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.

There are nuances in terms of bigger picture stuff here that could change my mind but, on the whole, I'd have taken the kids that age to the aquarium. They're at a great age to enjoy it and not to be too hard to take out.

Knowing what my local aquarium costs though, I might not take them depending on the financial arrangements in the household or if their father refused to pay for his kids. Or if the father was never there with his kids and always expected Sarah to care for them and it was about time she made a point.

On the whole though, without extenuating circumstances, I'd lean towards taking them.

Two family children of that age would have enjoyed the Aquarian so, imo, they should have been taken along. Especially as they spend 40% of their time in your home. 40% of the time is a lot of time for kids to feel unwelcome. I'm sure this doesn't happen all of the time but miserable for the kids when it does happen. I know they are not related to you but they are the children's half siblings and taking them along at that age wouldn't have hurt. I know they are not your kids op and 2 extra children does alter the dynamic but excluding them like that is storing up damage for the future. I think you and DH need to gone to a pre agreed agreement for times like this. If you aren't prepared to take them with you, then he will have to stay off his work and look after them himself. Only you and he know whether potentially losing extra income by staying off is preferable to you looking after them. I feel sorry for young kids in this situation. If there's a step parent in the 60% household who takes a similar not my kid stance they would feel very rejected I'm sure.

I don't see it as passive aggressive, I see it as quite forthright. They're not her children so she dropped them off to their own parent so she could make her own choices at the weekend.

We are missing nearly all relevant information. Do the three kids get along, does she normally take them out, is John forever shirking his parental duties and leaving her to look after his children on the weekend? Did she agree to do so? Would his children even care, would they prefer to be with their dad? How much would it have cost her? Would he have reimbursed? Would the other follow instructions when out and about with her or does she need their father there too?

Note that the OP dumped this suspiciously chat GPT looking post (or maybe a Reddit copy paste) and buggered off too.

Those poor little kids that were left behind!! They too would have enjoyed the aquarium... and a lot more then a 3 or 4 year old!! Sounds very selfish of you and not accepting of those kids as part of your extended family now in a blended enviroment. Sad. You seem to think that being a step mum is a part time thing. Feel sorry for those poor little mites.

on the surface it seems Sarah is being unfair.

but has Sarah had years of abuse from the mother of the older children, which leads them to be difficult and rude to her?

has she been berated in the past for having the two older ones without their dad because their mum feels that ‘time with dad should be time with dad’. And how dare a step mum spend time with the children regardless of whether they have a shared sibling.

maybe Sarah is protecting her own mental health and enjoying time with her child. Maybe she is letting her child enjoy some time away from stressful situations.

Sarah’s got my vote.

My marriage is very much happy and my husband and I don't even have kids but thanks to reading endless stepparent/blended family nightmare scenarios on here, I have sworn to myself to never remarry if I do have kids and my husband and I are no longer together.

Because this kind of nonsense right here is cruel and so, so damaging to these kids who have had no say in these adults' stupid decisions.

Why would anyone be so deliberately hurtful to young children whom they are supposed to at least care about? Even if Sarah has boundaries, surely communicating with her spouse should have been be the done thing here? Why make the children pay the price when they don't have a say in any of this?

And I can't even begin to imagine the comments if a stepfather dumped his SC on their mother whilst she was working. He'd be called every name on the sun (and rightly so too) but when a woman does it, there must be a backstory and she just has boundaries.

Or perhaps Sarah is just a bit of an arsehole?

If you start a relationship with someone who has children from a previous relationship then you have to accept that the children come as a package with their parent. That means treating them exactly the same as your children from the relationship. Fair enough, you might not love them the same, but if you can’t treat them the same, then you’ve got no business starting a relationship with a parent. You can’t just shove them in a cupboard when it’s inconvenient that they’re there. And to take your child to somewhere fun, like an aquarium, while dropping your partner’s children off to him at work is bloody cruel.

