I wanted to thoroughly reply to your post so I broke it down, bit by bit. There are answers and even some free advice included. I hope I didn't use too many big words though, and that you fully understand all of it. ***** "My dad remarried about 4 years ago. My mom passed away 5 years ago." So? I assume his vows to your mom were "til death do us part" and he lived up to that. ***** "The problem is I and my husband dont care for her." So? You and your husband are not married to her, what's the problem? ***** "My dad moved her into our home that my mom shared with my dad." So? I assume it's HIS house now. ***** "He isnt my real father but he is my dad since I was 2 . my 2 brothers and my sister act nice to her in front of her face but they dont like the fact that my dad moved another woman into the home." So? He's been in your life a LONG time and it's his house now, right? Who cares if your siblings like it or not. At least they are being nice to her face. They were taught something at least. (even if they really don't like her) ***** "My dad has alot of photos of all of us being a family and alot of photos of my mom in the living room i heard my dad ask her if the pictures bothered her she said no not at all." So? Sounds like a nice person that respects and accepts his past life... doesn't want to erase it & pretend it never existed. Sounds very mature to me. ***** "I was waiting foe her to say that she didnt want them up i was going to go off on her. So, you are looking for a reason to start problems where there are none. Sounds awfully immature. ***** "I told her one time why dont you rent the place across the street." So, you actually did try to start problems with something that is none of your business. Nice. Sounds terribly immature. ***** "She wouldnt say anything" Because she is a mature adult & it was a childish statement. ***** "we dont want her taking away anything that belongs to us kids. its not hers." At this moment, everything belongs to her husband. If YOUR things are in the house, you should go get them. If you are talking about an inheritance, you are only entitled to what is left to you in a will from your mom or your dad. If your dad is the one that controls any inheritance, I might tread lightly on pissing him off by being a b!tch to his wife... he may decide to leave it all to her, and it's his right to if he chooses. ***** "even my husband has gone to her and told her alot of lies and we told her if she said anything to my dad we would deny it. that my dad would always take our side.." So, you are also involving your husband who has even less business caring what happens with your dad, his life, etc. And you are having him "test" her to see if she will tattle on you? What are you, in kindergarten? Really? And you are hoping to "test" dad's loyalty to you? Is this for real? So, not only are you and your husband being imature, you are both liars to boot. Nice. Your mom must be so proud. ***** "how can we get rid of her. shes a wimp" You can get rid of her by having your own life. If she calls you and wants to involve herself into YOUR life, tell you who you can marry & live with, where you can live, how you should live, etc.... then come back here & we will all be happy to give you some more free advice.

After reading all of the above posts I just have to wonder...what must it be like for THESE CHILDREN to have to ask their stepparent if they can call them mom or dad? What is it like for THESE CHILDREN to be introduced as step or half or my husband's/wife's kid? I am quite certain of one thing-it is so dang hard to be a kid these days. It is so dang hard to try to fit in at school, in sports, let alone two different households. How must they feel? How alone or how confused? Why not just do what makes them comfortable? I personally have no experience with stepparents. My own parents have been married for 32 years. However, my mom has experience with every type of HORRIBLE stepparent that has ever lived. Her stepmother used to make HER daughters peanut butter and jelly and made my mom and her sisters freakish cheap lunchmeat sandwhiches. She burned all the baby pictures of my mom an her sisters and did absolutely unspeakable things I won't even mention. And do you know what she told me when I started dating a man with kids? She said, "I never wanted to be a stepmom because of my experiences as a kid. But I made a decision very early on that if I were ever to become a stepmom, I was going to be the best damn one that ever lived!" So here I am, and I'm going to be the best damn stepmom that ever lived. And if my stepkids are more comfortable being introduced as 'my kids' or if the day comes when they want to call me mom, or whatever have you, I'm going to do my best to make them feel good. BECAUSE IT'S NOT ABOUT ME!!! IT'S ABOUT THESE PRECIOUS CHILDREN!!! And I love them!

