Red Room Where the Writers Are

I have tried for the last 8 years to understand how difficult it is to be a step-parent, but I am coming up empty.  I myself am a step-parent to a 14 year old.  He is relatively easy going, doesn't give me a whole lot of trouble, and really is a good kid.  I really have few complaints.  Sometimes he might drive me crazy, but that is his job as a KID.  My issue is with the woman who is step-mom to my son.  She seems nice enough but there is one drawback:  she dislikes kids.  And that is putting it nicely.  If she had her way, kids wouldn't exist.  She barely tolerates my son, and sometimes, just sometimes, I get the feeling that she looks for reasons to dislike my son.  Since the day I met her, she has been extremely vocal (even around my son) about her dislike for children and her inability to understand those of us out there that are parents, teach, or enjoy children at all.  She has told me countless times that she wished her doctors would listen to her and allow her to stop her own ability to have children.  She finds children rather stupid, and hates the idea of having to repeat herself to any child.  Wait, isn't that what parents do?  Repeat ourselves over and over until we are blue in the face and then they finally hear us? What happened to her to make her hate children so much?

 If you feel this way, then why on earth are you with someone who has a child?  If you are not even remotely interested in trying to get along with the child, why would you continue to pursue the other parent?  These are questions that are running through my mind as we struggle to get my son help.  He is tired of trying to be nice to her, and honestly, I can't say that I blame him. I try to be supportive of her, reminding him that at her house he has to follow her rules, no matter how unfair they may seem.  I have told him that he needs to learn to play "the game" in order to make it through each day.  Is it right?  No.  Do I agree with it?  No.  But, in light of the situation lately, I don't see how else he can survive.  It is how I survived my adolescence.  I played the game in order to make it through, finding other outlets to vent my frustration and to lose myself in another world.  I understood that I had to do that because I didn't have anyone to lean on or count on.  He has me and his stepdad, but that is not enough.  So, he has to learn in his own way what his modes of escape are. 

 Any thoughts?