DSS stole money off me and mum won’t pay it back.

[TheBadElfParade]

I’m utterly furious about the situation.

DSS’s mum found some money in DSS’s pocket the other night when she picked him up from school. He was with us the evening before as she was poorly.

He told her that we had given it to him when she questioned it. My partner got aN unexpected text and said he hadn’t given him anything.

Low and behold, we have some money missing.

My partner picked him up From school And asked him about it. For the record he is 7, but knows that it is wrong to steal as we have had a similar situation before With him, in addition to lying.

He got upset and admitted where the money was from and that at he found it when he was sneaking around in our bedroom and took it. He was playing with my child at the time but didn’t tell my child he had found it. Both of our children know not to go in the bedroom without our permission. This happened at the weekend We are presuming so he had kept on to this money for a few days.

My partner messaged and explained what had happened and asked for it back.

We got a reply saying not that’s not what he told me, and that she had put it in an breakable piggy bank so we can’t have it.

Am I being unreasonable to be fuming with her about this and want my money back? We are obviously ups about the whole ordeal and my partner is struggling with the fact he would steal off us in the first place. This is the second time she has deliberately kept on to our money when we had a shadow payment of double child maintenance going through one month and she kept on to it for three weeks, even after we informed her that the loss was affecting household bills. She’s not the kind of person to be kind to myself or my partner at all. She has threatened that if my partner dares takes it out of maintenance next month (it’s not a CMS plan, it’s a private arrangement between themselves) she will mention it in court.

It just seems that OP really dislikes the woman.

Well the only thing we know about this women is she's refusing to return money she knows is stolen. I'd imagine this is the very tip of a lage iceberg so it's little wonder the OP doesn't like her. That doesn't mean the OP is jealous.

[quote MakeWorkYourNewFavourite]@SionnachRua I don't know why she's jealous. It's just the way she comes across.
I didn't know this was something that got trotted out. I've always assumed old wife gets jealous of new wife. I've rarely seen it the other way around.
I've never been married. And nobody's ever left me (yet), so I don't have a "side". It just seems that OP really dislikes the woman.[/quote]
No shit Sherlock I wonder why!

When is maintenance due, end of month?

I’d text mum to keep it as an advance and just pay the balance.

Cheeky cow.

@Same4Walls That's what I think too. It sounds like a toxic situation all round, so it probably isn't all black and white (life never is), but in this particular instance there's surely no way to twist this to make the OP unreasonable for being annoyed at the mum's actions.

@jamesfailedmarshmallows @PamDenick
And for an adult to be 'absolutely furious' is only going to compound hostilities.
Hence, I am willing to pay you the money in order that you can be the bigger person and let it go.
Sounds like the boy's mum thrives on drama, so if you can not escalate this situation maybe the boy will settle down a bit.
@Griselda1
^^^
These posts make a lot of sense to me, esp. considering OP's hostile response to my post. I was quoting you, not twisting your words, OP, -read your posts, you said "my child" three times -- and you never answered about whether your partner is his dad, whether your child's birthday is coming up again since the last episode happened then too). Like other posters, something doesn't quite sit right about you referring to a 7 year old as sneaky, a thief, a liar, and saying he has his mother's bad character traits. You might consider that even though you think you treat DSS and DS the same, DSS doesn't feel this, hence the acting out.

Like I said in my previous post, none of this excuses the mother. I'm just saying the kid seems to have a lot to deal with at your house right now, with the stressful picture you've painted of your husband losing hours and you off work for stress etc.

That's what I think too. It sounds like a toxic situation all round, so it probably isn't all black and white (life never is), but in this particular instance there's surely no way to twist this to make the OP unreasonable for being annoyed at the mum's actions.

Absolutely. It's clear this isn't the first bit of animosity between the adults and obviously the situation is fraught with tension nevertheless as you said there is absolutely no reason why the mum shouldn't be supporting the OP and her ex in this matter. It's clear the son is in the wrong for stealing and all the adults should be implementing consequences for his actions. The mum not being on the same page and pretty much absolving the DS for stealing is helping neither the parental situation or the DS in the long term.

@harknesswitch

£20! Ouch! I'd be fuming with his mum tbh. Children can sometimes go through stages where they steal, I think you've addressed this, however his mum needs to return this amount to you. It wasn't her place to put it in an unbreakable piggy bank.

Totally right. What kind of person finds a 7 year old with a £20 note and doesnt question it? Sounds like you have handled it well with him, and deserve praise for getting him to the point he felt he could admit it to you. With the mother, it may be better to leave it where it is, but be really clear with her that if he comes home with any money or property in the future that she is not expecting, you would expect her to check with you.

