To not get out of bed just to say bye.

[LadyDane]

I work shifts, never full night's but early & lates and when I'm on a late I may not get in until 10:30/11pm, then I need to eat, wash and wind down so I can often not be in bed until gone midnight.

My husband tends to leave for work around 7:30am.

He has an older son who stays with us a week on week off. He is 11 and has been walking to school since the start of the year.

Me and DH can't seem to agree on this. DH ensures SS's alarm is set in the evening and he knows to make some cereal and brush teeth and what time he needs to leave but he's always mithering me to get up and 'see him off, say good morning, good bye, doesn't want him getting up to an empty house all the time'.

There is no choice when I'm on earlies as I leave before DH anyway so there is literally no one else in when SS gets up but DH expects me to get up when I've been on lates just to do this. I don't think it's necessary and if he's that bothered he should go into work late.

AIBU not to get up early after working late just to say goodbye?

I must say I feel sorry for the boy, so many days a week no body checks he's ok before he leaves for school. Perhaps you should take DD to nursery while DH spends a bit of time with DS in the mornings.

I read this thing once where a partner of someone who died in the world trade centre said her biggest regret was not kissing him goodbye that morning as she had already applied her lipstick. What's important here. Your lie in or your partners and step children's feelings. Only you can decide that

Seriously?

Health care workers whose sleep is interrupted have 36% more serious medical errors than those who have uninterrupted sleep.

Whats more important her, her DH not liking the fact she is asleep later than him, or her being safe at her job.

It could be your child she treats. If you are going to pull out the big emotional sob stories the imagine how you would feel if there was a serious medical error in your childs treatment because your health care workers husband insisted on waking her up earlier than necessary any morning.

If you were at work he’d get up and take himself to school…. So I don’t really see the difference. Just because you’re home (sleeping) I don’t think it’s fair of husband to dictate that you wake up…. Whether it was DC or DSC.

That said I would get up for my DC and make sure she was ok before school… but each to their own, and if you don’t want to them you shouldn’t be woken deliberately!

and yes… I would go out early at the weekend and wake DH and tell him to say goodbye 😂 do it once and he might get the hint!

Ooh nothing better than a bit of emotional blackmail!

Your DH is being an ass & if he was my DH I’d tell him straight that if he woke me unnecessarily once more to expect a throat punch!
Totally love your idea of taking DD out early on a weekend & making sure wake DH before you go out 😂

My 11.5yr old yr 6 DD comes into my room to say good morning once she gets out of bed. Before that I wake her when I go to the loo at 10 to 7 which is the time I call ‘Bladder O’Clock’. Once I have woken her she rolls around in bed for half an hour then gets up & washes herself for the day. She goes down stairs, gets herself some cereal, watches tv for half an hour then comes upstairs to get dressed.
Once she is dressed she comes into my room to put her socks & shoes on, we have a chat about the day ahead, check what is on offer at school for lunch, decide what we are doing for tea then she grabs her bags & heads to school. I shout love you & have a good day from bed & she shouts see you later back at me from the front door.

Independence training for us started when she went into year 6 with her doing her own morning routine once a week & has gradually expanded to the whole week of mornings for herself. She now also walks home 2/3 days a week.
When she goes to secondary school in September she’ll potentially be walking to & from school everyday so had to learn to do it sometime & I had to trust her at some time.

I think you are saying the dad should DEFINITELY wake his own child so he sees him in case something happens. Because if the step mum would regret it forever as you’re implying, imagine how the actual father would feel. For the rest of his life.

that and you are so full of it.

She isn't waking up to say goodbye to her kid on those days either, no favouritism included

This is nonsense created by grief. I used to regret not running back in from the car to give my Nan one last hug before and died. In reality, there will always be a last time, whether it's the morning or the night before. We do not need to make our own lives more difficult than they need to be and exhaust ourselves out of fear we won't get that one last moment with our loved one's.

As a PP said, is it worth being shattered and likely to make mistakes at your job just to have said goodbye in the morning?

She wouldn’t get a lie-in at all then. The DH takes their daughter to nursery 3x a week. OP has their daughter all day on the other two days where she’s not in nursery.

I voted you are not being unreasonable because you need your sleep but I do think someone should be there to check on him. He’s still very young. My mum was going to work and leaving me to it at that age and the early signs of epilepsy I was having went unnoticed because there was no one there. So I do think you and your husband need to work out a way to be there for him.

He’s a child, you didn’t give birth to him but when you married your DH you accepted his son too. Instead of looking at it from your DH pov try looking at it from SS’s?

