To think stepparents should not be financially responsible for other people's children?

All well and good but what if you can’t work for any period of time due to, say, illness or other serious condition? Would your ex husband step up and fill in the gaps?

My bio dad had to pay a load of money (unpaid child support) to my mum and stepdad. They spent it on a holiday to Australia (didn't take me, obvs).

My dad had argued that he didn't have to pay child support as I was legally adopted by my stepdad and took his name (we all had to pretend he was my bio dad, even though I'm blonde like my real dad's side of the family and he is dark and swarthy) but he still didn't want to pay for me. It was a stupid, messy situation where none of the adults behaved with any kind of maturity or consideration for anyone other than themselves.

It depends in what way, for the 50% of the time he's at my house, I will buy groceries to accommodate that, I'll buy him clothes or gifts as a treat and we (my boyfriend and I) split the cost of an annual holiday and Christmas. But when it comes to school clothes, essentials, clubs, activities, equipment etc, that's for the parents to split. I choose not to have children, I don't want to be burdened with the cost of a child regardless of who I am with! To those with children- being in a relationship with someone is not a ticket to get them to pay for stuff or help with the cost of raising a child, you should be able to cover your 50% your own self.

What is, in your view, the role of a step-parent?

I dont have an clear opinion but would love to see what you think.

I don’t think step parents have a responsibility to provide so much as a responsibility not to be an arsehole to a child.
for example, if I’m arranging a trip for the family, I will happily pay for DSD. If I’m buying treats at the local farm shop I will of course buy a fancy cake or something for her.
I won’t, however be arranging my budgets to pay for her school uniform or clothes or clubs. Those are responsibilities I want no part of as I’m not her parent.

Im sorry you had to go through that, thats truly awful x

People keep saying "children should be treated equally" which I agree with but...it makes no sense in this scenario. A stepparent not contributing doesn't make it unequal. All children can be treated equally - all that is different is who is paying for it.

It’s easy for you to say that when you are the higher earner. What about if you couldn’t work due to illness, would you let him help support your kids then?

This doesn't work for lower income families. Mum, stepdad both work full time minimum wage jobs and have 3 kids between them for example. The benefit system takes all income into account and calculates financial assistance on those figures. So step dads income reduces the amount recieved, but he doesn't have to contribute as they aren't his kids?
So in your world, only high income families have the privilege of blending .

You are so right, this is how it should be, but it never is.

No my DCs father (ex) thinks my partner should pay for things for our shared children.

It depends on the family and circumstances.
You are sounding too rigid in your belief system, maybe because it works for you. But what if you dh was financially very stable while your ex had an addiction, in that scenario should there be a rigid belief that only biological parents are responsible so dh shouldn’t help even if children need it. How can you love your step kids, and see them in deprived condition because their biological parents should be financially responsible?

Its not black and white though is it and all families are different. Of course there is no legal obligation but most obligations within a family are moral ones.

I am in similar scenerio to you OP and that I have 2 children from previous relationship and 1 joint with my DH. I was the higher earner for the majority of them growing up, so I paid a higher proportion of things anyway and so you could see that as me taking 100% financial responsibility of my older children.
But how would that work if you (or I) were not the higher earner - would you think it ok for you to struggle to pay for things for your own children when the joint child gets what ever they want/need from DH because they are 'their' child and on a matter of principle?

I personally couldn't be in a relationship where the children were not treated equally. Again I suppose easy for me to say as DH doesn't have any kids that are not mine - though if you asked him he would very much tell you that he has 3 children. We have spent many years as a family and he has done all the stuff for 'my' kids that he has done for 'ours'.

The story usually ends with Cinderella moving out, so we don't know, but it is reasonable to presume that step-parents continue to "care" for step-children in the same manner, i.e. not at all.

Every family situations should be evaluated on it's own merits, there are too many variables to have a one size firs all.

My DC were teens when I met my DH, he doesn't have any children of his own.

I generally pay for my kids, I buy their shoes, clothes, when we go on holidays I pay their share. I pay more for food and energy. I am also the higher earner, almost double my husband so for our family, this feels fair.

If DH was the high earner and he had a child, I would expect all children treated the same, regardless who was paying for that. All children of the household should be treated fairly, regardless of how the adults decide to facilitate that.

I think this is very personal to each family. My DH has never questioned his responsibility to my children that I had prior to meeting him. They don't see their bio dad (his choice) and his contribution financially and practically in their lives has been woeful to say the least. We are really lucky to have such a wonderful man in our lives.

Spot on. Absolutely. They fool themselves and also lie 'it is no problem for the children' and 'he/she makes no difference between my child and our child'. Yeah, right. At least have the decency to say 'I want to get married, have another chance at happiness and my happiness comes first, my children come second'.

I don't really provide financially for my stepchildren - why would I? I have mine own to provide for and they have two more than adequate parents, why do they need a third? If they need clothes, school uniforms, clubs, activities etc it's not coming out of my pocket, their mum and dad pay for this, as they should.

That said, they live with us 50/50 and it's my house and I pay majority of the bills as the higher earner and do all the groceries etc so they are benefiting in that way.

@Mrsnothingthanks Not to highjack the thread - but I had an instance where a single Mum friend asked me to be Godmother to her child (the child's father didn't ever pay anything towards his DC and moved countries)... but then my friend wanted/expected me to financially contribute to her child's education/life/home costs. She asked me to be Godmother after my DH died, so I think she thought I had money to burn. I didn't.

But it doesn't, because the children still have two families. It will never be equal.

It depends entirely on the family and the resources available to all of the adults/children. I would have no issue providing for my SC financially as we are all part of one family. However, can see why, for example, if a stepchild had two bio parents who both have sufficient access to money/resources, stepparent may be reluctant to contribute, particularly if they don't have the means to do so.

You marry into the family it becomes one family - all children equal

I think it’s an odd way to think, to a certain extent you are responsible for everything to do with your husband financially, it’s shared resources, even if you don’t manage it that way.

If your relationship is this transactional you might want to look at that.

It's a very weird quirk with CMS that a person is considered financially responsible for children that live with them for the purposes of reduction, but their income is not considered when calculating CM for their partner. But there's a lot of quirks with CMS and overall it's a very badly designed system which does not encourage positive coparenting.