How far would you go to accept your step-kids?

After you have been married to the love of your life and everything seems to be moving just fine, your spouse breaks the news of having children with another and pleads to bring them to stay in your home. Would you accept them or not? The following are views of some respondents.Ahmed Mohammed, a 36-year-old […]

After you have been married to the love of your life and everything seems to be moving just fine, your spouse breaks the news of having children with another and pleads to bring them to stay in your home. Would you accept them or not? The following are views of some respondents.
Ahmed Mohammed, a 36-year-old banker, says he has absolutely no problem accepting his wife’s children. He is of the view that as long as he loves and respects his wife, her relations have become his as well. “Personally I will allow my wife’s kids to stay with us even though I am not their biological father. The reason is because their father could either be dead or he is not responsible enough to cater for them. I love my wife, therefore I will also love her children. My priority would be to give them the best training any caring dad would give to his children.”
25-year-old businesswoman, Deborah Joseph, says for her there is every reason to accept her husband’s children because marriage has made them one. “My arms are wide open to accept them as my children because from my point of view, my husband’s children from another woman are also my children. It is undoubtedly my responsibility to take care of them. As a woman, I wouldn’t want to see my children abandoned and even if they were due to circumstances, I would want a kind-hearted woman to take care of them. Therefore in order to save the children from being wayward, I’d accept them and give them the best training. Also I will make my own children accept them as their siblings.”
Joseph added that she thinks that is what every responsible woman should do and not otherwise.
Fatima Abdulkadir, 32, is a lawyer who says she would do anything to please her husband. She also believes one of the easiest ways to make a husband happy is by treating his children well. “I’m married to a man with two kids. He lost his wife during childbirth. After he lost both his wife and baby, he became destabilized and lost focus, so the children had to move in with their grandparents. It actually took him years before he finally got over his loss and decided to move on. When we began dating, it was the fact that his kids were motherless that gingered me to marry him. I thought about how those innocent children wouldn’t be able to feel a mother’s love and I also worried about their upbringing especially seeing that they were with their grandparents. You know how some grandparents tend to over-pamper and spoil their grandchildren. I took it upon myself that I will marry him for the sake of the kids and be the best mother to them on earth. I have been blessed with three children of my own, and believe me, till date my children don’t know that they don’t come from the same mother with their half siblings. I have a happy family which gives me the greatest joy.” She urged women to follow her footsteps and not be stereotypical “evil step-mums” portrayed in movies.
Joy Tarfa, a student of University of Maiduguri, says that is a very difficult situation to handle. Nevertheless, she said, there are certain instances that warrant a woman to accept children otherwise she has all the rights not to. “If the man I am to marry once got married and had kids with his wife but she died or divorced him, I will gladly accept the children and live with them. But if he got the child out of wedlock, yet he didn’t tell me about it until after we got married, then I will be left with no option but to reject the child. Truthfully, I will be reluctant to forgive him and the fact that he lied to me is what will stop me from accepting his children. Every marriage should be transparent.”
Adaobi Okoye, 26, is an undergraduate at the University of Nsukka who says the situation would determine her reaction. “If my husband tells me about his children from another woman before marriage, I would accept them wholeheartedly and treat them fairly. However, if he decides to hide it from me and until after our marriage, I won’t accept. In fact I will consider that as a betrayal and apparently that justifies my action. The main reason why I wouldn’t accept the children is simply because if we live in the same house, I will maltreat them and also transfer the anger from my husband to the kids. Honestly, I wouldn’t want that to happen and that is why in the first place I won’t even accept them.”
Joseph Ugo, a gateman in his mid 20s, is of the opinion that each individual has his own way of accepting and handling things. For him, he has nothing against the idea of accepting his wife’s children from another man. “The most important thing is if you have mutual understanding and trust. Besides, most of us have done things in the past that we now regret. For instance, let’s say my wife had a child when she was a teenager and the father is not taking up his responsibility, I will accept the child and take care of him.”
Ugo added that accepting a step-child is a blessing to the family, as he knows of a woman married for close to twenty years with no child, and her husband had a child with another woman and therefore they brought him over and embraced him as their only child.