to not give up my Saturdays?

[Frey11]

My husband shares a daughter with his ex who does a hobby. She has practice during the week, which DH and ex take her to depending who's night it is and at the weekend she has a game on a Saturday. The time varies but it's typically around mid day and takes at least a couple of hours.

My husband has always worked Saturday days, he has a day off in the week and works Saturday. We have SD 2 nights a week, one in the week and at the weekend it alternates one week Saturday night with DH collecting on his way home from work and the next weekend it's Sunday night.

SDs mum has just changed jobs which requires her to also work Saturdays. This was never mentioned to us until she'd already taken the job and I'm now being asked to have SD every Saturday and take her to said game. This means my whole day revolves around this as it's always in the middle of the day.

I also have two pre school children and work all week myself. This is my time with them to do things we don't get to do in the week, see friends, soft play etc..

AIBU to not want to do this every Saturday?

Nope

Don't do it

Your children matter too

Apologies. I should not have assumed how you felt about saying it.
You still said it, though.
And now you are digging in with the old "they sleep under the same roof as both of their parents so therefore don't deserve to be prioritised by either of those parents" trope.
Poor little pre school kids, unaware that Blossomtoes doesn't think they deserve to do nice things with their own mum on a Saturday. Any half decent person would accept that all the kids are equally important, they just aren't equally important to every adult.

Oh come on, it's not complicated.

mum has been doing every week until now. On Dad's weekends he picks her up from her Mum's house after work.

now Mum has got a job on Saturdays, thus arrangement doesn't work as the SD can't get to the fixtures (and I'm assuming us too young to stay at home alone.

maybe it was the only job the mum could get or whatever, it sounds like she's been accommodating if the Dad's work schedule & feels it's time to get back into the workforce again herself before she falls too far behind in the workplace. Maybe she feels 'Dad' needs to step up to enable her to do this. Maybe Dad has decided new wife can do it.

it's all hard to say with ver little information.

Though OP says Dad could have done it with more notice. So maybe he can arrange not to work Saturdays and OP can fill in until then.

both parents are being unreasonable. OP is not, she works full time & wants her weekends to be with her 2 little ones. Not ferrying around her older SD & having her two wet & cold on the sidelines. Physically & metaphorically.

Oh good. Silly me. Usually the above statement about living with both parents is code for, “Make the second child compromise as much as possible to make up for their sibling not living with both of their parents.”

Hence my comment about them not owing them one.

Why are you ranting at me? The information I was asking about wasn't in the OP, and I haven't said anyone is being (un) reasonable.

Completely agree 💯

Yes, silly you. Maybe assume people mean what they say and aren’t using some arcane code understood only by you.

What did you mean by it then? That OP should give up her Saturdays because her child has got it good just by living with both parents?

@Whataretheodds I wasn't 'ranting' at you. I was answering your question.

MN have made it incredibly easy to read all the posts by the OP

I don’t see it being the mums contact time as that relevant. It’s clearly the mums contact time because the dad works and even divorced and moved on and had other babies, his ex still facilitates his working life by taking on the lions share of contact including every Saturday. Might be his time to look at his work and his life and step up to the parenting plate.

I meant what I said. Do you always have such a problem with plain English?

No I was just wondering why it’s relevant to OP’s situation that’s all.

Members of the first wives club are really tying themselves in knots here.

Hilarious posturing and looking very silly.

Oh I see the ‘you knew what you were getting in to/part of the package’ posters have finally turned up.

Neither of the child’s parents are willing to look after their child on Saturdays or take her to her sport. Why should the OP care more than the child’s parents?

They knew what they were getting in to when they decided to have a child - a long period of not just being able to do what they want. They knew what they were getting in to when they signed their child up for a sport requiring every Saturday running around taking her to games etc.

It’s not the OP’s job to do what they aren’t willing to do. She’s already looking after her own children while her husband works. She’s not responsible for compensating her SD for her parents’ inadequacies or poor choices.

Her marriage vows didn’t say: ‘I’ll be free childcare for you and your ex and have no say in that whatsoever’.

First over the other dc? Nah. Some dc are not more important than other dc.

Isn’t it a shame the SD’s parents don’t put her first?

It doesn’t matter if the Saturday job was the only job the mother could get. That is not the OP’s problem to solve.

If neither of the parents will change their work pattern then their DD needs childcare and may not be able to attend any of the fixtures so will need to move clubs or stop the activity.

U of OP’s H and ex to ask OP to do it every Saturday.

This.

Do you need your DH to have a day off in the week? If not then he can swap that with work and just work Monday to Friday and have Saturdays off. Then occasionally you could take her and SM could take her when she has annual leave etc but the majority can be done by DH.

The OP doesn't "have to" do anything of the kind.

The stepdaughter has two parents, both of whom have parental responsibility for her.

It's on them to either arrange their working patterns to facilitate her hobby, find another parent to provide lifts, or say, "Sorry, we just can't make the Saturday fixtures work anymore." The same way they would have to if they were still a couple and all living in the same house and they had both decided they needed to work on Saturdays.

The OP has children of her own who deserve to have a proper childhood, not spend every Saturday for the next ten years being dragged to all their half sister's fixtures whatever the weather, unable to ever do their own hobbies or accept a birthday party invitation.

If the OP's husband was unwilling to prioritise anything or anyone over his child's sports fixtures, he shouldn't have had more children. But we know that both the OP's husband and his ex wife are more than happy to prioritise other things over their child's sports fixtures, since they have both decided that working on Saturdays is more important than facilitating this.

Not the OP's problem.

It is so depressing when self-righteous posters hold SMs more responsible that the child’s parents because they ‘chose’ to be with a man with a child.

Absolutely ridiculous.

This child’s parents both choose to work on Saturdays. And it is a choice. Millions of parents simply cannot take jobs with weekend working so they do not because they need to look after their children.

It is not a stepparent’s job to compensate a child for their shit choices their parents made.

And no, the ‘oh but it’s so hard for SC’ argument doesn’t stack up. The difficulty for SC lies in the breakup of their parents’ relationship. That is also their parents’ choice and their responsibility to mitigate.

Hold parents responsible. They knew what they were getting in to when they decided to become parents.

How old is DSD? It seems bigger issue here is you are expected to be all day childcare including the matches. Unless she's old enough to be at home alone...

It is so depressing when self-righteous posters hold SMs more responsible that the child’s parents because they ‘chose’ to be with a man with a child.

Absolutely ridiculous
Not a step mother and I totally agree.

Choosing to be in a relationship with a man does not equal having to shape your life on a whim because his ex wants to change things without making appropriate arrangements.

I feel there's an unpleasant contradiction that some women have towards step mothers. The step mother is expected to keep her beak out, not her child, don't have a say in daily life because you're just the dad's partner, don't be involved in anything remotely like parenting... Oh but also you better give step children a whole load of financial support, you better spend the same amount on step children as your own child, you pick up after the step children, you need to accept attitude towards you because you've got their dad and they don't, better drop everything as and when partner's ex says, you better accept being default childcare for step child etc.

In a lot of situations it seems the step mothers can't win, whereas if mum gets a new partner he's elevated on a pedestal for being best dad ever simply by existing.

Mum should not have taken the new job involving Saturday without having a chat with ex how to manage their child. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your Saturday because they didn't plan. Stick to your guns!

Why are people still bun fighting? The OP has even stopped posting!