What do you think of this situation? unreasonable or normal?

[inapickle99]

Sarah and John have a young child together (3) and John has two older children (7&9) who stay with them 40% of the week. They have been together for 5 years.

John is self employed and was working at the weekend, Sarah was at home with all children. Sarah invited to go on a day out with her sister and niece and agrees. She drops off two step children with their dad to spend the day at his work with him and goes with their joint child on the day out (to an aquarium).

Do you think this is reasonable? No option given to the other children to go along.

Wow, it's the step mum's job to clean up for parents eh
Why on earth is she nasty?
Why isn't dad nasty?

Their feelings come first to their parents, no one else. Just like the step mother put her child's feelings first by choosing to concentrate on them?
That's what the parents can do, put their kids first.
Step mums do not exist to save children of broken homes.

So dad is going his happy way and wanting to live his life and expects his new wife to act like the mother of his kids?
If he can't handle the responsibilities that his ex wife used to, he can always pay extra maintenance and beg his ex wife to have kids full time?

How do you come to the conclusion that neither mother or father want the children, the father may just need to work to support the family, he has 3 children.
If Sarah did not want to be bothered with the 2 children she shouldn't have a relationship with their father.

Well everyone's wants to know why Sarah doesn't want the kids, Sarah isn't responsible for the kids
So, what alternative conclusion can we draw?
So what if he has to work?
He needs to sort out childcare like any other parent.
Sarah has sorted out childcare for her child.

He should be concentrating on working not doing childcare on the side when he is at work.

Quite. But then he shouldn’t arrange to be working when he’s supposed to be looking after his kids. It sounds like this is a regular occurrence and that Sarah is fed up with being the unpaid childcare. It sounds like she could have handled the situation with more sensitivity, but maybe she’d reached the end of her tether and felt the only way to get through to the DH was for hint to feel the impact of his decisions himself. I completely agree with the poster saying that the kids should be treated as part of the family while they’re there - but it’s as their dad”s family. They’re there to have contact with him, not with his wife and his sister in law. If he’s regularly arranging other things (whether or not he’s being paid for them) when he’s supposed to be with his kids, that’s not on. Where it really can’t be helped, he should offer their mum (the OP) the time, or arrange proper childcare with someone who’s willing to do it.

She didn't.

You give over, common sense not to be with a man with kids if you can't be emotionally available to the step kids.

Of course she was, unless you’re conflating ‘adult’ with ‘doormat’.

She didn’t leave them to their own devices at home, she dropped them off with their parent. The father abdicating his responsibilities doesn’t oblige her to step into the breach and change her own plans. I’m not sure why the emotional blackmail of ‘but what about the children?!’ is expected to dictate her actions and not those of the actual parent.

She isn’t being blamed for not looking after her step children, though I for one think it a little odd. She is however being blamed for using the children as a weapon in her dispute with her husband. That isn’t fair. The arrangements should have been settled before the children arrived for the weekend.

She is however being blamed for using the children as a weapon in her dispute with her husband.
Who says she is using them as a weapon?

If you listened to some mumsnetters you would think that the only reason men work is to avoid looking after children. Contrary to this opinion I think that most men work to provide for their families. Self employment is no sinecure. It needs hard graft and I’d be surprised if Sarah didn’t benefit in some way from the hours John puts in.

Sorry Glory Monday. That last post was a general one and not meant to be Amex at you.

Aimed

@Lockdownsceptic , "you listened to some mumsnetters you would think that the only reason men work is to avoid looking after children. "
Have you wondered why they think that? If it wasn't work, it would be a hobby, and I know of men who were considering becoming self-employed to reduce the CM.

I'm pretty sure 'Sarah' was on here a few months ago.

The back story was that the kid's mother insisted on having every weekend to herself while 'Sarah' wanted to change the arrangement to every other weekend so she could have some time with just her toddler.

Since 'Sarah' made it clear that money was not an issue and that she also worked full time, most posters agreed that she had a DH problem. Options were:

1. Dad stops using work as an excuse to opt out of family life and looks after his own children every weekend or

2. Dad somehow convinces the OP the kid's mother to look after her own children EOW (quelle horreur!) or

3. 'Sarah' gets her ducks in a row.

But here it's "how horrible of 'Sarah' to want to spend some down time with her own child and sister. What a bitch!"

Yes that’s what I mean. I am always struck by how low an opinion of men some munsnetters have. Most men I know are kind, hard-working and reasonable.

@Lockdownsceptic , they all are, and they're all 'great fathers', until they're faced with parenting their own children.

When I was with my older DC's dad he admitted to staying late at work to avoid seeing the kids when he got in. They only saw him at weekends and they lived in the same house.

Agree. But we're not talking about most men here - but a specific man whose wife got so annoyed with him not looking after his own kids that she dropped them off at his workplace.

I think it's a fair assumption that this man isn't kind, hard working and reasonable

I worked with many such men when I was younger.
So many were eventually divorced by their wives.

Refusing to provide the childcare her husband attempted to dump on her isn’t using the kids as a weapon. If anyone is guilty of that, it’s the father.

She’s not at fault for not to give into him.

So, here we are fighting for men to look after the kids you jointly share, and here you are saying no, women need to be the sacrificial animals, she even has to look after his kids, while he gets to further his career.
I mean you do you,
But why the hell should this woman have to include her step children when she's out and about with her family?
If children are really that fragile, maybe the parents should never divorce?
If they do, maybe they should be never remarry? If they do, they better marry someone that will agree to be the unpaid nanny.
This woman has had enough of being the unpaid nanny, so, the onus is upon the father to either look after his kids himself, make an arrangement with their actual mother, or find anither unpaid nanny.
Emotional availability my left foot!

Unpaid nanny? She married a man with kids!
If she isn't happy looking after them, don't be with a man with kids.

Yes, emotional availability comes into it, clearly not for you. So you do you with your left foot.

She married a man with kids, but the man chose to have the kids! He needs to pull his weight and look after his own kids on the weekends when they are with him. If he wants to work all weekend that's not compatible with family life so he shouldn't have had kids.