Totally right. What kind of person finds a 7 year old with a £20 note and doesnt question it?

She did. She asked her son and the phoned the Op’s partner to ask if he had given him £20. Obviously Op and the dad didn’t know it was their until they found it missing.

The boy has issues no doubt and it’s really not to do with being a master criminal. The mum on the other hand is a responsible adult and that makes her a thief for keeping the money.

I don't get why people are excusing the mum?

Because MN hates step parents. 🙄
Some of the excuses for the mum keeping the stolen money are laughable!

I would give her two options either break the piggy bank and give the £20 back or you can minus the £20 from the next maintenance payment. (From what you have said it’s highly likely the piggy bank story is BS and she’s pocketed the £20 anyway)

@Thewinterofdiscontent

Totally right. What kind of person finds a 7 year old with a £20 note and doesnt question it?

She did. She asked her son and the phoned the Op’s partner to ask if he had given him £20. Obviously Op and the dad didn’t know it was their until they found it missing.

The boy has issues no doubt and it’s really not to do with being a master criminal. The mum on the other hand is a responsible adult and that makes her a thief for keeping the money.

Not enough she didnt. Or she wouldnt have put it in an unbreakable piggy bank before she worked out where it came from.

@pumpkinsoups and everybody else that seemingly failed y2 reading comprehension.

The child brought £20 into his home that he stole. His mother found out the money was stolen, and instead of returning it, decided to keep it. She doesn’t have to ‘pay’ anything. She simply has to return the money that isn’t hers or her sons.

@agonyauntie2020 you didn’t need answers to any of those questions, and OP wasn’t hostile in the slightest. You have an anti-step mum agenda going on which is quite clear, the way you’ve picked apart everything that OP has factually laid out. Every person has negative personality traits, I can be argumentative for example, sometimes that information is helpful to know. I don’t really understand why you think it’s important to know if the other child’s birthday is coming up but not that the child in question has been displaying some challenging behaviours recently. You seem to have ignored where OP has said that the situation is dealt with regarding DSS, and her AIBU is to ask whether she has a right to be pissed off that his mother won’t return the stolen money.

If a child sneaks, steals, and lies, he is a sneak, thief,and liar. It’s better to be honest and pull him up now hard than he continue the behavior.

I can't get my head around some of the posts on here.

So let's put it a different way

You steal something from Tesco, get caught, you then have to give the item back to Tesco, and get a telling off by the police, you don't get to keep the item you stole.

It doesn't matter if it's a 7 yr old, a 70 yr old or someone's Mum, if you steal something you give it back!

The dc has been punished, he's had his tv and games privileges removed, the item he stole is still at his Mums house and she's refusing to give it back. Just because it's in a piggy bank doesn't give her the right to keep it.

It doesn't matter if it's a 7 yr old, a 70 yr old or someone's Mum, if you steal something you give it back!

Ah but apparently according to some posters there seems to be a caveat that if the person you stole from is your step parent it doesn't actually count as stealing. Instead they probably deserved it, their jealous and anything they have is yours for the taking.

I sometimes think it’s more a case of the step mum not counting as a person to be honest.

@Ericaequites

If a child sneaks, steals, and lies, he is a sneak, thief,and liar. It’s better to be honest and pull him up now hard than he continue the behavior.

It’s best to find the cause of the behaviour and address that. Thought we’d moved on as a society from punish, punish, punish. The general thoughts on behaviour management now are to step back, examine what potential causes could be to the situation, explain that sneaking and stealing aren’t the solution and try to address the actual issue.

Breakable piggy bank? Clearly it need breaking then. Turn up Eastenders style, smash the piggy bank and take what is yours

I can maybe see the other side if the Op and her partner don’t get on with the mum though.Maybe the Op is a right cow too in RL ?
I mean mum did text the dad to find out about the money and he said knew nothing about it.
So then I expect she asked her son again and he made some other excuse which mum accepts as she has no other explanation.
So when Op phones up a few days later it might as easily be her and the partner trying it on. We don’t know the back story. Having worked in a shop I know lots of people were convinced they paid with twenties rather than tens so who is to say Op did have a twenty missing.

Mums actions here are disgusting. No wonder her son steals.

Deduct it from maintenance. You have messages to prove to a court that she knows her son took your money and she has made the decision not to return it to you. She won't take it to court anyway. Shes stolen from you knowingly so she won't initiate anything like that.

I'm sorry to see so many posters ignoring the issue of the mums behaviour here. This is sadly because you're a step mum, mumsnets most hated user type!

