To feel so sad at how busy my step-daughters life is

[Justgivetea]

Hi,

Some context, my step-daughter is 10, she's in Y6. Her mum passed away when she was 6, I've been in her life for 2 years now. I have a son of my own who is 11.

My SD is a darling of a girl, she's smart and hardworking and never seems to cause an issue. Her dad (my partner) claims his parenting method is "high expectation, high reward". But honestly the poor girl never stops!!
She attends a private prep school, dropped off to breakfast club at 7.30, picked up by her grandma at 3.45. Then a club every night of the week, 2 days tennis, 2 days ballet, 1 day piano. No weekday play dates, just school, homework, dinner and clubs.
On Saturday she attends a Saturday school (her dad is French), 8.30-1. This is basically just French classes as far as I know. Then picked up packed lunch in the car, straight to tennis for 1-2 hours.
Sunday she doesn't have any official hobbies planned in but this is the only day she can do play dates/go to parties, ride her bike round the park - you know - be a child.
This summer she will finish school on Friday the 5th of July (prep schools and ridiculously early finishes). Go to Wimbledon with her dad on the Saturday (so long day). Fly to France as an unaccompanied minor with a chaperone on the Sunday morning, be picked up by some coach from a tennis school, spend two weeks there, playing tennis for several hours a day for 6 days. Then at the end will be picked up by her French grandparents, spend a week with them, go on holiday with her dad for two weeks (and my son and I this year), back to the UK to spend a week with her mums parents, then oh yes back to France for two more weeks of tennis! She will get back on the Sunday and have one day left before it's her first day at senior school!
She never grumbles about any of it and she does enjoy tennis (she did 2, 1 week camps last year) but when she got back all her dad could tell me was she seemed tired - so obviously that means the next year you book double right?!
I feel so sad for her, summer holidays should be play dates with friends, paddling pool in the garden, bike to the park etc. I feel she has no childhood and it seems exhausting.

We agreed not to comment on the others parenting but I find it so hard to seem this little girl be dragged around to all these activities all the time. I often wonder if the reason she never misbehaves is because she always too tired to! And if her room is never messy as she is never allowed to be in it!!

AIBU to think this is a really sad childhood?

Op my dc is in a private school too and this is VERY much the norm. My ds does 3x clubs a week and 1 on the weekend, 1 play date a week. He is very busy.
He also has downtime and family time.
Why is being busy a bad things? He is getting exposure to many different activities and sports, socialising and also importantly as he is growing up it will be normal to him to keep busy/active rather than walking around the town streets getting up to nonsense. How do you think us parents fill up 8 weeks of summer holiday - whether it's a camp here or France our kids are put in camps for a few weeks too. Your SD is getting 3 weeks of family holidays too, which is more than most kids, I can't see what's so wrong with that?

I’d worry that he was keeping her constantly busy to avoid the grief catching up with her. Did she have counselling or support when her mum died? I’d be worried that she is just going to crash and burn at some point and it will be much harder to recover from. Personally I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about this. I just couldn’t stand by and watch the car crash in slow motion.

It’s a different life to most children, but if she’s at private school it’s likely she doesn’t have friends locally to hang out with. And spending time with her French family is important given she has lost her mum and it will benefit her in the future to have the language.

She's had counselling quite extensively from what I know. She seems able to talk about her mum quite openly and doesn't appear to be struggling with the loss any more than would be expected.
I don't think it's associated with the grief really.

I have a teen daughter who is super motivated in sports and would absolutely LOVE your step-daughter's intense tennis schedule. In fact, she does tennis several times per week and in addition rides horses 6 times per week. Some kids love sports and it's what they WANT to do - not being forced into it. In fact, she is doing 4 hours of sports today (2 hours riding and 2 hours tennis) and she was so upset that her tennis lesson this morning got cancelled that she made me ring around all morning to find a last minute replacement session. 🤷‍♀️

I don't doubt that her family time is important.
I do think 4 weeks of tennis camp is a lot!, it's 3 hours of tennis and 3 hours of fitness and then competing on the middle weekend.
I think doing that once would be enough!
I also think she could probably drop the Saturday school now, she is perfectly fluent in French (her dad speaks to her exclusively in French) and it's a big chunk of the weekend gone. Though I get it is nice for her to meet other bilingual children.

Does she want to become a professional tennis player? My daughter dreams of being a professional athlete and she loves training voluntarily. No one is forcing her to do it. When she doesn't have lessons she wants to go to the gym or practice her serve or something like that. It's what she enjoys doing.

I think it largely depends on the child and would really suit some. Hence why you’ve got some posters saying they’d love it and others that they’d hate it.

It never would have suited me personally but would my DS. I’ve just booked him into camp for the whole summer with activities on the other days as he thrives on the busyness. It’s taken me a while to accept that as he is so different from me.

In all honesty, I think it all just makes you feel inferior.
It's not a world I would be comfortable in either, for what it's worth. Pushy parents and private school, no thanks.
Being honest again, your relationship sounds weird too. Are you planning on living together? By 3 years, me and my then partner were co parenting all of the kids and supporting each other. Not strictly avoiding commenting on it.

