Fire exposes our priorities?

I have two stepsons, 9 and 11 from my husband, and a 6 month old biodaughter. My husband and stepsons now hate me, but I think my actions were justified. We had a house fire a few weeks ago where the house was not able to be saved. Some of the things in the master bedroom could be salvaged, but the kid's rooms could not.

When I was young and living away from my own mother, my mother and baby brother died in a fire. I was shown graphic images of their injuries to "teach me a lesson". What I learned was that in a fire, babies are the top priority to get to safety as they die the fastest. It took so long to have her that I couldn't deal with losing her. So when that fire alarm went off, I didn't even think. I grabbed the baby and ran her and her diaper bag outside. My husband wasn't home, so I just yelled for the others to get up and get out.

To me, I was doing the only proper thing. However, to everyone else's point of view, they just saw me only caring about "my precious bio baby" and leaving everyone else to die. That's not true. Of course I care about them. But the fact of the matter is that they had more ability to save themselves, and more time to BE saved.

The fire department even said that the baby would likely have died of smoke inhalation if there had been any delay. The kids could get themselves up and run, especially with my screaming.

Am I wrong here?

notthefavorite's blog
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You did what any mother would do.

There a thing about step parents. The question. In a house fire would you save your bio first or step kid first. Everyone who answer said bio first. If you divorced, you may never see step kid again. You have no real connection to a step kid

You did what any mother would do.

You were in an impossible

You were in an impossible situation. You did the right thing. You helped the one that couldn't help herself.

I don't know what you did after you got your baby outside, I don't know how far the others were behind you. The moral of the story is everyone is safe. That is where the focus needs to be. You screamed, you banged, you did what you could as a human. You aren't superman.

Now, if the others weren't immediately behind you and you weren't banging on windows or screaming more or whatever, yes- I could see issues. You probably shouldn't have a picnic on the lawn and watch your house burn without doing everything you can to make sure all the kids are out. However, it seems that they made it safely out. I am sure that emotions are high due to the extreme stress of the situation. Hindsight is 20/20. There may have been something you could have done differently and still all been safe but at the moment, you didn't know what that was and that is ok!!

The baby had no

The baby had no ability to get herself anywhere. The skids did. It sounds like they made it out safe and sound right after you and the baby did due to your shouted directions. Is that correct? I fail to see anything that you did wrong here.

Exactly what kind of accusations are people making beyond that you care more about the baby than the skids and what repercussions are being threatened? From what you are saying, it sounds like no one is even remembering that YOUR HOUSE BURNED DOWN and you just lost everything. Maybe this would be a good time not to focus literally everything on the the skids, who presumably can go back to their mother, and look at the entire situation. Unless the skids were in a burning house alone while you and your baby sat comfortably on the lawn and toasted marshmallows in the flames, I would tell anyone who was daring to give you a hard time or forcing you to justify your actions to kiss your ass.