Stepdaughter and Covid

[TheHomelands2020]

I am probably going to get hammered for this but please hear me out first and put yourself in my shoes. I don't have the best relationship with my step daughter but we get on OK nothing has ever been said and we are polite to each other. When she was much younger she was really quite unpleasant but as she was a youngster and I believed much of it came from her mother I put up with it.

I've been with her dad about 10 years and he'd split from her mum about 2 years before that so she was very young when they split up.
I don't see her often. She spends EOW with her dad and I usually go to see friends so I rarely see her. Me and her dad are married.
She's 16 and sexually active with her new boyfriend. I know this because she posts videos and pics on Instagram that leave no doubt. None of my business I stay out of it as she's 16 it's not illegal and I'm not her mum. Her mum takes no notice of Covid precautions, had her own boyfriend to stay during the first lockdown thinks it doesn't apply to her. Step daughter is a hugger/kisser of friends as I think is quite normal for 16 year olds and has little respect for social distancing at work and college.

Obviously lockdown is looming and during the four weeks DH would usually see her two weekends. I can't go to friends and they can't go out. I'm an asthma sufferer and I know that she does nothing to protect herself while mixing with a great many people at college, work and at home. Also if I can't work I will only get SSP which I can't afford to do.

DH tells me that as she's under 18 he's entitled to have her over to stay. I say that's stretching the rule book. I totally agree a youngster could be disadvantaged by not seeing her dad but at 16 I'm sure she'd cope for four weeks! If I could move out I would and let them live together but I can't.
AIBU?

Just to be clear, I haven’t been unpleasant about step daughter. I’ve discussed facts, I haven’t used these terms about her.

@Kcar I thought it meant something along the lines of 'slag' but either meaning... Well, an adult woman describing a 16yo girl as such is pretty disgusting.

I did not call her that name!!!!!

@TheHomelands2020

How foolish of me not to consider how I’d feel ten years on in the face of a global pandemic.

She has two parents, she doesn’t need me to parent her. I won’t be reporting anything to school or college it’s none of my business. I just don’t want to catch COVID from her. If I was talking about a friend, or a mother in law, or even my own child I’d be receiving support not this!

If it were your own child, you may be asking for help with her behaviour. But you wouldn’t be trying to prevent her from living in her home. Moot point.

How foolish of your husband, her father, to allow his lovely dd to feel like an outsider and rejected at 7.... Even if in reality, she was not rejected in the least, neither of you gave her enough care to get past her feelings.

My 12 yo dd spouts crap to me about how I hate her sometimes. I reassure her, mend her hurt and we move on. That’s what parents do if they have an ounce of understanding about how hard it is to be a child.

That’s because you’re a parent.
I am not.

Ok, I'll bite.

Let me just put this into a slightly different context for you, shall I?

There are parents who live full time, with children who spend all day at school with other children in a bubble of 260 students + teaching staff and have health conditions that put them in a clinically vulnerable category.

I understand asthma is an issue, I also have it. Hell, my daughter has it but is one of those children in a bubble of 260 students + teaching staff.

You mention you dont and never have shielded, so you are not recognised as especially vulnerable? I assume your asthma is fairly well controlled? I'm just checking that we havent missed something here, because people with severe asthma were advised to shield by their GPs, and maybe it's a little different, but without that it just reads like you're finding an excuse to not have her in the house.

I think you are being entirely unreasonable. She is his daughter, his home should always be somewhere she feels welcome regardless of whether she is sexually active or not.

If you feel uncomfortable keep your distance from her.

@Elizaaa

'Sketty'? Really?! Well aren't you a treasure

Yep 😁

Where is the evidence that the Op’s SD is in any way “sketty”?

@TheHomelands2020

That’s because you’re a parent. I am not.

Then why did you marry him when he had a primary aged child? You’re sounding really bitter now.

I’ve reported the sket comment. Internalised misogyny. Of course I don’t want my dd to be doing this at 16 but then there are studies that girls tend to have more sexualised behaviour when their father is absent or not available. So for me, op is blaming her husband’s dd for something she had a hand in.

What if her mother's boyfriend pulled the same thing and said he didn't want here there? Where would she go? Poor thing sounds like she has nowhere to feel comfortable.

@Mummyoflittledragon I’ve reported your comment. It’s outrageous to suggest that I am to blame for my step daughters over sexualised behaviour at a young age.

You aren’t responsible.

I do think you’re a bit naive. She’s 16 and it’s reasonable that she’s sleeping with her boyfriend.

If her pics on sm are inappropriate, why isn’t her dad tackling that with her

@Elizaaa you’re not helping! For the record I am not condoning Elizaaa’s comments.

@LaceyBetty thank you for the ‘poor thing’ comment I thought would come eventually. such stereotypical bullshit.

Her pictures are probably not inappropriate, they’re not showing anything other than naked shoulders and ankles. If she were my daughter, which she’s not, I wouldn’t be happy that she’s so sexualised at just turned 16. I strongly believe she was having sex under age, she was put on the pill by her mother at 14. This could be to help with periods but I think she viewed it as a license to have sex.

There's been a lot of talk about it being SD's home too. Well to my mind, everyone in a household should have a say in risks taken this year, it isn't right for one person to do what they want and put others at risk when they don't agree to it. If it was a conventional family set up, SD would be told that she cannot do things like sleep over at her boyfriend's or continue a thoughtlessly tactile social life with her friends, because it puts other members of her household at risk. As she has two homes and moves between them, she needs to respect the rules in both.

Suggesting that as it's SDs home, she cannot ever be asked not to come, but that she also doesn't have to follow the rules of that home, is her having her cake and eating it. A place being your home (as a child) comes with respecting the rules in that home. And anything she does in mum's house, in this case, affects dad's house too, in a way that is highly selfish to ignore. It's very difficult to manage this situation when it is a small child and the other parent is the one flouting the rules. But the SD in this case is old enough to be told her activities are putting OP at risk and she needs to be more considerate of the people in her second home. The problem is OPs DH is not doing it.

[quote TheHomelands2020]@Mummyoflittledragon I’ve reported your comment. It’s outrageous to suggest that I am to blame for my step daughters over sexualised behaviour at a young age.[/quote]
You took her daddy away from her and she was jealous. That was what I meant by having a hand in it. As if it wasn’t clear.

my daughter was on the pill at 13 because of her periods.

That is a thing that happens.

And I know my daughters stepmom thinks it was so DD could have sex underage. She didn’t. And the reason was genuinely for her periods.

@Mummyoflittledragon
I knew exactly what you meant and still stand by the fact it’s an outrageous accusation.
How did I take her daddy away from her???? Stupidity.

@Kcar
Strange as it may sound, but as a woman I know all about periods! I may be a step mum but I still know about periods. Step
Mums are treated as idiots and second class women on here.
I did say it could have been to sort out periods, but SD viewed it as a license to have sex!

Thank you @aSofaNearYou
Very well put.

All I was saying was that as her stepmom it’s not unusual you wouldn’t know about her periods. Because she might only tell her mum not you.