Sisters children and step child and our holiday

What a mess - all because 7yr old’s Dad is not stepping up and sorting HIS childcare issue that he had over a year to sort!!
Such a shame for your nieces - not surprised they have voted with their feet.
OP- don’t be guilted into this now. As you rightly point out - this is your HOLIDAY!! You’ve done your time with younger children and deserve to reap your rewards of a more relaxed vibe when you go away without having to entertain a much younger child who the teens won’t want to hang out with. Your sister presumably wouldn’t ask you to look after the 7 yr old for a week at your house - and so expecting you to take her abroad is beyond cheeky.
All very disappointing behaviour from your Sister - and a real own goal in terms of her own children. Am sure things will settle - and there may still be time for your nieces to come too.

"Not a part of the family"?

She needs to grow up. She's pissed off her own daughters, pissed off her parents, pissed off her sister, lord only knows how the 7yo feels about it all, because of what? Issues that have absolutely NOTHING to do with any of the aforementioned people, and indeed with the ONLY THREE people who are responsible for this child. She's irritated or hurt all these people because you haven't bent over backwards, at your and your family's expense, to give her what she wants.

She's not a very deep thinker, is she?

I feel for the kids and the grandparents in all this. What a mess.

"Treat them the same"? Not with that age gap, it wouldn't be appropriate to treat a 7 year old like a 15 year old (more than twice her age!). Did you take your nieces on holiday without your sister when they were 7? If not, why would you take your step-niece? (Actually even if you did it wouldn't be the same situation because your nieces are a similar age to your children and would presumably have played together).

This is disingenuous. Seven year olds are typically easier to look after than two year olds yes, but someone else's seven year old is not only a big responsibility but changes the dynamic of a what was meant to be a trip with just their own 16 and 14 year old!

In fact a seven year old step-cousin could be a royal pain in the arse for the teens, who if they're nice will feel obliged to ruin their chilled lie ins and days exploring by entertaining a bored and homesick much younger child.

I am sooooo confused as to why she wanted to send the poor girl abroad to stay with people she doesn't know and who aren't her own grandparents. And baffled by the fact that the girl's mum thought it was a good idea for her to go on holiday with her dad's wife's sister's family. She is not your responsibility OP, and it was weird of them to insist.

She had no right to ask you in the first place…. for any of the children, but especially for her step daughter. She was using you.

It would have been better to say … maybe we will consider a holiday all together like that in the future, when you can come too, but this holiday is just for the four us until we get more familiar with our parents new situation. I want us to concentrate on them for now.

You were too kind and it’s caused a problem. It was obvious your sister would play the guilt card again. You walked right into the trap.

Your sister’s motivation in asking wasn’t to give her 3 children a lovely holiday.
It was to quickly and easily ease her own troubled mind about how to solve her child care problem. She wasn’t thinking of them….only herself. If she had been thinking of them, she would have allowed you to take the two older ones.

I hope it blows over so that you can enjoy your family holiday in peace without worrying about it.

I feel kind of bad for your nieces here. They lose out on seeing their grandparents and cousins because your sister is withholding them because she didn't get her way and they are old enough to know it.

That's going to cause resentment.

This wasn't even your sister's problem, much less yours. Childcare on his custody time is his issue and he's made it her problem and then is ok with her making it your problem and it sounds like possibly using your nieces for childcare.

Now she's fracturing the family over his not getting childcare to cover when she refuses because she has a work project due in the future. That's a really bad move.

Was your sister planning to go on the trip with him and that's why she's been so dug in and manipulative about this?

Shes going to cause them to resent their step sister.

They are her not ultimately its her choice.

I have a 6 and 7 year old and holidays are hard work. They need constant minding and entertainment. I spend most of my time feeding snd entertaining them.

Your sister is being unfair and unreasonable. All kids don't need to be treated equally. Not even blood related ones. My mum has my nephew 13 and 10 for sleepovers more often than my kids 6 and 7 because she gets too tired with my two. I absolutely understand it. The needs level of the older two is different I think treating the equally is reasonable when its buying sweets at the shop or buying them all a Christmas present ( although, i wouldnt expect to gave the value of the gifts dictated to me). I certainly would not be taking a 7 year old away on holiday in the interest of perceived fairness.

Neither she nor her DH is prepared to put themselves out for the poor girl. They’re the ones not treating her like family!

Amen!

Well, that tells us a lot about you, then.

What a silly mare she is …

No reason their dad can't send them with you frankly. He should advocate for them. She is ruining her relationship with them.