I mentioned last May that both SD25 and SD24 raged at us, mainly their Dad, for neglecting them, and leaving them out and not spending time with them. DH and I both are very sensitive people, and took this very hard coming from them. It caused to to reflect and examine our behavior to them, and did we really do what we are being accused of? We felt that we were unjustly accused. So, to be objective, and look at facts, I made a journal starting the month in September 2005 when I met their Dad. I logged into the journal every time that we had contact with them. I included times that we actually visited them, where the visit was, what we did, and who picked up the tab. I also included all of the times that we invited them, but they turned us down. Mind you that we wouldn't just say, can you come Friday night at 6pm. We'd say something more like, "We have off of work for the next 3 days, would you like to get together sometime in the next three days?" We tried to be extremely accomodating with our schedule, because we placed a high importance on spending time with them. DH never said, as one of the posts said that he told his girls that, "Sorry I don't have time for you". He bent over backwards to try to do things with them, and make them feel comfortable with the new marriage. My journal showed an average of every 2 weeks or twice a month that we actually spent time with SD24. With SD25 it was about 1 time a month, but she was attending college out of our area, so it is natural to see her less. When my son went to college his freshman year, I said Good Bye in August, and didn't see him til Christmas. He never accused me of neglecting him. He knew I was sacrificing in order to help pay his tuition, and he was pretty glad to get home at Christmas. After Christmas break, we saw him at Easter, then not til college dismissed in June. I have no regrets, and DS23 doesn't feel neglected. Also it was a HUGE change for DS23 because I filed for divorce from his father, after 25 years, right before Christmas. He went to school in the fall with a whole family, and came home to a mess on Christmas break. Never accused me of neglecting him! And a huge stress on his shoulders. With SS29 we see him about 5 times a year since he lives 1200 miles away, they come home quite often. But SS29 never complains about being neglected. SS29 is always polite and respectful, just clueless about social graces. SD24 would sometimes say to us that her DH didn't want to always have to do the driving to come over and spend time with us. They live an hour away from us. So, my DH said to her, "What do you want us to do? Do you want us to just invite ourselves to your house? You're newly weds, should we just pop in without an invitation? We've never been invited to your place." Her answer was that we were welcome any time. So again, DH said, "should we just show up on your doorstep at mealtime?" An hour is a long way to drive when you don't know if anyone is going to be home or not. We clearly don't feel comfortable barging in on our young adult children without an invitation. Yet an invitation almost never came. SD24 invited her Dad over and made him a delicious birthday dinner 18 months ago. That was the last invitation from her to do anything with her. Like I said, my journal showed either we visited or made invitations that were turned down on average of every 2 weeks for the past 3 years! The invites were sometime as a couple, and sometimes just Dad. It depended on our schedules. Sometime I'd be working, and he'd make plans with his kids while I was at work, etc. Same thing with phone calls, they hardly ever call just to visit with him to see how he's doing, or to see if he would like to get together with them. He does almost 100% of the contacting. They usually contact him when they need something from him, or when there is some benefit in it for them, or obligatory times like his birthday, etc. I made a pact with myself in September 2008 that I was going to stop trying so hard to gain their approval, stop contacting them altogether. I have been and will continue to be polite to them, try as hard as I know how to make them feel comfortable and welcome in our home, and I will answer any communication that they direct my way. I will NOT initiate any communication from me to them. The ball is in their court now. None of my 3 SK have contacted me since September, except my SS29'sW who emailed to see when I was sending out the Easter outfits for the SGKs. They have been told by their father, that they are welcome here anytime, they don't even need to call ahead. He said it would be better if they'd phone ahead, but they are always welcome. We think that kids should always have a standing invitation at their parents house. My DH actually cries sometimes. He is very sensitive. He feels that his daughters have neglected him! He has confronted them about this, and they say that things will change. And they do for about 2 weeks. Then they drop out of circulation until he hunts them down again. DH feels that he should do his part as a responsible parent, and try to build the relationship. If they don't do their part that is their decision, but he has the confidence of knowing that he has tried to spend time with them.

The point though is that when kids aren't all in the same age group or geographic location or school schedule, it can become impractical to take them all on one vacation. If you want to call it a "family vacation", you should take all the kids, yes. But I see nothing wrong with taking some kids some places and other kids others - provided one child (or group of children) isn't specifically being excluded from all the vacations. Sure, if we had all been between 8 and 14, it would have been rude of our parents to only take some of us... But since you seem so worried about it being fair - what if one kid was TERRIFIED of rides and mascots but loved camping, while the other three HATED camping, but were pumped to go to Disneyland? Is it fair that three get the vacation of a lifetime and one is miserable? What if the first kid said "Mom, can I stay home with GM this week while you guys to go Disneyland, and then you and I can go camping for a weekend?" Would that be fair? If not, who is it unfair to, and why? How about my family? My Dad and SM mentioned to her two youngest daughters that they were planning on going to Spain. The girls (~23 and 28 at the time) decided to save up and go with them. About a month before they left, Dad and SM told me and my sister that they were going and asked if we would like to come too. When we said "No, we can't afford it" they said "SM's girls have been saving for like 7 months" and appeared genuinely confused that we hadn't been saving for a trip they forgot to tell us about. I was mildly annoyed that they told her girls months before they told us, but I also know that this was not intentional. They buy stuff for her girls all the time, but not for any of us. However, we don't ask for much, and they do. I don't consider this a slight on my parents' part, I consider this as me not being greedy like my stepsisters. Under your theories of how SMs shouldn't have any say in their SCs' lives, but be required to be equal between all kids all the time, my dad and SM should be buying me crap all the time! I say that's a load of horsehooey.