Birthday meal, DH and kids...

[Mealtime19283]

It was a big birthday of mine last week. My parents have kindly said they want to take me, DH and our children out for a meal (and pay for it).

There is quite a fancy restaurant that has recently opened up and they have suggested this (I do want to try it as well so very grateful). It's expensive so not somewhere we'd go ourselves usually.

They have suggested next weekend, my mum was unwell on the week of my actual birthday so we have been waiting for her to feel better.

DH wants his older children to come too, my DSC. The weekend suggested is not the weekend they are with us. Admittedly, although I haven't said this to DH, I suspect it was one of the reasons this specific weekend was chosen as I know my parents are looking forward to spending the evening with GC as they have said they don't get to treat them as much as they'd like.

Aibu to say we should just go without DSC who aren't due to be there anyway? I don't feel right asking my parents to pay for them and its not something we can afford this month ourselves for a couple of reasons. Mt parents could afford it, they are comfortable financially and like to treat me/ DC but if they'd have wanted to I feel they'd have offered. They aren't close to DSC and anyway, it's supposed to be for my birthday and I'd quite like just an evening to ourselves with my parents.

If DSC were due to be here that would be different.

Do your children get taken out by the mother of the DSC and her parents/new partner? Are they included in all her and her partner’s significant events? Or would they be if she had a partner?

If not (and I think it is likely they’re not) then it is totally acceptable not to include them in this occasion.

My parents invite my dsc to events. As it happens they no longer have grandparents alive, but even before she welcomed them

I never understand this and yet people seem to feel triumphant that they’ve performed an amazing GOTCHA everytime they roll it out. My parents know my step kids bc they’re part of MY family. The family that I live in, that I chose to join and make. My husband’s ex’s parents don’t know my kid because they’re rightly involved in their daughter’s family. Not mine.

OP it depends on how your family works. In our family, whole family attends a family birthday celebration. If that’s not what you do in your family’s that’s fine, there’s no rules about this.

🥰🥰🥰

This is how you do it stepmums of MN.

Again - why would they? Can you really not see the difference between the step children who share my home and my life, who are part of my family, and my husband’s ex’s child with her new partner? Really? They’re the same to you?

Surely nobody actually thinks like this.

In any event, whether the other house includes step-children is not the standard. The standard is the one you set for YOUR family.

it’s so reassuring to know there are step parents who realise step children are part of their family and embrace them as such 🥰🥰🥰

Step-PARENTS @StormingNorman

Not step-grandparents, step-aunties, step-cousins etc. They haven't been fostered by the DH in this case. He could have, not just when someone is buying dinner. Did he offer to take everyone out? No, then who pays the piper calls the tune.

Could you just do something else with your SC on another weekend? It's not weird to have 2 celebrations. I don't know why people seem to be suggesting you don't like them - my parents are not close to my SC at all so would feel weird going for a meal with them, but I would defo still want to celebrate my birthday with them so would just arrange something else for the next weekend.

if you want the child to understand that despite you becoming part of their family, you are not allowing them into your new nuclear family and your family are not their family you’ll need to explain that to them.

Everyone who is reducing this to who pays for dinner is

1/ missing the point

2/ basically saying the children aren’t worth the price of a fancy meal.

Who is telling children that this is their new family in the first place? It's really not difficult to avoid these issues. Children know who their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are. They're not going to think all these other random people are family unless you tell them they.

Or because that is indeed what the point is for us?

and no, the OP’s parents aren’t obliged to take her stepchildren out for dinner.

Nothing wrong with your plan OP, they aren't excluded because they aren't actually there that weekend. Life goes on on the weekends DSC are with their mother. I have 2 DSC and would have done the same. Everyone is entitled to have their own boundaries with blended families. I hate threads like this when you get the 'think of the children' brigade jumping in. Not your monkey, not your circus.

Who made you Queen of What's the Point, @StormingNorman?

We just don't agree with you. And have made a great deal of points about why. Who pays is important because OP's DH is happy to spend her parents' money. If he was hosting dinner, he could decide the guest list.

The parent tells their child a new person is becoming part of their family! It also isn’t unreasonable to expect your parent’s family to be your family. Children also know that marriage blends families. So…

This is what I think really. My kids are the SC to their step mum (whereas I don’t have any step kids or kids who are their half siblings). I would not have an issue with this - in fact I expect they’d never know about it if it did happen! And neither would I.

I couldn’t imagine comparing the value of a child to £30 plate of food but each to their own I guess.

They’re equal to him, sure. That doesn’t mean they’re equal to OP and her family, and it doesn’t mean they have to be.

And sometimes not even that. There are plenty of threads on MN to attest to the fact that some DH/DPs put their children with the ex way above their children with the OP.

His and OPs children have the chance to do something nice? Then either his first children MUST go too, or none of them go. And I wonder if that's what's happening here? (OP would he go so far as to say if your DSCs don't go, then your DCs don't either?)

if you want the child to understand that despite you becoming part of their family, you are not allowing them into your new nuclear family and your family are not their family you’ll need to explain that to them.

Totally agree with @HollyKnight here - it’s the other way round, surely? In my experience, in a blended family situation where both parents are around, kids know very well who’s who and who’s what to whom and they don’t take on the “everyone is my family” thought process unless an adult tells them that it’s otherwise.

Wow, what a cheeky fucker he is. If he wants them to come that’s fine but he pays, and as it’s awkward then, he should pay for him, your own kids and his other kids, and your parents pay for them and you.

simoly say to him that’s fine, but we should pay I am uncomfortable asking my parents to pay more, it’s expensive as it is, as such, they just pay for me, and we pay for the kids and you.

watcy him back out fast.

No, they don't. Plenty of people have a dad and a dad's wife. Or a mum and a mum's husband. Not every child wants another mum or dad, let alone a bunch of step-people they'll rarely ever see.

If my dad had tried to tell me his new wife was any sort of mother to me, I would have laughed at him. Her family were her family. Nothing to do with me. In fact, not one person I know see's their step-parent's family as their family. None of us needed pitying. None of us were damaged by not "blending".

By the looks of all these types of threads on MN, it's the children who are forced to blend who need pitied.

I couldn’t imagine comparing the value of a child to £30 plate of food but each to their own I guess.

Yes, that's what we're doing. Sixth Form debating club strikes again.

What now: why would her parents be their family as such, so they have what six grandparents? Give over. Maybe 8 grandparents if the mother has a partner. That’s ridiculous. She’s the step mum. They have a mum and a dad; and the family associated with that.

im all for inclusion but you go too far.

I’ll stand alone and stand up for these kids all day long. BTW I’m not actually alone…there is a ‘we’ who share my point of view too.

It doesn’t matter to the dad who pays. He wants his children included in a family celebration. They are his family and he wants them to be OP’s family. If he offered to pay, OP still wouldn’t want them there.

I’m not going to shut up because you don’t agree with me. I find it disgusting how so many people are willing to form a new family with the intention of making a young child’s life just a little bit harder.

And to be fair reading some posts on MN how many step families will they pick up throughout their lives..