AIBU to say looking after children is too much?

[Greenfingeredsue]

I can’t give any more, I’m exhausted. I’ve just told my step-daughter I can’t look after her kids again next week. My husband said we’ll have them, even though he’s at work all day and can’t help.

Presumably you were deleted for making personal attacks on the OP, calling her ‘miserable’ because she’s not doing what you think she should.

The stepdaughter’s children are not OP’s children, not her responsibility and not her problem. Anything else is irrelevant.

Well I can't see the OP coming back to answer questions as this thread has descended into a total shitshow.

@ThePriceIsNotRight

If calling someone miserable is an offence worthy of deletion then there’s whole threads on MN that would need to go.

Yanbu op. They are not your responsibility, you have your own job to consider.

Your dh is being unreasonable to offer your help without asking you first.

I hate this attitude of 'well you wfh so you can help'. Errrr no, the clue is in the sentence 'WORKING from home'

@PegasusReturns

That's not his decision to make!

No you’re right it absolutely isn’t and it was unreasonable for him to offer her services.

The fact that he did though is indicative of his perception of what is manageable. That perception might be way off, but as I said combined with OPs low tolerance and desire to make people’s life a misery on her other thread is suggestive of where the issue might lie.

You seem to just not like the Op based on the other thread.

And if she's as awful as you think-why would SD use her for childcaare, especially knowing that she is also trying to work full time?

What I'm interested in, although wouldn't be surprised if Op diesn't come back, is who else has actually helped to this point?

he obviously thought it was achievable*

My DH did this to me a couple times in our early days together. Entirely well intentioned, keen to "show off" what I could do. I made it very, very clear that he was welcome to ask me, or encourage anyone to ask me for help.

If my services were volunteered it would just not happen, no matter how deserving the case. And he had to I volunteer my services, too, rather than leave me to have the awkward conversation, as OP has had to do.

It's all good now. I completely support the OP in the example under discussion in this thread.

‘If calling someone miserable is an offence worthy of deletion then there’s whole threads on MN that would need to go.‘

You’ve repeatedly gone after her based on her other thread, something which has absolutely no bearing on this one. You’re convinced she’s wrong, to the point where you’re dragging up her old threads to attack her character.

If the OP is as awful as some posters as keen to make out, why on earth would you be encouraging children to be left in her care?

Similarly - the OP doesn't want to look after them. Why should those children be forced to be at best an unwelcome intrusion?

[quote Indecisivelurcher]@TheLeastBit what the SD's job is for a start. Whether she has to go in to work. Whether she's a key worker. 9-5. Shifts. Can she take a bit of leave. Has she been taking the piss with how much help she asks for. What other childcare opts there are where they live. How old the kids are. How self sufficient.

We are not in normal times. SD can't just find alternative childcare, such as ask a friend. You can only form one childcare bubble.

Anyway that's just what I think. Based on what the op said I thought she was potentially being unreasonable. But context is everything.[/quote]
None of that makes a difference to the OPs availability. She is working. The SDs job doesn't change that fact.

The other thread is irrelevant here. I didn't see it, but regardless of how unpleasant the OP might have seemed on there, it doesn't make the OP unrealistic in saying no to looking after her SD's DC.

She isn't to blame, her DH is for volunteering her in the first place.

I do find it very OTT, when posters advance search OPs in order to find some other way of having a dig at them.

I really don't understand why SD's job seems to be more important than OPs.

The fact that he did though is indicative of his perception of what is manageable

Yeah... Given the amount of men who seem to have the perception that it's totally manageable for women to hold down a FT job, do all of the childcare and all of the house work too, I don't hold much credit to what a man unilaterally decides is a reasonable expectation of a woman's time. I'll go off what the actual person doing the job says is manageable I think.

I would be pissed at my DH for offering up my services whilst knowing I have to work (and probably having seen me up half the night doing it)

I am wondering if OP has covered the last 2 weeks childcare for school holidays whilst also working and is now at her whits end with deadlines she will already have to work flat out to meet?

