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?

The daughter from the first marriage existed long before the children from the second marriage came along.

So you keep saying.

You’d think the child’s parents would have got used to her existing then wouldn’t you? They seem to keep forgetting.

Just a thought - everyone seems quite "me me me" but depends on this new job. First wife may be unable to get better or any other employment. She may not have a choice but to take this job. Also, the perspective that she's actually working has been overlooked. By her working she needs less money from the ex husband. Is it in OP's benefit financially to enable first mum to work? I mean seriously- in a few years SC may go off to university. If Wife 1 works or has a good job - Daddy won't necessarily need to stump up so much money. Basically, the better off financially wife 1 is, the less wife 2 (OP) will lose out financially in the long run. Secondly, Step daughter can choose at 14 I think where to live. She may choose her father. If so, first wife won't be happy as no child support will be paid to her. Depending on Daddy's income and the amount he pays for his 1st child, again it might be in OP's interest to play ball in the long run. Her own children could suffer more financially in the long run if wife 1 can't work.

Tbh, there's too many unknown quantities here to make a decision but enabling first wife (if indeed married) to work it may be in OP'S benefit. Also, another person working makes the taxpayers happy too. Think long game.

It doesn't matter whether it is in everyone's best interests for the ex wife to do this job on Saturdays.

She should not have accepted a new job which involved working on Saturdays without first discussing her childcare arrangements with her child's father.

They needed to sit down together and work out how to facilitate both her new job and their daughter's hobby BEFORE she accepted the job. And if they decided that it was essential for them both to work on Saturdays then they needed to sort out childcare arrangements for their daughter.

Even without the sports fixtures, it is an imposition to expect the OP to provide childcare for her stepdaughter every weekend because both her parents have decided to work on a day when she is not at school. The sports fixtures complicate the issue because it is no longer just about childcare but also about the entire day of everyone involved needing to revolve around her hobby.

Nothing involving the OP's time or cooperation should have been agreed without her being fully involved in the discussion and having a genuine ability to say, "No, that doesn't work for me."

It is utterly unacceptable for the child's mother to have agreed to take this job without sorting out childcare, and for her father to be putting pressure on the OP to step into the breach rather than either changing his own working pattern or saying to his ex wife, "Hang on a second, you know I work on Saturdays. How is Hannah going to get to her fixtures? We need to find a solution because we can't expect OP to take this on."

And as for "playing the long game", @RedoneP, not everything about parenthood is a long game. The time we have with our young children is actually quite a short game. It's not entirely clear how old the stepdaughter is but assuming she's at least five years off going to university, that's five years of Saturdays that the OP and her very little children will never get back if she agrees to this.

I have little ones and it's hard not seeing them much during the week. Absolutely no way would I agree to spend one of the two days a week I have with them driving someone else's child around to sports fixtures and condemning my own little ones to all those afternoons in the car rather than having trips to the zoo or swimming or going to birthday parties or even just staying at home doing finger painting.

I doubt most people structure their free time in such a way as to maximise the revenue to the Exchequer, in all honesty.

It's not a case of "mattering more". It's a case of the child already existing, and the OP choosing to enter her life.

There are tens of thousands of men a woman could "fall in love" with. It's not as if you have to choose one who already has children. There are plenty of men who don't, and if you chose one of them, you wouldn't have this problem.

The OP has chosen the life of a step parent, and it can be a very hard and thankless life. But it's what you sign up for if you're going to do it properly. I have several friends who have successfully blended families, but it's bloody hard work and it relies on all the adults being reasonable and putting aside their own selfish issues and working together to try to balance out all the children's interests.

If the SD here were the OP's biological daughter, they would no doubt find a way to enable her to continue with her hobby. It seems very hard on the girl that nobody is trying to find a way to balance out her needs with those of the younger children.

What I find disgusting is the selfishness of adults who blithely carry on doing what they're doing without caring about the effect on their children (and this applies more to the SD's parents than it does to the OP).

I wonder if bio-mum has ever made herself available to do favours for OP, or ever would.

She should not have accepted a new job which involved working on Saturdays without first discussing her childcare arrangements with her child's father.

They needed to sit down together and work out how to facilitate both her new job and their daughter's hobby BEFORE she accepted the job. And if they decided that it was essential for them both to work on Saturdays then they needed to sort out childcare arrangements for their daughter.

Even without the sports fixtures, it is an imposition to expect the OP to provide childcare for her stepdaughter every weekend because both her parents have decided to work on a day when she is not at school. The sports fixtures complicate the issue because it is no longer just about childcare but also about the entire day of everyone involved needing to revolve around her hobby
This! 👏👏👏

(and this applies more to the SD's parents than it does to the OP).

Quite. So God knows why it’s up to OP to plug the gap. To be honest, if you want to make it all about fairness to the poor DSC, then OP standing up and saying no, should lead to the parents having to step up and sort it, and one/both of them giving up their Saturdays to take their DC.

Surely that’s what the DC would actually want?

It seems very hard on the girl that nobody is trying to find a way to balance out her needs with those of the younger children.

Again, only one child's interests matter. You've shown no interest at all in balancing the needs of the youngest two. It's awful parenting that you advocate for here.

I mean, at least you are willing to pretty much state outright that you don’t think the other children matter as much because they were first.

Your attitude is repugnant. Even if you tell yourself that you are so kind and caring and child-centred.

Yes @ElevenSeven. It’s almost refreshing to have someone say the quiet part out loud.