@LavendarMoon

Just wanted to say that we don’t know the timeline of events here. Everyone assumes mum put the £20 into the piggy bank with full knowledge it was stolen. It’s possible that this happened:

• mum finds £20 in pocket and speaks to child
• child says dad gave it to me
• mum says oh ok we’ll put it in your piggy bank
• mum has doubts and texts dad to check and then discovers it is stolen

In this scenario, I think child should be asked to break the piggy bank and return money, but I don’t think mum should have to fork out the £20 from her own purse. However, mum might be understandably annoyed if she has bought the piggy bank for child and it’s now having to be broken. Who will replace it? It’s a difficult situation, but I do think regardless mum needs to ensure the £20 is paid back somehow.

Her child lying is the cause of the piggy bank needing broken open. It's then up to her to punish her child for lying/stealing as the piggy bank had cost her money.

If my child stole and lied I'm afraid breaking open a piggy bank would be the least of their concerns.

I’m eye rolling at people saying this seven year old stole because he’s deeply unhappy because he’s from a broken home. My friend’s 7 year old child stole my stepson’s money box from our house (with £120 in it) despite being from a happy home with his mum and dad. He just found it and took it. Probably the same for the child in this thread. It happens. How it’s dealt with is important. He should have been made to return it and apologise next time he was at his dads house. Rewarding him by putting it in his money box is ridiculous. His mother is hopeless as well as a thief (and she can’t use the excuse that she’s 7!). Definitely deduct it from her maintenance money and tell her you’ve screenshot the texts where she said she’d put it in the money box and the one where she threatened to tell the court that she’d been underpaid if they didn’t let her keep it. Then tell your son that you were very upset at him taking the money and it’s not a nice thing to do.

[quote MakeWorkYourNewFavourite]@SionnachRua I don't know why she's jealous. It's just the way she comes across.
I didn't know this was something that got trotted out. I've always assumed old wife gets jealous of new wife. I've rarely seen it the other way around.
I've never been married. And nobody's ever left me (yet), so I don't have a "side". It just seems that OP really dislikes the woman.[/quote]
She's pissed with her because the mum is refusing to return money her son stole. Anyone would be angry about that and they'd have a right to be. That's without going into any potential background issues.

I still can't see how disliking the ex makes her jealous of her though? Like I said, I can't see what there is to be jealous about.

@TheBadElfParade

I don’t think it’s an attention thing, he can be very sneaky and will lie about anything really. His mum is similar and it’s an unfortunate circumstance but it’s the cards we have been dealt with. The latest big one was when he stole off my child, a lot of upset there. It’s not a nice situation to be in but we are trying our best to teach morals and there are rules in the house. He can be challenging but we do our best to make sure our home environment is stable for him. This is the first time he has openly admitted something so serious which is a step forward, it would have never happened before.

he can be very sneaky he’s 7 FFS poor kid you need to get to the bottom of why he’s stealing. Is he unhappy?

I’m dying at some of these responses of posters doing anything possible to excuse the mother’s behaviour. As clearly it can’t be the mother’s fault, it must be the stepmum she’s obviously horrible. Seriously op please ignore these idiotic comments she has your money and refuses to give it back

@MustardMitt

I asked about the OP's DC's birthday because she said " I do regularly check his pockets since the last incident where my own child was deeply hurt by it (it was on their birthday). " Later she says the police were involved (about custody) at her child's birthday. And she says it was a year ago. So I wondered if it was connected to the current incident, whether DSS acted out around her DC's birthday because he felt left out.

You say she wasn't hostile in the slightest to my reply but she started it off "Bloody Hell" which is why I read it that way.

You say I've got an anti-step mum agenda going on. Search my posts on Mumsnet, you won't find an anti-step mum statement anywhere, and neither was this intended to be anti-step mum. I apologize to all concerned if I came off that way in this post and I will carefully vet anything I say in future. I think step mums by and large are AMAZING and I have nothing but admiration for blended families and I realise and understand most of the work for this falls on the (step) mums.

If you read my whole post I said that I feel sorry for the OP and for her stress. I also said in both my posts I don't excuse the mother at all. I think she's fully culpable for her actions. I just wondered if looking for what's causing the kid's behaviour would help. Surely the goal is to answer OP's question. AIBU to be "absolutely furious" with the mother, in my opinion, no, it's understandable.

I think my post was intended to add something pro-child. To me a 7 year old is very young to be called a thief, a liar, a sneak, with bad genes, and I feel sorry for him. I wondered if the OP by referring to "my child" and for two incidents to be taking place around a birthday and a year later (but nothing in between) was missing something about DSS's left out feelings. She said she doesn't think that's it and she treats the kids the same. Asked and answered.

Best of luck OP with all the stresses and the kids. I hope things get better and DSS has learned his lesson and his mum, who qualifies as CF over this, doesn't do anything like it again.