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

Right from experience, and the old CMS website explained it far better than these new ones. ANY other child, bio or step.... if they are living in the same house as the non resident parent, the non resident parents payment is adjusted.

If you still dont believe me go and do a fictitious CMS calculation, one of the questions is how many children reside in the non resident home.

I really don't understand why this is hard to understand. Even other posters have said that this is indeed true.

Daily on mn?

This. I laughed when she said

I absolutely did not want him to take on financial responsibility for my sons - that's not his duty. I made this clear from the start and he very much respected that stance

I bet he did 🤣

My DH married me when my DD was 18, eldest DS 16 and youngest DS was 8. He has no biological DC of his own but he helped bring up 8 year old and we have brought up foster DC together too. He treats each DC as if they were his own. My DC are all adults now and I know if I were to die he has a strong relationship with my DC that would continue even after I had died. He has always insisted on providing equally with me for my DC. He has a better relationship with DC than they have with their biological Dad. Youngest DS broke down 3 miles from his biological Dads house last year but still rang DH for help waiting for recovery vehicle. DH drove over with a coat for him and cup of coffee and collected his insurance details from his house then waited with him.

I think people should take more time to consider the financial implications of being with someone who already has children. You see it all the time on here, “I have 2 children I want to do x, y and z but he can’t” then you find out they actually have 5 children between them, you likely wouldn’t choose to have 5 children…why do you pretend the other 3 don’t exist when going on to procreate yourself.

So imagine a situation where the parent (A) with children was a widow who has a low paid job, married a wealthy person (B) who has children. B takes their DC skiing every year and is happy to pay for A but not As DC as they’re ‘not their responsibility’. Or B buys their DC new phones for Christmas but A can’t afford to do so. Bs DC get driving lessons and a car when they are 17. As DC don’t.
The disparity in the living standards of each set of DC isn’t going to do anything but divide the family.

That just says other children living with them. Those other children could be their own.

That would only happen if they could not be arsed to make a will.

Do you have a source for this claim?

Really? No account was taken of my step-dads income when I went to uni (at the time for assessing whether I qualified for my fees to be covered). It was just my mom as my step-father had never adopted us and we still had a father.

I don’t think it’s as black and white as that OP because everyone does things differently. Your way is perfectly fine BTW, just to get that in there.

In our household, maintenance for DSS has always fluctuated with DH’s income so is his responsibility. However, now DSS needs GCSE tuition, I’m happy for the money to come out of our joint account. That’s purely our arrangement though. All holidays including DSS come from our joint account as our money is pooled.

To be clear I think it’s fine for step-parents to CHOOSE to be financially responsible for their step-children and in reality if they live with them they cannot avoid some degree of financial expenditure on them. But ultimately there is no real financial responsibility.

I agree with you OP. Unless they formally adopted their step-children.

This is basically the view here.

Women are happy for their partners to support the unrelated children they live with, but when their ex-partners do the same, it’s wrong.

My stepkids were teenagers when we met. They have 2 competent parents who do all the parenting.
My children also have 2 competent parents: me and my husband.
It's actually very easy to keep finances separate. They sorted it between themselves long before we met and they carried on after we met.
I happily handed over money for bus fares, ice creams etc but it was never my role to pay for their lives.

And what if one parent suddenly decides not to? What would happen then? You are in a more privileged place by being the high earner as your children are not going to go without but if something happened that affected that badly, would uour husband see uour kids go without? Would he take your DD on holiday but not the boys.

Its really easy to say 'this is how it should be' when your situation is good. Being the high earner with a present ex partner and family who step us as they should means the chance of those kids being disadvantaged in comparison to your DD is very slim. For many step children the reality is very different and that can cause harm and resentment.

If a single woman moves a man into her house - so not even married he benefits go down - so the government take an additional salary into account. Reason why so many woman live on their own.

You should probably just not get married if finances are such a deal breaker. I would never subject my children to another adult unrelated to them living in their home but if this is a risk you want to take then I think family finances should be shared out fairly. One set of kids shouldn't miss out because their step parent doesn't see themselves in any way responsible.

I can see someone taking this view if you marry someone and their children are already grown up. But if you marry someone who has children still living at home, you both become the parents in the household. Yes, you might not officially be their biological mother or father, but as part of being a family, you are all in it together and for me that extends to finances. Any kind of separation/ different treatment just breeds division. You’re not quite all in it together. You might decide something like a difference in allowance / pocket money because one child is particularly well treated in another household. But fundamentally, you look to make all things equivalent in the same household.

rightly or wrongly it’s household finances that determine university student finance, so if the RP and their new partner aren’t prepared to ensure the DC aren’t disadvantaged, then they have no business living together.