It is alarming how many posters don’t seem to think that SM’s children really count as children at all. They cry ‘won’t anyone think of the (step)child(ren)’ only because they’ve decided the younger children actually are less important and don’t really count.

Just a thought - everyone seems quite "me me me" but depends on this new job. First wife may be unable to get better or any other employment. She may not have a choice but to take this job. Also, the perspective that she's actually working has been overlooked. By her working she needs less money from the ex husband. Is it in OP's benefit financially to enable first mum to work?

This isn’t how child maintenance works.

I sincerely doubt the mother would be asking for less maintenance because she’s earning more.

It’s simply not the OP’s problem if her husband’s ex is struggling to find a job.

Take it up with the man who didn't get a vasectomy after his marriage ended, to ensure that he didn't create any more children who might have competing needs to the one he already had.

Why is it the fault of the woman who chose to fall in love with a man who already had a child, rather than the fault of the man who chose to have a second family?

Why is this the responsibility of the woman who wants to make the most of the precious little time she has with her own children and not make them spend every Saturday trailing around after their half sister, rather than the responsibility of the girl's actual parents to organise their working hours and their daughter's hobby without relying on unpaid labour which the OP never agreed to do?

This is not the OP or her children's problem.

You can feel sorry for someone without believing that other people who are not responsible for that person should move heaven and earth to sort their problems out. For example, I feel sorry for people with gender dysphoria, but I don't believe the fact that trans women and girls do not want to use men's spaces or compete in men's sports should be a problem for women and girls to solve. In the same way, I feel sorry for this girl but I do not think the conflict created by her parents both deciding to work at a time when she wants to play sports is a problem for the OP to solve.

You will note that in both cases the problem has been at least partially caused by men, and it is always a woman who is expected to provide a solution, usually by putting her own needs last and not complaining.

It's not a case of "mattering more". It's a case of the child already existing, and the OP choosing to enter her life

you are struggling with basic comprehension here.

Do you argue to parents of two children that their first child already existed when they chose to have another so that baby’s life should always be subordinated to the child who came first?

No. Because coming first doesn’t make a child more important.

Not does choosing to have a relationship with a man who has a child mean that child must become your top priority. And that you must ensure that you step in and compensate the child for his or her parents’ lack of care.

You will note that in both cases the problem has been at least partially caused by men, and it is always a woman who is expected to provide a solution, usually by putting her own needs last and not complaining.

yes. Indeed.

The OP is already looking after her children every Saturday while her husband works. And probably also looking after them so he can have additional time for his eldest child.

The women that the ‘first children come first’ contingent are so desperate to hold responsible for everything are generally already compensating for and mitigating for problems cause by the children’s father in relation to their own children.

And these men think they’re brilliant husbands and fathers. My STBXH hasn’t seen our DS since Sunday and has asked to visit him tonight (at my house). He’s just messaged me to say that he’s going to an exercise class that finishes as 6.30 so he’ll be round after that. DS is 3… he goes to bed at 7.30. But STBXH thinks he’s superdad and in absolutely no way acknowledges that I am always having to pick up the parenting pieces he leaves strewn in his wake. Practical, emotional, financial. STBXH swans in for an hour (of easy, fun parenting - bath and bedtime) when it suits him and tells himself that he is such a good dad.

The OP here does not need to take on the burden of her SD’s hobby now just because her husband is going to be at work and his ex has decided it doesn’t suit her to look after their child.

As I said, all the children exist. Order of when they started to exist is entirely irrelevant.
I managed to choose a man with a child without also choosing to allow DH and his ex to dump on me when it suited. I will always help, but I'm not here to be dictated to by anyone and I certainly didn't choose to make second class citizens out of my own kids.
You can be quite sure all you like, but you don't know what OP would do. Hours and hours in the middle of a Saturday is a huge pain in the arse for any family.
I had to give up my hobby when I was a child as my mum couldn't line schedules up with my brother's interests. So neither of us got to go to what we wanted and we tried other things instead that could be managed.
I'm not more important than my brother just because I existed first and didn't choose to have a dad who worked at sea.

I think we'll just have to disagree on this one. Maybe when some of you are a bit older and more experienced, you'll see more nuances to this situation. Or maybe you won't.

I find the selfishness of many people on here repugnant, fwiw. But I'm not going to say any more about it because people are clearly struggling to see beyond the ends of their noses.

Well quite a few of us find your denial of the existence of the needs of our young DC entirely repulsive.
I hope I don't grow out of wanting to be a decent mum to them above all things. I'd hate to be like you.

Just so you know: this is not what ‘agreeing to disagree’ looks like.

But that is illuminating in itself.

You really shouldn't be trying to use ageism as an excuse for your terrible parenting advice.

What did you do in the end OP?

Or the father's family?

If OP agrees to this it will be the thin end of the wedge, and she will become the default unpaid adhoc childcare provider whenever this child's parents can't be arsed to organise her care.

There’s being selfish and then there is choosing not be a people pleaser and committing to unreasonable requests from people. You can’t seem to tell the difference.

I’m proud to say that in 20 years when I’m in my 50s I will still be supporting women to not to do as they’re told by men by their exes and by women with batshit views on here if MN is still going by then.

Doing better doesn't mean being a doormat who does all the donkey work that the bio patents cba doing. Nor does it mean accepting whatever schedule or plans the bio patents decide upon without your input. Raise your bar. You aren't a slave