Wow she’s like a lesson in how not to manage family affairs!

In her attempts to crash together her blended family she has managed to literally piss everyone off.
You and presumably your partner
Her own kids who now can’t go
Her nieces who won’t get to hang out with their cousins
Her parents who will miss an opportunity to see one set of GC.

All to prove a point about her dhs kid. Not even her child. Well done numptty!

I feel sad that your parents only “don’t mind” seeing their step grandchild whom they have known since she was 1.

aside from that I totally get why you don’t want to take her. Your sister or their girl’s father can arrange a nanny to take care of her whilst she is visiting your parents? You will need to come to an arrangement about when you need a night out. But the age gap changes the dynamics of the group so that would be a bigger issue for me than the 7 year old not being my biological niece

Oh that's a shame she didn't let them go. I'm not surprised though. She's got form for this, she must have, given her's and other people's reactions.
Stepdaughter's paternal grandparents "unsuitable",
maternal grandparents refusing childcare during her dad's contact time,
your sister's kids upset and blowing up about babysitting already before being asked and also in the past refusing to do it,
your sister's spectacular CF-ery trying to manipulate you and your parents, now her reaction to being told No...

She's probably been doing this for years, palming DSD off on anyone she can, if your BIL is away with work during his contact time.

The whole picture is one of dysfunction.

Well done for standing firm and keeping yourself out of it! Hope you enjoy a peaceful holiday and no more drama comes your way.

The OP wrote this in one of her posts

“It’s a shame for our nieces and parents to miss out on seeing each other when taking them isn’t a problem at all. It’s only taking the younger one that brings issues.”

She also said she thought the nieces should come with them.

If I was the OP I'd just block her sister's number until the holiday is over and any fuss has died down. Once OP has been told if she's taking her nieces or not, that's really all she needs to know. I'm sure they have phones she can contact them on about travel times etc. directly. No need for OP to get into any arguments about the 7yr old, just be unavailable to discuss it.

This situation is a typical example of how men think childcare shouldn't affect them in any way OP. If this had been reversed and it was a woman with the 7yr old looking for a new job, she'd have had to decline the job if necessary, because she had to care for her DD that week as the other parent was on holiday.

This is what the your BIL should have done too OP. He should only have taken that job on the understanding that he would be unable to work the week of his 7yr old's mum's holiday, he should have negotiated it into the job offer terms and if he couldn't (maybe it was a predetermined date for group training of newbies or something) then he shouldn't have accepted the job.

Unless he'd already agreed it with your sister prior to him accepting the job that she'd look after the 7yr old that week, in which case she should be the one telling her boss she can't work that week due to childcare issues. But somehow I doubt he did this. More likely he just took the job because that's what he wanted to do, then announced to his wife that he was unavailable for childcare that week and decided it would magically all work itself out somehow later.

The most sensible and the simplest solution - the 7yr old goes to whatever childcare is available that week. Which does not mean gate-crashing the OPs annual family holiday!

I'll be interested to see if your sister is happily booking tickets for all 5 of her household when they go see your parents or if it happens to fall when the 7 year old is at her mum's.

Your poor nieces. Your sister has made a massive mistake making that decision. Now not only can they not go and see their grandparents, they can potentially resent their step sister as well as their mother for not letting them visit their grandparents.

Very manipulative of your sister as well - you were damned if you did and damned if you didn’t take the 7 year old. But she’s basically pissed off she has to do child care for the week. Don’t blame your nieces for going to their dad’s. I really feel for them. And you for you and your parents.

Ah. The old "Wahhh I didn't get what I wanted so nobody can" footstomp. She's a mug in the first place for letting this school holiday childcare become her problem.

I think it's a clear case of FAFO.

I was really shocked that sister went behind OP's back to ask their parents how much they were prepared to help OP with SD's care!

Indeed. OP and her nieces have their own relationships with one another, independent of her sister. If OP is willing to take them, there’s no reason not to leave the offer open.

Slow clap to the sister though. Not only has the original childcare issue not been solved, but she’s now created rifts within her own household between her and her children, her children and her stepchild, and probably between her husband and her children as well. Well, I say ‘within her household’, but her children have already voted with their feet to their father’s house where they may choose to stay.

I would make sure that your nieces know that this wasn’t your decision. Then leave her to it.

I expect she would need permission to take her nieces from both their parents. Realistically, engineering an enormous falling out with the sister (which this would do) would create the opposite of a relaxing holiday.

The nieces will not be children forever. Take them when they are over 18.