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[quote=Anonymous]Stepmom here.  Have you read "Stepmonster?"  It's a really helpful book.  I thought things would be easier having adult stepkids, too, but it's just hard in a different way.

The truth is, you're probably going to be something close to the "evil stepmother" no matter what you do.  You have to focus on preserving your marriage, not keeping his adult children appeased or even pleased with you.  They're probably not going to be.

I think it is very fair to set the same groundrules for post-college support, even if the kids are generations apart and you have more resources now.  But that's fairly easy for me to say because I'd believe that adult children should support themselves even if I had another 50K to throw around a year, which I don't.  I would not pay for graduate school tuition, non-schooling rent, cars, cell phones, weddings, down payments, etc. even for my own child, and I do not support giving that kind of money to my DSD.

My DSD complains sometimes that it's not fair that her baby brother gets to grow up in a house while she had to grow up in a townhouse.  And I retort that she had a dad who was 20 years younger and had more time and energy - it's not all fair.  We pay for half of her tuition, room, and board (her mom is supposed to pay the other half) and she is expected to pay for all incidentals, partying, etc.

She actually said once that we should pay for her to have a wedding in a place at least as nice as the one where we were married.  I was flabbergasted.  She was like, "Well, it wouldn't be fair if you had a nicer wedding than mine!" and I was like, um, our parents didn't pay for this wedding, we did.  You'll have whatever wedding you can afford at the time.  She thought that was grossly unfair.  She also thinks it's unfair that the apartment that she rented in college (that we paid for half of) was not as nice as our house, and that she had to use hand-me-down pots and pans from us rather than getting a brand new set of everything.  What ever happened to earning things yourself?  It wasn't until I was 25 until I bought a brand new set of cookware and dishes...because I earned them![/quote]

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