To be absolutely furious with my father?

[PortaSix]

My father and is wife are both in their 50’s and are having another baby. None of my business, it’s not what I would want to do but it’s up to them.

We were at a family gathering and the subject of death came up and what would happen with our children. My dad then announced “oh I just assumed Porta would take them in”

Like, wtf?! Did he not think this was a conversation to have BEFORE having babies in old age? They have a 10 year old, a 3 year old and now another one on the way.

I’ve had my babies. I had mine in my early 20’s so that my 40 my kids will be grown. I do not want to take on any ther children. I am so mad that he just thought I would take on his children like this without any sort of discussion. Aibu?

Op do you mean here that your mum had a baby when you were 16?

No, no, no, no, no!!

They can do what they want with "THEIR fertility, THEIR body, THEIR choice" but they absolutely cannot saddle their unwilling half-sister to add three children she barely knows to her own family without so much as asking her if she would be willing to do it!!

Utterly batshit!

I suppose you would do it...!! 🙄

The only way for it to make sense is that the OP's mother had a baby when the OP was 16?

It doesn't matter what age you are. All parents should think about who will be their children's guardians in the event both of them die and get the guardians' permission first before naming them in their wills. Sadly even young parents can die in an accident.

DH and I named a friend of DH and his wife in our wills to be our children's guardians, but we made sure they were comfortable with it before doing so.

@adriftinadenofvipers Any of my aunts or uncles. My grandmother’s parents died when she was 8 and her aunt and uncle raised her and her sister after that. Luckily for my grandmother her extended family weren’t like the majority of people on this thread.

My DD (30's) has two adopted children and she's told me that she had imagined that I would take them in if anything happened to her. I would not be unwilling to help with their upbringing, but realistically to take full responsibility would be insane, I'm 72 and would be 84 before my GS left school. I've not raised it with her yet, she has form for going off the handle, but at some stage I need to speak to her. She has to realise that she needs to sort something out.
If she took out life insurance so that we could employ someone experienced to help look after them it would make it more viable, but it would be a huge burden for me to take up.

Perhaps your grandmother's extended family were in somewhat different circumstances to "the majority of people on this thread". Plus times were very different in your grandmother's era. My granddad and grandma had 8 children of their own and took in three cousins when their mother died - making 13 people in a 2 bed farmhouse. WTAF would do that now?!!

Would you have been content to be raised by an aunt or uncle who had taken you out of a sense of obligation?

YANBU to make your position clear- you’re doing them a favour really, so they can look to alternative arrangements. Or reconcile themselves to the idea that if they die, their children will need to go into care. And yea, they are being unreasonable to just assume- esp in the context of your family history

OTOH, I don’t get on with my half sister, and I’m a single mum with my own kid, little money, and see my nieces twice a year at most. I don’t think I could ever say “no” to taking her children on if they needed me. Yea it’s an enormous sacrifice, but the care system is fucked - I wouldn’t condemn any child to that if I could help it.

You're quite right.

My mum died when I was ten and my Dad was in very poor health at the time. He ended up living until I was 40 but if he passed away when I was still a child I would hate to think my brother and I would have ended up in care because no family member could be arsed to take us in.

That's very sad of course. But do you think all family members should at all times be responsible for taking in family members? Couldn't be arsed is a scenario I'd apply to cooking dinner, or ironing. Taking in multiple family members is an enormous and life changing decision that many people are not prepared or equipped for, and I don't see why anyone should be judged for choosing not to. It can change the rest of someone's life.

In my case as a child free adult that doesn't like children and has never so much as changed a nappy - by choice - wouldn't it be better for someone to take in a child if they actively wanted and enjoyed children?

She only sees them twice a year. Why would she care for them more than any other child? Blood doesn't = love and a lifetime sacrifice, especially if it's not chosen.

From what op says it sounds like her Dad was a shit parent and she doesn't have much of a relationship with her half siblings.

One thing we've realised is there is absolutely no point in falling out over something theoretical. It's all in the future. Nod, smile, ignore and live day to day.

My unpleasant SIL is in palliative care with a 14 & 12 year old. She has a husband, he's ok. We're the back up plan and we've said yes. It's kind, we absolutely would do our best but in private we are screaming no!
We had our kids earlier, brought them up as a good fit for us and sacrificed a lot to get where we are today. SIL took a different path, never failed to rub it in throughout the decades and honestly, I only like her kids marginally more than her. We have a different future in mind then dealing with a couple of kids who were failed by both parents years ago.
We would probably step up but if circumstances changed, I'd always prioritise my own nuclear family. (Which is why I'm not planning more kids at 51!)

