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.

If you do say anything, you need to be very, very clear that this is on your ex, not on his wife. I actually think that you should stay out of it unless it is to offer to have the kids more than 60%. I feel really bad for Sarah in all of this, it sounds as if John expects her to parent your kids as well as her own.

If the dad’s unhappy he has plenty of options, including changing the contact schedule and changing his work pattern.

Sarah may well be much happier as a single mum than solo parenting three kids against her will on her weekends.

@inapickle99 Would it be an option for them to come to you when their Dad is working?

There will be a lot more behind the scenes at Dad and SMs house I am sure!

I think OP should speak up to ask to change the schedule. Clearly Sarah and the kids are unhappy, now OP is too. John needs to listen to the women and children in his life, not just do what he wants and expect them to work around him.

How would the mum possibly know the answer as to whether her ex husband's new wife's sister offered to pay for the step children of her sister???

And why should she offer to pay anyway?

I agree with you, but personally it's not something I could do to the children. It is sounding like that scenario

I feel for the stepchildren. She's allowed to spend time with just her child but at the same time she did marry someone with existing children.

However if the dad is just expecting that she will pick up any and all childcare then he's not reasonable. It's an issue between him and his wife and your children are suffering for it. It's ultimately on him, not her. That has to be made clear to him from both of you.

I feel sorry for Sarah if the dad pissing off to work at the weekend, leaving her with his two kids is a regular occurrence. Now and again, and agreed in advance, fine. The father and Sarah need to discuss this. I agree it’s rubbish for the kids involved, and that sits firmly with the dad, not Sarah.

I think both John and Sarah are in the wrong. If the kids spend 40% of the week at their Dad's he needs to spend more time with them. It sounds mean of Sarah to treat the kids differently to their half-sibling but I understand that three kids is a lot for one person and John is not helping at all so she may be making a point (whilst upsetting the kids).

I think if things don't change I'd want the kids to spend less time there.

Looks like he done that man thing of finding another service woman as quickly as he could.

I think it is absolutely awful to leave 7 & 9 year olds out of something like that. Maybe 14/16 year olds, but they are young children still.

If my DH's new wife did that to my children (who are 7&9), I would be livid.

Your anger would be misplaced. This is on John.

How would you feel about John, their actually parent, knowing that he's not parenting his own children to the point they're are hearing arguments about it between him and his wife?

Or maybe he owns the aquarium?

And another one. It’s just a constant drip of casual oblivious misogyny isn’t it. Always blame the women.

I think Sarah is mean. I wouldn't take a 7 yo and 9 yo to their dad's place of work whilst their sibling has a fun day out at the aquarium.
If Sarah doesn't want to be responsible for her step children she needs to tell John to make other arrangements rather than use the children to make a passive aggressive statement.

It was very mean to take the toddler out for the day but not the other two children.

And she is the one that has is expected to 'manage' the entire situation.

Surely Sarah is not without agency here? She has committed to being a stepmother to two young girls, and committed to bringing another child into the mix. She committed to looking after all 3 children for that time.

Of course the dad is being rubbish overall and his children are his responsibility, but she is not without responsibility and agency. She chose to dump 2 of the children.

It was very mean of the dad to take himself off to work when he was meant to be looking after his children.

There’s so much internalised misogyny here. John’s kids are in his home for his contact time. He needs to arrange work or childcare to accommodate them. Clearly he hasn’t. That is the problem, not Sarah taking her toddler on a day trip with her family.

She committed to looking after all 3 children for that time.

We don't know that she did. John could have just assumed she would, which he might do every weekend for all we know. Dropping them to him in work seems like a protest about it.

Committing to being a stepparent doesn’t mean committing to providing unquestioning free childcare whenever the real parents want it.

If John died, or they separated, Sarah’s responsibility to the SC ends. She’s not adopted them.

The op said in a second post that the father does this all the time and that they often argue about it. It doesn’t seem like Sarah has been left with any options other than a visual for her husband. But yes, I don’t disagree that there was probably clues there from the beginning for Sarah. But that’s her biggest error - not spotting that the man was a dud, but it’s the man that is the dud.

There’s a huge difference between Sarah being involved in their life and her basically being their primary carer whilst they’re meant to be with their Dad.

Women shouldn’t just have to put up and shut up in these situations because men are failing to be decent parents.

blame the correct person.