Would you expect your partners family to treat your children like family?

[Yellowpetalrose]

If you're with a partner or spouse who isn't your children's parent, would you expect their family to treat your children from a previous relationship the same as other children in the family who are related to them?

I.e. same presents at Christmas, same interest in their hobbies, schooling, lives in general, same offers of childcare ect.

Not specified which side of this I'm on as wanted unbiased opinions if possible.

YABU - No its fine for them to treat children related to them differently to children who are not.

YANBU - Yes I would expect it.

Day to day the same - like ice cream, presents

Inheritance - completely reasonable to be different

Childcare - depends, taking only your biological grandchildren to the funfair bit mean, offering to have your biological grandchildren one day a week but not all four more reasonable, not least because four is a lot to look after

No you can’t expect them to be treated the same. With respect- absolutely, but not the same.

No, because you can't dictate what other people do with their money. Or how they feel. Especially birthdays, why would you remember birthdays of children who aren't related? Unless you're there for them in a family gathering, obviously.
A token gift is still a nice gesture and especially something at Christmas if they're all giving presents in person because it would feel cruel to leave some out.

You presumably wouldn't expect the older children's father and grandparents to buy presents for the non related children?

With the big age gaps, I don't imagine the step family had much to do with your older children until they started seeing you all more when the younger ones came along. It's hard to bond with older children at the same time, when the focus is on babies and toddlers. They're essentially strangers to each other as they didn't grow up around them.

My grandparents have always treated my half sister the same as me. Even as children she would come to visit and stay with them even though they have no blood relationship. She is my younger sister so they did not need to even meet her as my parents were divorced. But I think this is very unusual.

I would expect them to be treated the same if they were all together.

Like Christmas, family Christmas with you all, they should feel like one family. Any extra treat's maybe when the older ones are celebrating with their other parent.

Yes in your case I would accept both step kids to be treated the same as the biological kids. They were only 5 and 7 when you got together - any person who differentiates such young kids just because they aren’t biologically the same age are horrible. And if people I wouldn’t want around any of my kids.

On interest in their schooling/hobbies, when around them, I would expect them to ask polite questions, like I would with my friends' children.

But I wouldn't expect them to feel the same interest or to turn up to football matches or whatever.

It totally depends on how serious and committed the relationship is and on various kinds of family dynamics.

There's a bit of a prevalence on mumsnet of women using the words "my partner" when it's clear from what follows that he sees her as "casual girlfriend" so there's a lot of situations where I would say no.

If it's a genuine partnership "married in all but name", have been together for ages and the partner who isn't the bio parent of the kids loves them as if they were their own then possibly - but it would then depend on wider family dynamics.

I think in most families it would be more likely to be a middle way - not completely ignoring the bonus kids but not spending as much time and money on them. When it comes to childcare it depends how much the "step-parent" is doing - if the normal setup is that step-parent is solo-responsible for kids on Wednesday nights as their bio parent has a sports activity and on one particular Wednesday the "step parent" has a diary clash then yes it would be kind for the wider family to step in but I certainly wouldn't expect step-grandparents to have a regular role in the weekly childcare plan. I would only consider giving save value of Christmas gifts to a step-niece as a bio-niece if they had been part of the family since very young and were generally involved with and spending time with the crowd of cousins throughout the year on an equal basis.

But yabu to use the word Expect. All these things fundamentally spring from love, and you can't "expect" love. Of course, love isn't a quantity that runs out or needs to be held back from one person in order to give more to the next so there's no rule that says the step-kids can't be loved by the wider family, but that's not something that can be expected or demanded, and if it is absent then that must be accepted, not resented.

No I wouldn’t. I’d expect basic decency (like no overt favourism, maybe token gifts, ice creams/ treats for everyone) but not the same. Some may disagree but the relationship is just not the same when neither their mum or dad is a direct relative and also your kids before your current partner have a different set of grandparents who can spoil them/ give them gifts.

I would treat them the same.

Only in the circumstances where GP's child had adopted the SGC (young) and they didn't have family on the other side would I expect things to be the same. Otherwise it's just not the same.

Depends on so many factors.

