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.

All I can say is I never treat my step children differently to my own!

Taking this at face value, no it isn’t reasonable to treat step children like that. If it wasn’t possible to take them I wouldn’t have gone and would have made another date to see my sibling.

John is unreasonable not to be arranging his work weekends time around his kids.
Sarah is unreasonable to drop them off at his work (if he didn't know this was happening).
I don't think it's automatically wrong to do something with one child and not the others on occasion, (birthday party's/occasional 1-1 time) but it should be planned well ahead to make sure it is not to the detriment of the others, which it sounds like this was. John should also be spending 2-1 time with his kids on a regular basis. Too many separated parents (mostly men), just dump their existing kids into their current family and never spend proper time with them away from the new partner and kids, it only leads to resentment imo.

Depends on context and back story. Taking 1 kid to aquarium with sister v different day out to taking 3 young kids to aquarium. Latter becomes all about the kids, former less so...

Even with 2 of my own kids its a v different day out with one vs two.

Sarah should not have dropped any children at John while he was working.
Why was John working all weekend? Does he usually work at the weekend?
Sarah should have turned down the invite or brought all 3 kids.

Sarah and John have communication problems. Sarah doesn’t respect John and she alienates her step children. John is not prioritising family time. I wonder how long till they get divorced.

Sarah is clearly being very unfair to the 7 & 9 year olds and could possibly be influenced by her own sister in this situation. They’ve gone off with their own DC to an aquarium leaving the step children behind……….very mean spirited of those two women who are supposed to be adults, one has had the step children in her life for 5 years for 40% of the time!!
Well, I sincerely hope that Sarah’s 3 year old and her niece kicked off big time and really spoiled the event!

Is the issue that the sister was paying or driving and excluded the SC? If so Sarah should have said she can,'t do this weekend

I think they were BU in the beginning to even have a kid so soon after getting together when there were tiny kids already involved. Not a strong enough foundation.

So from three separate posters, Sarah is a cunt, a bitch and a twat. I stopped reading after that.

Such delightful misogynistic terms. I see the feminists are out in force on this thread (not).

This is dreadful. So horrible for the sc. blended families don’t work

That's a really mean spirited thing to do of the step mum and her sister.
Those children are there 40% of the week FFS.
I couldn't do that to anyone, I always offer people along, the more the merrier.

I feel sorry for the kids and think this is an example of when blended families don’t work- clearly they’re not very blended if Sarah just drops the stepkids with their dad (who is working) to have a day with her sister. Presumably the dad needs to work for household money. And Sarah chose to be with a man with kids.

Let me guess OP, you’re the stepchildren’s mum, who also isn’t taking them to the aquarium? Or the new woman John’s lining up to be unpaid childcare?

John is unreasonable to be working during his contact time without arranging appropriate childcare.

But in a blended family, on dad’s contact time, surely appropriate childcare is their stepmum?

Sad for the kiddos. Adults should all communicate better.

Appropriate childcare is their dad - the reason that they are there. SM would pick up the slack but not be primary FT carer IMO

So if the dad can’t avoid weekend work, it would be nicer for the kids to be in a paid professional childcare arrangement rather than with their stepmum?

Who said that?

Posters need more context but OP hasn't come back to provide it so far.

Well if the stepmum shouldn’t be primary carer when dad is at work on his contact time, who should?

Thanks for the replies. For context, yes I am their mum.

Stuff like this happens a lot and I'm always doubting myself as to whether I'm being unreasonable or not to let it bother me.

I have said time and time again to their dad that he leaves them too often with his wife who makes it pretty obvious to the kids that she resents this.

Kids came home quite subdued after last weekend and I got this out of them that they were just told suddenly that they were going to dad's work where they sat all day. They heard dad and wife arguing about it when they got home. They have heard things like this a few times how they aren't her children ect.

I am trying to see it from the POV of that being true of course, they are their dads responsibility and I do believe he leaves too much to his wife. But it's also difficult when kids are upset by these sorts of things. They love their sibling and despite things like this they also want their SM to love them too.

I don't know whether to stay out of it or say something.

That's difficult to find at the weekend. I know this from experience

Thanks for the update @inapickle99

This is 100% a Dad issue and if you’re going to raise it make sure you stick to that.

Im sure Sarah enjoys seeing the kids but is sick to the back teeth of being taken for granted and being under appreciated.

Im sure she’s not acting like this because she doesn’t like your kids it’s because her husband is a lazy dick and she’s being used as free childcare when he could probably manage his working hours better to work around seeing his children.

Sarah was naive to have a child with a man who already had children.

John is doing what men do—find a woman post-breakup to parent his children during his contact time.

Of course John wants his children to be included, because he has shoved his parental responsibilities onto Sarah. Of course Sarah only wants to take her “real” child out for the day, however, she made a choice to priceeate with someone who already had children.

It's tricky OP. It's sad for your kids and sad for you, but is there much point in saying anything? It's unlikely to make a difference.

I suspect the issue is that he could avoid the weekend work but CBA to put the effort in to do so