To want to give BM the pasting she deserves

[volcano28]

Long story short -Steps sons mother has always been a total nightmare . All the usual stuff a lot of ppl experience. Her family are all enablers -she does what she likes when she likes with no thought for anyone else or the consequences and no one ever (inc my husband) call her out on it. Which I think makes people worse as they come to believe their behaviour is acceptable. What's really ticked me off is SS has done nothing al half term even though she doesn't work , has plenty of money and a car, he was supposed to be going to a theme park yesterday with some friends and their family near where we live -before coming here for the weekend -but she didn't wake him up in time so he missed it -so to try and spite my husband ss has missed out 😯 this is because we live 3 hours away so he has to drive to pick him up and drop him back for contact where as he could have been 20mins away! . I don't care about Dh having to drive I care about the fact she's put wanting to make Dh life harder (which it doesn't he's more than happy to drive any distance) before ss having a great day out . And I want to contact her and tell her how I feel -I've always had to 'rise above it ' for 14yrs ! But on the other hand she'd love it as getting a reaction 😣 maybe I just needed a bit of a rant get it off my chest

I think that volcano has had her fill of Dss's mum and probably with good reason. We dont know the back story. I have no problem with her using MN to vent.
Some of you need to chill the fuck out.

It's a very complex situation that I don't expect people to understand - I was upset on behalf of my ss for missing out and wanted to tell her so having kept my mouth shut and stayed out of everything all these years.

I agree with Math you are being played. 14 yo might be rubbish at getting up for school, but they’d be up for a theme park, if they wanted to go.

The trouble is op that there are a great many of us on here who are the mum in this scenario.

Lots of us have had exes and their new wives blaming us for things that were not our fault, misinterpreting events, thinking the worst of us, believing half truths from teens trying to talk themselves out of trouble.

So I read it and thought - she probably told him to set his alarm, or tried to wake him several times but he kept rolling over and going back to sleep, or she forgot what time he was leaving.

Whilst I can objectively see that she may indeed be a terrible mother, who cheated on your dh, who intentionally allowed her child to miss a day out, who sells his phones to pay to get her hair done or whatever, I know all of that could be true, I can't help wondering what her version would be.

My advice would be to draw a line under it, collect him, have a good weekend, maybe resist moaning about his mum and ask him why he didn't set an alarm.

And btw - by 14 we are not organising half term activities for them. They are making their own arrangements.

You want to give her a pasting because she hasn't laid on entertainment all week? It doesn't seem 2 minutes since the last half term. Children survive not constantly being taken on holidays and days out and having to keep themselves amused. My eldest has taken full advantage of the lay-ins and spending time with his mates.

She has other children and presumably enough to do without having to go and knock on the door of a teenage boy all morning to get him up.

Oh come on, any normal mother would wake up her teenage son to make sure he was up in time to be ready to go to something special he was really looking forward to. Even despite the enormous responsibility of having 2 younger children! Yes he is old enough to have got himself up but any considerate would have provided back up.

I’m actually with you OP; if he doesn’t have a way of getting himself up then his mum needs to make sure he is and even with his own alarm clock I would have thought she’d be up to see him off. If a 14 year old wasn’t going to school because they weren’t getting themselves up everyone would be blaming the parent.
Using Birth mum does really upset people on here though; it lessens the mums role I think and makes it seem like a stepmums role is equal which with both a DSD and my own DD I can see and agree is upsetting as it’s not the same

@bevelino she had to get 3 men tested for dna - she didn't know who the father was

And no she hasn't had to deal with me at all I have stayed well out of it

I do think it's quite odd/not very nice for a mum who is up and about and knows that her 14 year old son has to be up for a day out but hasn't heard him get up yet not to give him a shout. I'm a full grown adult and work full time but if I was at my parents' house and was getting up for something I know one of them would knock on the door with a cup of tea. I'd do the same for anyone in my house if I was up first. Letting a kid oversleep for going to a theme park is a real shame.

