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?

Tbh it sounds like a pretty normal schedule for a French child from a bourgeois/ upper middle family. We’re in France, and its very normal for summer holidays to follow a pattern of 2 weeks with each set of grandparents, 1-2 weeks in some kind of sports-based summer-camp, plus 1-2 weeks holiday with their parents. All my children’s friends followed this routine. The normal school day here is 8am to 4:30pm, followed by up to an hour of afterschool care and homework. And yes activities are very important - tennis, ballet, poney etc.

@Scavernick

"He sounds like a great father to me. You should not have posted this. It genuinely comes across as envy that this child is a bit of a superstar and high achiever."

The Op's post doesn't come across like envy in the slightest, it comes across like she's caring about the daughter of her partner how and why is that a bad thing?

Also as other posters have pointed out, a parents ability to pay for their child to partake in an array of extracurriculars does not make a child a "superstar and high achiever."

he definitely needs time just to do nothing, 1 day a week wouldn't be enough for him.

He felt 4 weeks in the sun, speaking only French, doing something she loves, would be better than a kids club where they are just doing random activities each day. He also thinks the independence of being away on her own is good.

It also depends on a child´s age. Is your DS younger? 4 weeks of camp would usually be too much for a younger child.

But the girl needs to do something / be somewhere.
And seeing as her DF couldn´t take more than 2 weeks of leave and her grandparents couldn´t do more than one week of childcare each? Tennis camp seems like a good solution.
It is possible that they would have found a better (better = more suited to her needs) solution if her mother was still alive. But she isn´t, so they´re (presumably) doing the best they can.

And most adults don´t get more than one entire day a week to just do nothing (many get less than that...). Preparing children for that reality in a manner that is enjoyable (she clearly enjoys tennis, ballet, piano...) seems like a good idea to me personally.

Edit: I just realised that OP gave her DS´ age in the OP. Oops 😅
Children are (obviously) individuals. What works for one child may not be appropriate for the other...

@Begsthequestion
Envy - because the child isn't unhappy at all. Nothing the op has said has suggested she is. So how can you be 'so sad' for someone when they're not sad at all themselves. It must be another emotion.

Sounds totally normal to me.

Did you know the recommended average amount of daily exercise for children (up to age 18 I think) is an hour of vigorous activity a day? So unless they are properly running around during break, most children need some sort of sports club to simply get to the recommended level.

It is not over loading a child to ensure they get regular vigorous exercise, and if it is with a sport they love and a good social scene then all the better. I find it astonishingly how many people think this is ‘over loading’ and instead children should just chill at home - that’s why we are fast becoming a nation of overweight and depressed people!

I think the sad thing to me about the summer is for the whole 8 weeks she won't be at home once. No time to see friends or play in her room or sleep in her own bed!

I agree with this. Along with this presumably goes the fact that she presumably also doesn't get so much chance to mess around with her friends when she is with her grandparents.

If she doesn't want a tennis career and was tired last year after two weeks at the tennis summer school, doubling it does sound mad. It's also wrong that your SD is being pushed into this solely for child care reasons, not because she actually wants to do this. Really if your partner can't take any more time off in the summer he needs to look at trying to negotiate more time off or changing jobs, because his daughter won't be a child forever and he needs to show her that he prioress her. In particular, he shouldn't be pushing her out at weekends when presumably he could otherwise be giving her more 1-1 time with him.

Wow - touched a nerve? OP describes her as 'smart' and 'hardworking'. She is bilingual and clearly a very decent tennis player. And she is 10. I think that's pretty great.

"Staying home doing nothing or pottering around is the idea of hell for many of us."

If you can't cope with a few evenings of pottering around I think you've got serious problems. Are you afraid of being alone with your thoughts?

I had a childhood like this and never knew any better - am still always happy if my agenda is full and planned out. I appreciate the time with others and the organisation of my time. I find lazy days stressful as they feel unproductive - although as I get older I am trying to work on planning those unplanned times in too, and being okay with them.
If she seems happy then I would leave it. Different strokes for different folks and all that

She is a very happy little girl who does a lot and does it very well by the sounds of it. She is coping with the loss of her mum too and the OP says that she is happy. Why then is the OP picking holes in this child's life and implicitly criticising her father?

It's not an insult to say a child is not a superstar? She's a kid and all kids are great in their own ways. You seem very defensive about all this.

I'm not sure why you're so against this discussion being had.

" I find lazy days stressful as they feel unproductive - although as I get older I am trying to work on planning those unplanned times in too, and being okay with them."

Sounds like you realise this is not healthy.

She does want to go, she's really excited for it (I've learnt this over the last 30 min of her telling me about it).

I'm not sure there are any jobs where you get more than 2 weeks annual leave in the summer (1 at Easter, 1 in October and 2 over Christmas use the rest of his annual leave). My son will use grandparents and summer clubs for his 6 weeks off but I didn't know her grandparents had said only 1 week each.

Why is the emotion you go to "envy"? I don't see any envy from the op, just concern at how tired the kid is and how little downtime she gets.

My DS has done at least three weeks of football each summer since he was 6. Sometimes at home, sometimes residential, sometimes away with his team in a training camp. He loves it.

Can't believe that you don't think learning a second language is worth it. At 10 she will speak like a 10 year old, in other words, there is quite a way to go. "Fluent" is misleading here, if she stops learning now, will she speak good enough French to go to Uni in France? Or work there later? Probably not, so obviously she needs to carry on. I don't really see the problem, and think you should be more supportive of this, it is part of her heritage and culture, and I don't see how her tennis coach speaking French to her, is in any way relevant to you.

Well I disagree and would not want to be the type of person who wants to drag down a 10 year old girl on social media. She sounds brilliant to me and I would be proud of her rather than feeling 'sad' that she is busy. Good grief. 🙄

No one is "dragging down a 10 year old on social media"? Why the hyperbole?

Honestly you seem to have something going on yourself here.

Only on MN...😂

OK whatever. 🙄

You mean only on MN would you find people who can't stay at home and relax of an evening?

Given this update it does sound like a good way to fill the summer. The only flexibilty is to stay home rather than have a holiday for dp's leave which doesn't seem helpful. I expect there is downtime at granparents and it seems she enjoys tennis camp. It does seem better thab a random club.

@Begsthequestion
The op hasn't said she's tired.

@Scavernick

"Well I disagree and would not want to be the type of person who wants to drag down a 10 year old girl on social media. She sounds brilliant to me and I would be proud of her rather than feeling 'sad' that she is busy. Good grief. 🙄"

I have no idea how you're interpreting the OP's concern for her partner's child to be equivalent to criticising her.

It sounds like the OP cares for her partner's daughter and that they have a bond, that can only be a good thing. Caring can be asking if some choices are the right choices, caring is not agreeing 100% of the time.

By all means give a different perspective in general, but several posters here adamant that this is too demanding for this child and this child is overscheduled. Where is the evidence for this?

Then the inevitable reach of things that are also not evidenced, the child is running away from grief, the dad doesnt spend any time with her, the dad is emotionally distant, its endless.

Perhaps it would be better for the OP to understand and reflect that this is a her problem, not the child, not the dad.