Husband annoyed that my family haven't arranged to celebrate DCs birthday

[HailHale]

Will try to keep it short. My husband and I share a child and he also has an older child with his ex. Our child is 3 and SS is 8.

The children's birthdays are about 2 weeks apart.

For my toddlers birthday my family came round and we all had a food together, my grandma made a cake, family members all brought a dish kind of thing. It wasn't extravagant but it was a nice day/evening.

I need to preface this with saying I have never arranged or planned anything for my SS for his birthday before as its always been between DH and his mum and this is the first year I've done something like this for our toddler as other years they were just too young to really care.

This year unfortunately his mum is away looking after a very unwell family member and so SS is with us over his birthday (which is tomorrow).

DH randomly asked me this morning whether I'd planned anything for it and when I said no why? He said i should have asked my family to do the same for SS. He works all week and apparently doesn't have the time to be planning parties (I'm part time). I will add here that DH has no family here, they are all abroad and not close.

Aibu to not have arranged anything with my family for SS and to not rush around doing it now? Happy to go for a meal just us but not asking my family to mess around now at the last minute because he's not done anything for his own son.

Absolutely, this is totally the DH’s failure not the OPs!! Yes perhaps if both parents were incapacitated then I would think it very kind for the OP to step in and organise something and no doubt she would of but this wasn’t her responsibility to have to worry about on top of everything else she’s probably juggling. My SC are lovely and amazing and would happily sort something if both parents in hospital and would hope someone would do the same for my kids in same situation, but I wouldn’t expect them to do a full scale party for my DC, day out/meal out still lovely

Came back to catch up on this thread on this lovely Saturday morning and was met by this gem. I think its an honour that my friends want their children to call me Auntie. This post is really sad.

And a lot of other women take the view that they won’t use a child to take a stand against misogyny because they think the child’s feelings are more important.🤷‍♀️

No one is saying the OP should have to organise the party, clearly that should be up to Useless Dad. However, the child is living under her roof, she chose to marry a man who thinks domestic work should be dumped on the nearest woman and stuck in the middle is an 8 year old who is going to have a miserable birthday if someone doesn’t step up and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Useless Dad.

an 8 year old who is going to have a miserable birthday if someone doesn’t step up and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Useless Dad

You don't know that. He hasn't stepped up already but he can do it now. He jumped to a misogynistic conclusion that OP would do it - but that doesn't mean he will flat out refuse to do it now he knows she hasn't and isn't planning to.

It's perfectly fine for her to make a stand, the 8 year old can still be celebrated, but the dad will have had to actually sort it out. It isn't OP or nothing.

exactly ! @Talia99

Very unfair implication on the OP, my DC would be very happy to go out for a meal etc for their birthday and I would be very grateful for their SP for suggesting this last minute when turned out their father hadn’t. Perhaps cinema etc would be nice too?
So can’t see that the DSC going to have a miserable birthday unless they a real spoiled brat. It really should have been the DH sorting anything more, plus why didn’t the child’s mother bring it up with the DH?

Wow, there’s a little boy at the end of all this ‘it’s your responsibility’ crap!

A little boy who has just watched a huge celebration for his sibling. if you don’t think stuff like that affects children you don’t have a clue.

Behave like adults and do the right thing by this boy!

Of course this year was different. Because this year he is in their house. How is that not different?

Well even more reason for the dad to be proactive in sorting his child’s birthday out then if his child would be at their house. He knew his child would be there and yet did absolutely nothing. I mean who even does that?

If anything he should have been taking extra care to make his son’s birthday special this year as he will most definitely be missing his mum on his birthday.

I admit I haven’t read the full thread. And I haven’t had a blended family myself, or experience with sc. But this type of post fills me with despair.
No one has realised until very late they need to do something (doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult) to celebrate an 8 year olds birthday, and then the reactions are along the lines of ‘why should I’ and ‘I’m not doing it I’m too busy’.
Try and find some love OP and DH, if you want to be a family.

He’s at home with his dad this year unexpectedly and arrived on Tuesday. OP then not told where DSS will spend birthday for a couple of days as mum is away

There never was a party as mum and dad had never planned to have a party.