That’s the immediate grief talking. Ultimately if you lose a loved one, the reflection for most people is about the relationship as a whole. Not about the last random moment. Not wanting to give a kiss because of lipstick smudging is a trivial and understandable act: not something to judge someone on.
It is irrelevant to this case.

Or they could ask him instead of assuming his feelings.

Nothing is also stopping the stepson from going to his stepmother and knocking on the door to inform him that he’s leaving.

*inform her

Our DD is 10 and we do all get up together and even walk to school together, but about a year ago we trained her to wake up herself on her own alarm (Alexa) at 7am every weekday, so she in essence gets up before us all and begins her morning routine. We are usually up 10 minutes or so later, as we hear her get ready. So, it is completely in the normal realms of expectation that your SS who is older, to wake up or be woken up at 7am for a normal school day as many people have suggested. The real issue doesn't sound like it is anything to do with SS as there are plenty of days where it is simply not possible for either of you to see him out. The real issue seems to be your husband resenting your lie in and he has diguised this issue (probably subconciously) into what it is today, causing unending ripples through reality... your initlal post on MN and the subsequent ripple effect of it touching hundreds of lives as we, all around the country/world, rally around, taking precious minutes of our days to read your post, digest, consider our response, formulate and deliver a message sharing our opinions... bet your DH never thought about that when he was pissed off you get a lie in every now and then! Good luck OP! :)

I find it weird that people think it’s so dreadful Durban 12 year old to get up and get themselves ready. I was doing this at age 8 and my brother was 10. Mum had to leave at 7am and my dad was either in day shift so already away, back/late shift so still in bed as he got home around 1am, not back from nightshift or passed out in bed on his day off because his shift pattern was brutal (he was also developing a neurological condition we weren’t aware of until later). We were fine, my mum made us get our clothes and school stuff sorted the previous night when we were younger. Got up, washed, dressed, toast and out the door. Mum had a day off on a Tuesday but didn’t get up with us then either.

@BashfulClam same here but my mum was a SAHM! When I started secondary school in the 90s, I set my own alarm and got up myself. I had cereal in the mornings and ate school lunches so didn’t have a packed lunch at all. My mum was a great mum, I certainly have no complaints and we are very close.

@Coolhwip it was just normal to me and many of the families I knew. Mind you it was the 80’s/90’s and we walked to school alone too, (I usually met a friend on the way as she lived 5 minutes walk along the route).

yes an 11 should go knocking on the door of the step mother who doesnt bother to acknowledge him. that kid would be seeing his dad every second weekend if it was my 11 year old

She obviously acknowledges him on the days she is awake, you know the other four days a week where she is getting up with them while her DH gets a lie-in and believes she shouldn’t.

Where’s the outrage for his actual father?

When she is working early shifts, she is gone before everyone and his father leaves him alone to take their sister to school and he manages to get himself out the door, walking with his mates to school.

@BashfulClam

I agree. I was definitely getting myself breakfast and out the door on my own at 8. My parents both worked, my dad left the house at 5 am so I never saw him until after school and my mother left around 7:45 because she needed to drop off my sister at nursery before she went to work. I woke up with my mother, got dressed and simply ate breakfast and watched cartoons before heading to school. It was routine and wasn’t out of the ordinary for most kids with working parents and that was the 90s and 00s for me.

seriously! what is all the whining about the poor woman who has 8 hours sleep before the child leaves after waking himself, dressing himself, feeding himself, and seeing and speaking to no-one as he sits and eats cereal alone as she hides in her room, and lets face it, with a toddler there is no way she is asleep. there are millions and millions of women working lucky to sleep 4 hours a night then drag themselves out of bed to get multiple kids ready and go to work. the entitled outrage for someone being emotionally vacant to an 11 year old non bio child is pathetic.

I think I'd definitely get up to see off an 11yr old to school in the morning - even if you're not in bed till midnight, it's still 8hrs later before he leaves the house, surely? You dont have to be showered & dressed or even take him - just show your face & check he's ok etc. And does that also mean that you don't get up with your little one? Your husband gets her up, sorted & off to nursery without you seeing her either?

Obviously you do you but I can see your husband's point & it must be a bit shit for your step-son to get up by himself, sort his breakfast/school stuff etc & leave the house without seeing a soul.

You are missing the point here. OP only does late shift 3 days every 2nd week. All her other working days she is out at 5 so he doesn’t see her the other days either. What’s so special about having to see her when she’s on late shift?