How long the relationship is, how old the dc were at the start, how much time they spend with that parent (are they resident, 50/50 or visit once a week) and how often close the parent/grandparent relationship is.

I know someone who married in middle age and gained a stepdaughter who was in her 20's, and expected that stepdaughter to be treated the same by the grandparents even though they hardly knew her and had no relationship with her at all. When the grandmother died she insisted the stepdaughter traveled in the car with the other grandchildren to the funeral (she didn't know them) and was mentioned in the eulogy as one of the grandchildren. That was a bit OTT.

If it's young children and they're all together at Christmas, it's kinder to treat them all the same with gift buying etc.

Also, while not treated 'the same', when we all go out for dinner or similar my in-laws always pay for everyone, my children included. They'd not have it any other way. As others have said, it's about general respect, not treating them the same. My children don't view my inlaws as their family either to be fair.

No I wouldnt expect it at all. A token gift for bday or Christmas is nice but I wouldnt demand anything. Presumably they already have 2 sets of grandparents.

I think it is unreasonable to expect anything really.

I think it depends a lot on level of contact.

If they are children who visit every other weekend and have full relationships with their own GPs and the step parent keeps hands off wrt parenting, then no.

If they are resident, with little contact with one set of GPs, and the step parent is allowed to be hands on, then maybe yes, but then also depends on age, how much they see them etc.

I think if DD ended up with a step child I probably would treat them the same in terms of gifts etc and take an interest in them as I would any child in my family. But tbh I probably wouldn’t be offering to take them on holiday etc or offering to take 4 kids for childcare. The grandparents will want to build a relationship with their own grandchild and childcare offers an opportunity to do that. I think it’s reasonable to expect kindness and inclusion but they probably won’t feel the same about children who aren’t related to them.

No I don’t expect it, I just expect kindness and obviously on a day out or something I’d expect all kids to be treated the same.

DP’s family actually do treat them the same and his parents refer to my children as their grandchildren but this has occurred naturally because both sides are happy with it and it’s not something I’d expect or force. My children’s biological grandparents have very little to do with them so this may have had some influence.

I treat my partner's nieces and nephews as family, as they are his family.

His extended family are lovely to my kids, but they are not his, so that is generous of them but not expected. They are just happy he has a family unit as his first marriage was childless. However, if we had been young enough to have our own, I know they would have truly loved the bio child but mine they are just brilliantly kind to.

Absolutely no expectation from my side regarding inheritance or even presents. However, the time they spend getting to know them and include them makes me very grateful as my siblings are childless and my kids are finally having a cousin experience. However, I am aware it is skin deep and am realistic.

It would be hard if we had a bio child but without that emotion is is much clearer to see.

Probably not

This 13 and 15 year old who have been part of the family for 8 years are presumably only with the wider family on Christmas Day itself every other year and are with their other family on Christmas Day the other years, but each year they get two "Christmas Days" - one a few days before or after - where they will get gifts from both their sets of bio grandparents, aunts & uncles etc.

Assuming their other parent is also in a committed relationship and the same "rules" applied there too, a fully equal gift-giving policy would see the older 2 kids getting gifts from 4 sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles and the younger 2 getting gifts from only 2 sets. That certainly wouldn't be fair!

This is true 😁 In MN land the best that you should expect from anyone is to be civil.

In my family they are treated the same apart from inheritance.
I regularly babysit my step grandchildren as well as biological ones. As far as I'm concerned, the more loving adults a child has in their life the better.

My grandparents accepted me wholeheartedly and always treated me with as much love as my siblings.

I am forever grateful to them.

It completely depends on the relationships. Are the parents married? Have they actually made a commitment to be a family or do they simply cohabitate? How often do the GPs see the older kids? If the step grandkids are with their mum 100% and therefore always came on visits to GPs then it's different if they were only very occasionally there. The sets of kids are also very different ages. The little ones are easy to buy all sorts for. The teenagers won't be.

No, absolutely not.

I would once it’s a serious relationship but not before as why should they get invested in having a grandparent and grandchild relationship which children that could be taken away from them at any moment. It would probably also depend on how much they see them, if they never see the children then I can see why they wouldn’t.