Sorry but my health will always come first. She won’t be any use to anyone -work, husband, Step daughter if she ends up with exhaustion and unable to work or help at all will she?

Sometimes you have to look after yourself first!

You seem to just not like the Op based on the other thread

I don’t dislike the OP I don’t know her. I think she has indicated a low threshold for tolerance, which I find questionable, but more than anything I feel really sad for her SD.

People are struggling at the moment. By the OPs admission her SD has no one else and that is a difficult place to be. It’s difficult having no one to rely on when everything is going well, but when you’re vulnerable to job loss with nothing to fall back on I imagine it’s crushing.

I agree with everything that the posters say that it is the mums responsibility, of course it is, but sometimes the loneliness and impossibility of those responsibilities are overwhelming. So I don’t dislike the OP but I do question why someone wouldn’t do everything they could to help, because ultimately I’m sad for a single mum who has nowhere else to turn and is facing losing her job and all that goes with that, for want of someone to help her out for a couple of weeks.
.

but more than anything I feel really sad for her SD

Don't you feel sad for OP who has been having to work late at night to catch up and has deadlines to meet?

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

I really don't understand why SD's job seems to be more important than OPs.

I actually think that OP has the perfect right to say no, but realistically unless OP is already in performance management it's quite unlikely that she'll be sacked for a week of sub-optimal performance in a job that she describes as flexible enough that it can be done in the evening, whereas it sounds like the SD would be in the position that she just couldn't show up for work and so that losing her job would be much more likely.

@diddl

Why does it always fall to the women-to the point of the GF volunteering his wife??

@diddl It took me a minute to realise that GF meant Grand Father, not goady fucker, although both fit.

I think I'd see if the 3 of you could work together to make it work for all of you, ie you need time to do your work, she needs to hang onto her job, and DH is working too.

Could you take them a couple of days to give her a chance to work, while she works on the days her Dad is able to watch kids and you work those days.

Nobody plans for a pandemic when planning a family or divorce. A year ago nobody had heard of lockdowns or furlough.

I'd do what you can to help, but it shouldn't all be on your shoulders.

" It’s difficult having no one to rely on when everything is going well, but when you’re vulnerable to job loss with nothing to fall back on I imagine it’s crushing."

Op is also vulnerable to job loss-doesn't that matter because she's not a single mum?

Op has said that there is no one else-perhaps that is only what her SD has told her?

We don't know why the father or other GPs aren't available-if it's because they work-why doesn't that apply to Op?

Poor children.
It’s a truly awful situation where, if there is nobody else at all to call on to look after her children..and if they can’t get a place in school, then the mum has no alternative but to risk losing her job by taking time off. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that once her employers know that she truly doesn’t have any alternative. In the event of her losing her job, Universal credit will have to be applied for and hopefully her father can help provide for his grand children until she receives it. The OP should not be expected to work and look after young children at the same time. She is not unreasonable to have said no.

@Hardbackwriter OP says she's been working late at night to catch up, she shouldn't have to do that. If DH expected me to look after his grandchildren and then work into the night to catch up I'd tell him exactly what he could do!

Her children, her problem.

How lovely. No of course the OP doesn't have to have them (how often does something so obvious need to be pointed out? ) but you know that's what families do sometimes, they inconvenience themselves to help out in a pinch so their family member and her kids don't become destitute. But hey ho this family members tired so who gives a fuck. Nice. Doesn't this pandemic just bring the best out of everyone.

Just say no. Ultimately they're her children and her responsibility.

It sounds as though OP has already been inconvenienced though as she said she can't look after them again.

I can't help thinking the fact that OP dares to be a step mother means she's automatically being unreasonable in some posters' eyes.

[quote PegasusReturns]@LilyMumsnet is that why I was deleted? For drawing a conclusion from another thread?[/quote]
I'd say it's because you used AS to beat the op over the head with a completely different issue. Or ishoo as you so cruelly wittily put it.