To renege on providing free childcare for SC

[Chipmusk]

I have SC 8, 9 and 10. We have them for half their school holidays so 6.5w a year (plus during term time).

In the past, DP and I have juggled our working patterns to minimise putting SC in paid childcare. We each get 4 weeks holiday and we did a week abroad all together, so I was doing 2.5 weeks a year of childcare by myself, leaving me .5 to myself (sometimes a few days more depending on bank holidays).

Circumstances have changed and I don’t want to do it anymore. AIBU?

Yep, it’s hard work to entertain them all with the age gap even if they’re getting along. The best I’ve found is cinema (which means spending most of it in the foyer with the toddler) or things like outdoor farm parks (but the eldest is getting bored of that.

I hear a lot of “mum says nursery is bad for children as young as X” and “mum thinks childcare is for people who don’t like their children” and the like, which is incredibly frustrating. I work because we both support our family, not because I want to be apart from DD.

Girls are groomed from birth to "be kind".
It's a form of social conditioning and it works.
The majority of women bend over backwards for their DP.
Men on the other hand don't undergo such brainwashing and expect their new partner to do most of the childcare with stepchildren as well as any children they have together.

However, I don't understand why so many grown women keep falling into this trap. I wouldn't touch a man who had children with another woman with a barge pole. They will always expect you to take on childcare responsibilities.

Send them on their way and find a single man with no strings attached.
It makes your life a lot easier.

2 years? That's negligible, she's clutching at straws.