So why expect one from OP?

Anyway, hopefully they’re all out having a fantastic birthday.

I think you meant to agree with @aSofaNearYou there 😂

Exactly. Like OP is some kind of Mary Poppins who can pull out everything for a party with DSS’ friends out of a magic bag with 2 days’ notice.

Yes but these posts are very clearly saying she’s a rubbish person for not having planned a huge party for a child who has 2 able bodied parents who she didn’t realise had organised anything … WTH?? Rather think this somewhat smacks on an indulgence of step mother bashing??

She’s not planning to not do anything for his birthday now this situation has been landed on her, just came as a surprise to her that the child’s parents hadn’t sorted something. She shouldn’t be blamed for not anticipating the situation, gosh if we were all blamed for not anticipating things which were not our responsibility. From the sound of it sure she’ll make sure he has a lovely day anyway, probably the one rushing out to get him a cake, book cinema and meal tickets etc, despite none of it being her responsibility

Well … I kind of think it is her responsibility you see. That’s the issue. Before you all pile on objecting, of course it’s the responsibility of the biological parents as well. The mother is away caring for someone very unwell it says. So that presumably is the reason she is not organising the birthday. So then someone else would hopefully step in?? But no, the adults can’t be bothered and are falling out over whose job it is.
Don’t families need to pull together to show care for each other?

And of course someone has to step in doesn’t mean it should be the stepmother, ideally the dad would lead. Or dad and stepmother together.

People are really hard of reading. The AIBU is not, “AIBU to do fuck all for DSS’s birthday.” It’s “AIBU to not rush around organising a family party with my parents and extended family.” She’s made it clear there are presents and she’s happy to go out. She’s made it clear she has no way of contacting her DSS’s friends, because she’s been actively excluded from parenting him /been excluded from his birthdays past at the behest of his mother and father who has gone along with this. And in any event, the husband is not asking her to do a party with his son’s friends, he’s demanding a party with her family. The mother has clearly failed to organise anything, or if she has, has not handed it over to the father or OP. So the OP’s plan of presents and a nice tea is making the best of a bad situation created by the mother and father of this boy, and there’s no reason why it will be miserable and scar him for life as some are suggesting- unless the father makes a big sulking deal about it and unless his mother decides to use the situation to score points against the OP.

@JussathoB but it doesn't take two people to arrange a birthday celebration for a child. The absent mum didn't need a stand-in or replacement.

I would have thought unless the mother is in a coma she would have been the first one to remind the DH that he needs to organise something. What did the mother have organised previously, kids birthday plans usually organised weeks in advance. The OP isn’t planning to not do anything but unreasonable to suddenly expect her to magic up a super party. If someone ‘stepped up’ and took my child for a meal and cinema/ice skating and did a cake if I couldn’t be there I would be extremely grateful and grateful think that would be lovely for anyone who did that for any child. Why isn’t that enough when it wasn’t her responsibility anyway?

I think those posting the op should just do it to be kind because there's extenuating circumstances are missing something.

In a loving partnership where both people pull their weight, equally and fairly and without sexism, then absolutely yes, one would pull together in a situation like this.

But it is absolutely obvious from the op that this is not the case. The father expected the op to have, without any communication from him, organised everything for his child, clearly on the account that she is a woman. That is the problem.

This exactly, unless orphans than SP extended family don’t usually take on that role, they don’t usually even have that kind of relationship that an 8 year old would think it the best thing ever spending a few hours with them

@HailHale
As you can see there's a lot of people invested in this! Please would you come back and tell us what ended up happening?

I would also suggest that where the op said organisation has always been 'between her dh and dss mum' we can safely assume organisation has always been 'dss mum'.

It is absolutely the dad's responsibility but she's married to him, she must know he's useless and he's not going to change. Even if his son is devastated today, he's just going to blame OP. Unfairly. He's spreading a lot of unfairness around. But the only person who has no control over any of it is a little boy.

What is you want OP to do with 2 days’ notice?

Why should the son be devastated?? He’s got presents and she’s planning to take him out, no doubt will sort a cake for him too