Step families - who does what??

[Vincenza]

Hi

I have been a single mother to a little boy who is 4 1/2 since he was 18 months. Recently my partner (who I have been going out with since my son was 3) moved in. We both work full time and earn similarly good salaries. Every month I pay school fees for my son and also for an au pair. I get very basic maintenance from my ex husband. At the moment I feel that all the responsibility for my son lies with me. I never ask my partner to babysit or to take my son to school (although he has offered). We are thinking of having another baby next year which will mean that my salary will be significantly reduced for a number of months and we will obviously have to work as a team both parentally and financially. I was wondering what other people do in this situation and at what point do you change from a single mother, child and boyfriend to a proper family unit?

[catsmother]

I would have said that you have to be prepared to work as a unit from the moment you move in with someone who has a child. After all - children are not invisible, and it's impossible IMO to co-exist in a household with anyone else - child or adult - without your life being affected. What I mean .... I don't think it's possible to live paralell lives, and to do so would give a very unbalanced impression to the child.

I have been in your situation, and whilst I do understand you don't want to "dump" on your partner (I didn't want mine to think I was pleased we'd moved in together so he could reduce my childcare load) surely partners support each other as and when necessary ? My partner doesn't do much for my son on a practical day to day basis, as much because of his job's demands as anything, but, for example, when I had an op earlier in the year, my partner saw my son was fed, got to school etc. In the past, we have all done things together - we went on holiday together .... it's only that my oldest is now 17 that family time of any sort with him is pretty rare.

[lilacclaire]

I have been with my partner since my ds was under 1. DS is now 3.

DP's salary and my salary are paid into my account. I pay all the bills out of it, shopping etc anything we need etc etc, treats for me

DP gets a small amount of child maintenance paid into his account (his ds also lives with us). I only ask for this if we are skint, otherwise dp uses it for whatever (very small amount anyway).

Money has never really been an issue tbh, we've either got it or we haven't, as long as the bills are paid. Anything thats left over, we usually go to a concert or do something together.

As far as ferrying ds to childminder etc, this mainly falls on dp, due to the fact that he drives and i don't.

Also I work on a shift pattern, so dp will babysit and its basically whoever is not at work will take responsibility for the kids.

We became a 'proper' family unit definetly the minute we all moved in together if not before, as there as a lot of planning etc before we moved in, im sure his salary was paid into my account the month before we moved in together (just getting him used to having no money

His DS is less of an issue for needing looked after as he is a teenager (although he certainly needs more money to keep entertained )

[chocchipcookie]

I'm a bit confused by your post. I don't think there are any rules on this - you do what you do.
Do you mean that you want to be a proper family unit and you feel you aren't?
If so I would definitely involve your dp more now because if you have a baby he is going to have a lot more time with your ds while you focus on the baby.