John should be carefully assessing his rather poor life choices about now. Let’s hope Sarah’s next partner doesn’t treat her child similarly.

If she wasn’t willing to play a basic level parental role, then she shouldn’t have started a relationship with someone who had kids.

It’s not childcare. She’s their step parent. It’s parenting.

If he wanted a wife willing take on a level of parental responsibility then he shouldn’t have married someone who wasn’t offering that.

They’re not her kids, and it’s not her responsibility to provide childcare. ‘Stepparent’ is a title, not a job description.

Both John and Sarah are cruel to those poor kids.

I don’t disagree with you about both adults apparently poor choices in partner. But what she did to those children was cruel. There’s absolutely no justification for it.

And you might as well say the same thing about ‘parent’. It absolutely is a job description. It comes with responsibilities and if you don’t want to take those responsibilities on, then you’ve got no business having a serious relationship with someone who already has children.

Sarah is mean for not taking the stepkids and John is a prick for making Sarah look cuter his kids. Sounds like a poor relationship.

Not enough info. Need to know:

(1) why self-employed John is working on a weekend when he has his children, especially as he only has them 40% of the time - was it necessary for him to be at work on a weekend day? Was it an unplanned emergency?

(2) How did Sarah come to be in charge on John's children while he was at work? What had she offered, or agreed, to do and is this a frequent occurrence or special situation?

(3) Why was Sarah willing and able to care for the children at home but unwilling or unable to take them on the excursion (may be many good reasons for this)? How was it communicated to the children?

(4) What is the situation with John's office, given that he's self-employed and it's the weekend? Is it a co-working space? Would other people be there? Are children welcome and able to play, read, relax, etc. there? Have his children been there before?

If it was a planned day out and she ended up with all the children, I can kind of understand (although it's still shit to the children).

If it was a spontaneous trip, then no. It's not acceptable. She already had plans that day, if she can't find a good alternative for the eldests and isn't willing to take them all, then she just can't go.

Simply not enough info in the OP to judge.

I suspect if genuine this has been written by the children’s biological Mother.
John shouldn’t be working at a weekend if he has contact time, unless it was an unforeseen problem/emergency.
If John is usually around for contact time and is a hands on parent etc then Sarah was unkind not to take them with her or reschedule the trip to when he was around to do something with them.
If John spends all of his 40% contact time at work, leaving Sarah to look after all the children then she’s probably had enough which is why she didn’t take them, which is understandable but not something I would have done to small children. If this is the case then John needs to sort out alternative arrangements/alter work schedules.
Without more info regarding who is usually there for their contact time no one can say who was being unreasonable, but two small children missed out on a treat and probably felt awful about it so the grown ups in this situation should get together to discuss how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I suppose he does have that luxury, just as he has the choice to fuck off his customers and not have any income. We don't know what his business is or how established he is in the market.

On the face of it Sarah has been mean but more context is needed.

when was the trip decided? How much parenting does John do? What was the conversation like when Sarah said she was going without them?

She is unreasonable

I’m guessing Sarah didn’t sign up to be the parent to step-dc whilst John works all weekend. He gets to opt out of parenting whilst his new wife covers childcare.

I gather Sarah had enough and put her foot down.

He needs to manage his diary better and be there when he has his kids.

This blaming of step-mum for poor fathering is depressing.

Maybe he pulls this shit every weekend and Sarah has had enough.

If a woman worked every weekend and left her children to the step-father, people would blame her.

What kind of exclusive car fits an unlimited amount of children?

Obviously it's mean if you have a group of children staying together to take one off on a treat and leave the others behind. However, when I read the OP, I wondered if Sarah does the bulk, if not all, the childcare of the stepchildren and isn't happy about that, so her sister asked her out so John could look after his own children.

Not clear how OP expects posters to vote

Sarah come back and give us more details! @inapickle99

Sarah was unreasonable not to take the DSc and John was unreasonable for working when he has his children at the weekend.
Having said that, the OP hasn’t been back so maybe it’s all a crock of shit anyway?