Well op, your first mistake was not being his mum
Your second was even mentioning your stepsons mum
No mother on mn is wrong, especially when spoken about by a stepmum
I'm a step mum to a 14 year old.
His alarms can ring and ring and he will absolutely not hear them, if I didn't get him up for school he simply wouldn't get up.
If his mum had arranged a day out with him, we would get him up. It's not rocket science. Not everything is a life lesson, people can just be helpful. Some people must enjoy being awkward

Nothing to do with you really is it? Your DH should grow some balls and tell her straight.

I do agree with you that probably something needs to be said about the missed trip, but it has to be said by your husband. It's sad if your step son feels he has to look after his mum, if she's not doing right by him. Do you know what happened to the money from the sale of the phones? Because that is step sons/yours and dh's money.

volcano28 I feel a bit sorry for you. SMs always get attacked a bit on here. Obviously there's a backstory to this and no one expects (or want to!) read your entire autobiography on here to get the full picture. Often the vipers of MN will latch onto a single aspect of an OP that gets their back up (BM in this case!) And focus on that rather than the real point of the post.

You're entitled to rant without being bullied. You made it clear you weren't actually going to do anything (it would achieve nothing anyway) and just were upset for your SS. The vitriol you've received here is pretty disgusting imo and shows MN at it's worst

Teenagers can actually be very hard to wake up. You think you've woken them and five minutes later they're asleep again. I do think, if he'd wanted to go, he'd have been up.

It's very unusual for a teenager to have no phone and no internet access. Are you certain this isn't an excuse for being very poor at keeping in touch with his dad?

I do think that, if you messaged his mum about the weekend, she'd have a different story.

It's not the Mum's fault that your SS missed out on the theme park - it's his own fault. If he wanted to go, he should have set an alarm. If he didn't have an alarm clock, he could have gone to any high street and purchased a cheap one (they still exist, not everyone relies on phones). He's old enough to know better.

I don’t understand why she couldn’t just wake him up. Who wouldn’t do that? If you knew your son was going on a trip and being driven there by another parent, you would be awake to see them off. If she was up with the younger kids anyway, why didn’t she just give him a shout to get up?

The mum is not only letting her son miss out on a day at the theme park but also deliberately mess up contact time after too.
I can't imagine being the parent of the friend knocking at the door and being told he is asleep. And then the mum saying "and I won't wake him up!". Surely you'd go "oh sorry he is still asleep, I'll go and wake him, he can be ready in 10 mins"

If she is unreasonable then there is no point you calling her out. At best you will achieve nothing, at worst you will provoke her into retaliation. I think you know this and are just using this thread to vent some steam. Unfortunately, you've fallen into a viper pit. There are too many people who think the reality of there being three sides to every story means your side must be wrong and they have license to tear you to shreds.

I disagree, CecilyP.

This boy is capable of sleeping through the normal household racket created by two children apparently young enough to need watching. I suspect it would take a hand grenade exploding outside his door to wake him.

And you can't really enter the room of a 14 year old boy first thing to poke him.

I agree with Hellodarkness.

@Sparklfairy there's only one person I know in real life that would talk like that calling people the C word and it's ss mother 🤷‍♀️

Nevermind - I won't be posting on here for anything ever again !

Well it takes a certain type of parent to let their child miss out on a theme park trip with friends.
If the mum has younger kids was she not up with them?
Or was the ss supposed to be up at a very early time?
What about school , how does he wake up then if she won't allow him a phone.
This sounds awful and I say that knowing how lazy teenagers can be.

What does not working and DNA tests have to do with anything?

BM is disrespectful and I am a birth mother. My role is completely different in my sons life to that of his mother.

Honestly the child must be at least 14. I would therefore expect them to be making their own plans and confirming with me that it was ok to go x or y not to taking them places. He needs to be responsible for getting up.

Also Is he studying for GCSEs? Got coursework to do? Maybe she’s told him he needs to do that before he can go out.

As a SM who doesn’t always approve of the actions of the BM or DM or whatever. I have to say in this instance if a 14 year old cant get himself up then no, he shouldn’t go to the theme park.