She should be more interested in her SD's welfare in an ideal world, she sounds like such a selfish person. You are obviously doing a fantastic job and I'm sure your SD and husband really appreciate your hard work. I know it's a team effort with children whether they are your own or step children but he should recognise your efforts and one way of recognising them is to tell people about it - especially the woman who should be doing it!
Sometimes my partner doesn't recognise my efforts until it's too late and I blow up at him. For example, I was slowly but surely getting sick of certain things, but it wasn't until we had a huge fight and he saw how distressed I was that he started to thank me and then bought me flowers. My man seems to get used to me nagging him and gets annoyed at me - he doesn't pick up on any signal that I am getting sick of feeling like a doormat... he's slowly learning though.
Why do you want her to know what you do? Do you actually care what she thinks or do you just want some thanks from either parent? It's nice to be recognised, is there even a step mom and step dad day? I always think it sucks how birth parents get these lovely days of recognition but us step parents don't get recognised - not in Australia anyway.

(I've been dying to say that in some conversation, somewhere) about deadbeat moms. Anyway, I'm not sure where the writer lives, but in my state parents can't sign off on CS without a judge's say-so. In other words, a parent can't refuse child support, because in theory it's for the benefit of the children, not the parent (yeah, right, in most cases involving a BM). If the father has a court order granting him custody, I would expect the judge also settled on child support for the noncustodial parent, no? Is it a matter of her just not paying the prescribed amount? I would have a huge problem with this situation!

My husbands Lawyer literally had to browbeat him into asking for CS, $150 a month for 2 kids??? And she still quit every job she had to avoid garnessment of wages, I told hubby that if she would only leave us alone,we would not serve her, but if she continued to harrass, it was only right to seek out the CS,IF IT WEREN'T FOR ME, HE NEVER WOULD HAVE SEEN A DIME.I can't tell you how many times I had to play detective,she would hide out. I even told her to leave us alone, and we would do the same,dumba**,she would get so mad! HeHe

hangingin

I never would have said this before my personal brush with the legal system, but it really is stacked against fathers! It's a shame that with all this talk about "deadbeat dads," even those fathers who have custody of their children most days of the week still must pay CS, for whatever reason -- be it lack of money for a lawyer, "fear" of BM's reaction, etc. I don't understand why the courts seem to have sympathy for the mother going in and just assume the man is a deadbeat.

AND, I am a child of divorce! HAD a deadbeat dad (I forgive him,but I never forget) So I know both sides. I never even knew there were women out there like that until the HUMAN LEACH,(as I lovingly call the EX)came into my life.I do get down from time to time,but I am very stubborn when it comes to knowing "in my gut" what is right and what is wrong,and I ALWAYS stand my ground.

hangingin

Lovers do not finally meet somewhere, they were with each other all along.

And let me just throw out some numbers for you ladies. Sorry, might be a bit long..

1. 87% of custodial fathers spend more time after a divorce, with their children even though most are working longer hours and many have to drive for more than an hour to see them.

2.A national Harvard study found that even when race,education, poverty,and similar socioeconomic factors are equal, children living without their father more than double their chances of dropping out of highschool.

3.65% of juveniles and young adults in state-operated institutions come from homes without fathers.

4.Agian, National Harvard studies have shown along with The National Center for Health Statistics that a child living with his/her divorced mother, with no real contact with his/her bio father, is 375% more likely to need professional treatment for emotional or behavioral problems.

5. When fathers do not or are kept from visitations with their children after divorce, girl children showed signs of behaving hyperactive, headstrong, and antisocial. Boys showed signs of more nightmares, greater anxiety, and being more hostile with adults. Both showed signs of over-dependency on the mother.

6.90% of all homeless or runaway children are from fatherless homes.

7.Daughters who are raised by the mothers are 92% more likely to divorce than daughters who have ongoing relationships with their fathers (after the parents divorce.)

8.73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes.

9.80% of rapists who were evaluated as raping out of anger and rage came from father-absent homes.

10.A new Danish study found that in a study of 1,200 children, aged 3 to 5, the boys who lived with their dads were much less likely to experience problems of feeling like victims. They were less sensitive to criticism and had fewer temper tantrums, further boys with ADD, and living with their fathers were only half as likely to experience problems with concentration, and more likely to have more playmates.

11.The U.S Department of Health and Human Services found in a 2004 study that approximately 275 children killed each year by single mothers or fathers, that single mothers are 24 times more likely to be the killers, finding also that in the majority of abuse cases by a parent, it is often the single mother at a staggering 88% that is the abuser, not the single father.In this country alone over 43% of all REPORTED abuse cases were in single mother homes. 2/3 of mothers in this study acknowledged hitting children under 6, 3 or more times per week, with 7% of mothers with children under 6, hitting their child right in front of the interviewers of this study.

12.Children with close ties to either their stepfathers or stepmothers in long standing and stable homes did as well as those who grew up with both biological parents. Because of the longstanding and stable home, chances of adjustment are increased by 65%.

13.Children living with their fathers are less likely to manifest the 7 charecteristics of "victim".
a)feeling vicitimized by other children b)seizures of fear c)frequent nightmares d)low-selfesteem/self-worth e)sensitivity to criticism f)temper tantrums g) feelings of lonesomeness.
It is difficult for a victim to trust and even harder for a victim to trust someone who cannot trust, who needs to create a perpetrator when not everything goes his/her way.....The group of women who feel the most victimized are of course single mothers.

14.Fathers who are custodial parents are more likely to allow, even encourage ongoing communications, visitations with the biological mother,than the biological mother is concerned with encouraging the ongoing communications and visitations with the biological father.

15. The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry did a study in 2003, that showed that though the decision to keep a child with its mother is theoretically made in the best interests of the child, of children surveyed later in life, fewer than half felt their mother's motives had anything to do with their best interests. That 40% of custodial mothers reported that they had refused at tleat once to let their ex-husbands see their children, and admitting that their reasons had nothing to do with the children's wishes or safety, but were somehow punitive in nature. Of these same women interviewed, approximately 50% saw no value in the fathers contact with his children and actievely tried to sabotage it or resented the the fathers attempts at contact.

16.Astudy of children at approximately 8 years post divorce found that 54% of the children said only their mothers spoke badly of their fathers in front of them, with only 12% stating the fathers spoke badly of the mothers in front of them.

17.Full-time fathers are much less likely to recieve money from the mother...50% less likely. Even when full-time fathers and full-time mothers make the SAME amount, mothers are ordered to pay only 80% of what the father must pay. Further, when a woman FAILS to pay, she is far less likely to be found in contempt of court or sentenced to jail. This one-sided persecution of fathers is unconstitutional and sexist. The justification for not putting women who fail to pay child support as ordered, is that a mother is needed to care for her children, yet men with these same children go to prison, this is a breach of the 14th amendment's " Equal Protection Under the Law" clause. Making this action agiants fathers unconstitutional!

18)The United States Goverment spends $3.4 billion on Child Support Enforcement...When mothers( mostly) deny father's access to their children, our goverment backs out, spending only $ 10 million on "visitation" enforcement. In essence the goverment spends $340 disciplining dads for each dollar it spends disciplining mom's.

Just a little insight, there is so much more I could show everyone, but I hope this gives some answers to alot of questions to how and why fathers are walked over in our current goverment. We can only hope that sooner than later our goverment will start acknowledging fathers and their rights, and what is truly in the best interest of our children. I would love to hear other's thoughts on these study's and findings.

Very interesting facts.