Not that she's ever said to me.
I asked why she likes playing tennis so much just there and she said "it's fun" when I asked if she wanted to be a tennis player when she's older she said "I'm not sure", asked what she did want to be and she said "a model I think".

some kids would absolutely thrive in that sort of schedule. Others would hate it. Realistically, “these days” there isn’t much hanging about done by primary dc in private schools whose parents work long hours. There school friends aren’t usually on the doorstep, lots aren’t straight home after school every night as they also do activities or are in some sort of childcare until parents finish work. If she didn’t do any activities she wouldn’t necessarily do more socialising with friends. Lots of primary age kids will be in “camps” in the summer holidays, albeit not abroad. Things might change when she goes to secondary school as she will be able to make plans with friends more independently and lots of dc drop extra curriculars they aren’t particularly welded to as their age/stage changes and the academic work increases.
It’s nice she has such involved grandparents.

It’s very fashionable at the moment to bemoan the “overscheduling” of children and people are always espousing the benefits of “boredom” in children, but the flip side to this is an unpleasant judgment of families who organise things for their kids and this is a prime example.

This lifestyle isn’t particularly unusual for a certain section of society and as long as the child is happy I don’t see a problem.

Some people thrive on having highly organised lives. It’s not for everyone and some people push back against it but it certainly will set your step daughter up to be a successful person, learning new things and developing good habits.

Some children will burn out, some will thrive. Your step daughter will signal this through her behaviour and her parents would do well to listen to this. But I don’t think a busy schedule for a young woman is intrinsically something to feel “sad” about.

We will live together eventually, but not before our children are more self sufficient.
His in-laws live with him 4 nights a week and it's been discussed that this will continue for another 2 years at least as they do all the running around for his daughter. I wouldn't move in while they were staying there as it would feel odd. I also don't want to be expected to be a full part of the club runs!

Beyond that my son is starting secondary after the summer and is going to a grammar which is a bit out of the way, and closer to his dads, so I can't move totally in towards where he is yet as it wouldn't be fair on my son.

Gosh, I suppose the big question is 'is she happy?' If she is then it sounds pretty fabulous, your post gives the impression her Dad is pretty wealthy so I assume all of this is done to a very high/nice standard...

Doesn't sound excessive to me, if she likes it. And she has quite a bit of time off in the summer, even if spent in France with other grandparents. Activity camps also count as holidays, my DC enjoy theirs very much - yes, they practice their skills, but they also have plenty of free time.
Also the French classes - even if a child can speak another language, maybe dad wants her to have options to go to French universities, and for this you need a higher level than just being able to speak.

This is an odd comment though: I often wonder if the reason she never misbehaves is because she always too tired to! And if her room is never messy as she is never allowed to be in it!!

Maybe she is just well behaved and tidy? It's not a bad thing. Does your son misbehave and have a messy room?

You seem to have a cultural mismatch.

This sounds very typical for a French parent. He will have been brought up doing long school days, going to school on Saturday mornings and going away to camps in summer.

There is nothing inherently abusive about this unlike what some previous posters have commented. She is surrounded by lots of people who love her and it is great that both sets of grandparents are so involved in her upbringing. The time she spends in France is brilliant for her to really embrace her dual nationality.

You chose to parent differently but there seems something really distasteful about you publicly slagging him and judging him for doing what he thinks is best for his daughter. If I was your partner and found out that you were so disparaging of my parenting choices then I would end it instantly.

I think it wholly depends on the child. There is a lot of chat on Mumsnet about children needing lots of down time to scamper about building dens and jumping in puddles and snuggling on the sofa. Some children love all that, but many don't, and if you have a focused and energetic child with a strong sporting or other special interest, then they will benefit more from being supported to further that, in the company of other similar children.

Having said all that, I would be slightly concerned about a child of 10 going away to tennis camp, only because of all the things we have heard about that environment.

I asked why she likes playing tennis so much just there and she said "it's fun"

there you go then. If she was dragged there kicking and screaming, that would be different. But she thinks it's fun, so would make no sense not to allow her to do it.

she sounds so young for all this tennis!

She literally won't be home once in the 8 weeks.

Tennis Camp - Grandparents 1 - Holiday - Grandparents 2 picking her up from the airport - Tennis Camp (grandparents will drop her off again here).

He's asked if I will pack her bag for holiday and we will take it with us on our flight, she's flying as an unaccompanied minor and we will meet her at the airport!

So it wasn't an exaggeration.

My DD would do the same if she could. She loves sports, tennis, ballet and constantly wants to do things. Sounds like DSD is spending time with both sets of GPs in the summer holidays which sounds lovely and surely she will have downtime then?
sounds like she has amazing opportunities and all kids get tired sometimes. she is being raised bilingual and sounds like she is confident (flying alone) and content.

Better than spending the day on the xbox eating sweets!

she will probably not want to do so much when she is a teenager but personally I think it sounds great.