And you need a decent stake in the Will, if you are even hinted at as the back up plan. If you are good enough as an adoptive parent, you deserve a fair chunk of inheritance.

To be honest, there are several children I'd be prepared to take on if their parents died and it came to it.

But if their parents just casually announced to people that they'd just "assumed" I would take them on, and that they'd continued to have children to an irresponsible age on that basis, I would be absolutely furious and would likely tell them to FOTTFSOF.

It's a HUGE undertaking to raise a child, especially someone else's, especially a grieving one, and the idea that someone would just assume that they were entitled to that level of life-changing effort, time, commitment and resources (x3) - not to mention the effect on my own children - without so much as a 'by your leave' is one of the most self-important, self-involved (and likely deeply sexist) cheeky fuckery there is.

@PortaSix IVF? Surely with donor eggs? Seems an utterly mad thing to do in 50s if you already have many children!!

YANBU. I'd be fuming.

I know what you mean, although on the other hand I discovered I felt a great deal of respect for someone in our family who thought it through carefully and eventually said no, they didn't have what it would take to be a parental figure to a grieving child. I found that kind of self-awareness admirable.

I wouldn't consider some small kids and a baby from father's (who I see twice a year and who wasn't a good father) second marriage 'siblings', tbh. Not in a true sense. They're half-siblings first of all. And secondly, to me, a sibling is someone I grew up and shared my childhood with, not some small kid conceived when I was adult and whom I barely see.

I (like the OP) also had my child in my early 20s. That decision was made for a reason and the fact that I have one and only child is also for a reason. She'll be 18 when I'll be 42 and I have plans for when she leaves home. I fundamentally disagree with middle-aged people having babies. It's their lives and their choice, but I do judge and I'd never do it myself. So a dad like OP's with his weirdo wife could go whistle with his 'suggestions'.

I would take my brother's child in. BUT he IS my brother, we grew up together, we love each other and he's not a halfwit having babies in his 40s-50s. He's younger than me and if he died, it would mean that some tragedy happened. And of course I'd take his child in, love him and raise him as my own.

My parents are 57 and 61, truly too old to have children anymore. But if they managed by some miracle (and total stupidity), they'd definitely go into care in case of their death, I wouldn't even consider them having anything to do with me.

They are half siblings spawned late in life by a parent who ought to have thought this through before begetting the child. It was ivf: it’s not as though he had no warning.

I think you are being a touch unreasonable... the assumption would piss me off.. but would I take in a sibling? Yes of course. And the kids are unlikely to be young kids if that happens.. most people live into their mid sixties at least.. so the elder two would be adults and the youngest a teen..
They aren't so old that it's a ridiculous burden they are placing on you by making the assumption you'd take the kids in..
Because really it's extremely unlikely they will die before the kids reach adulthood.
So I don't see how it needs more thinking about than how much you've thought who would take in your kids if you dropped dead? Which would probably be them wouldn't it?

Anyone who names a guardian to look after their children if both parents die before their children reach adulthood is doing this to cover the very unlikely event that both parents will die before all the children are 18.

No-one should nominate a guardian or even assume that someone will be a guardian to their children without a discussion about it. They don't have to talk to OP about whether they should be having children at their age, but they do need to talk to her if they want her to look after their children if they both die in the next 8 or so years.

Dad and Step mum. Your children will go into care before they come to me

Well that's telling 'em 😦

How rude of them to assume you would. How selfish of them to be having kids at their age

I mean the dads was a poor dad to the op lives hundreds of miles away and she barely sees these kids.

It’s bizzare to think that are any higher up than a close friend.

I would not take in my dh’s nephews either…

I don’t live other people’s children that much to tolerate tantrums and such of what would come from children who’ve lost their parents.

I can be honest and admit is be a shit stand in parent so better off in care than with me.

I've said upthread that I could (hypothetically) have been an 18 year old with responsibility for a toddler and my then 15 year old bro (half siblings BTW). I accepted this totally, I loved them and somehow (God knows how) I'd have made it work, I hope. I'd have wanted to.

Very different to an assumption that a vastly older sibling will take on responsibility for raising 3 kids they barely know because their hopeless father and stepmother have made a decision to have their last child in their 50s, with other young children in the mix.

The only selfishness here is on the part of the OPs father and stepmother.

It’s not really a decision though is it - What are the chances that they both pass away and it falls onto you? By the time your dad dies of old age (hopefully) then the children will be grown?

They are your siblings though, or do you not see them as that because they are half?