ahead of your own. Shame on any Simmons for not understanding or even faking an understanding of that. And we can be sure her selfishness is messing up her own (biological) kids, as well.
My step kids and I are quite close now, by the way, and there is a lot of harmony and support in our family. I love my kids; I am so happy that they were part of the package deal that came with my husband!