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?

Women stay in bad relationships all the time. No I don’t think it’s a good thing but it happens and sometimes it’s not always easy to leave. You see threads on here all the time about unhappy stepmums and surprise surprise the root cause is the children’s dad.

If I was in that position I too would be withholding my time and energy that the world would want me to put in in his place as a father.

If their mother lives an hour away, how is your DP doing his fair share of school runs and term-time drudge work? Or is the boring stuff left to the mum?

If your biological child grows up and exhibits challenging behaviour, or just becomes someone you don't like to hang out with, will you put them in childcare in the holidays rather than take leave?

My son was the most adorable creature on the planet until he reached 7. Really sunny, never had a tantrum - I never experience Terrible Twos, or Threenagers... Everything was an adventure, he was super well-behaved, he was just so lovely and sensible and LISTENED.

Then he turned 7 and I honestly started to find his company a bit unbearable. 8 was worse. 9 - just horrible. Know it all, argumentative, strong-willed, impossible to reason with, everything was a drama, black was white, everything we did together was BORING but he wouldn't play on his own, he wished he hadn't been born, not a single thought in his head didn't come out of his mouth, constantly doing really stupid, often dangerous, stuff because he just didn't think... He has never been naughty - he was however EXHAUSTING and unpleasant. I can honestly say I didn't like him much at all.

If you think your own kid is going to be better than your step-kids because you're somehow a better mum than their mum is, or that the change is just because they're getting too much screen time... Kids just change. Not always for the better. I feel really sorry for your step-kids.

That doesn't excuse you acting cruelly to children. It is no excuse at all. If you are so unhappy you treat kids poorly, leave. If you do not and continue to treat them poorly and trying to distance them, then you may be abusive yourself.

Since when was an adult who isn’t the parent not picking them up from school abusive and cruel? If a parent chose to not bother then yes that’s abusive, cruel, neglectful because it’s the parent’s responsibility. Everyone else… no.

I know you keep trying to create this distance by pretending the relationship between adult and child is random, but that isnt the case. It isnt an adult, it is the step parent. What is abusive and cruel is trying to distance a child because you are resentful of their relationship with their father. Pretending that they are just A child and not your partner's child might allow you to live in delusion, but everyone else recognises the situation for what it is and you for what you are.

The only person I know like this is my cousin with emotionally unstable personality disorder/borderline personality disorder. That's the kind of mental work she would have to do to cope with the idea that her partner had a life before her and kids he loves. She used to call her boyfriend's child "the girl" or "the slut's brat". She's also been sectioned and has criminal charges for harassment and destroying people's property though. She is a danger really.

So my best friend growing up had 9 kids in the family all born abiut a year apart: so yeah the mun could look after multiple kids by herself while breastfeeding two:

And this is the crux of the issue. This is why I tell my young adult DDs to run a mile from any potential BFs who have DCs. Not their circus, not their monkeys.

Saying that the child is not yours and it would be inappropriate to take on the role of a parent for them is not even remotely similar to calling them "the slut's brat".

I used to do school pick up and drop off at a club for SD when she was young, but due to the unreliability of the buses, it meant about half an hour to get to her school, another half an hour to get to the club, an hour sitting waiting for her to finish and often up to 45 minutes stood waiting for another bus home afterwards. I did this as a favour to DH but when my own baby was born there was no way I could do this carrying a newborn who needed to be breastfed frequently. DH had to make alternative plans, because my baby was my responsibility and ultimately SD was not. It had nothing to do with resenting SD or being jealous of her relationship with my DH (?).

That's a valid choice.

Ok

I've been reading your exchange with funinthesun and starlight and just wanted to say I agree with you. My husband is step-dad to my son and wouldn't think twice about booking a week's leave to look after him if that's what was necessary.

I took a day off work to look after my son's dad's children with his second wife, to help him out of a logistical fix regarding his marriage to his third wife.

Which is as messy as it sounds.

I can't get my head round people marrying someone with kids, and not embracing what that MEANS. It's not for everyone - clearly.

I did this as a favour to DH... DH had to make alternative plans, because my baby was my responsibility and ultimately SD was not

I cannot get my head round this. Not the favour to your husband, nor your step-daughter not being your responsibility. When you married him, she became your responsibility. I can entirely understand why you couldn't do the drop off with a newborn - it's not that you stopped. It's the framing of it.

I am a step-child and wife of a step-parent, and in all of my experience, the scenarios you describe - both the drops off in the first place, and the necessary decision to stop doing it - would be 'our responsibility' and 'our problem'.

I think a lot of people really resent the fact that their partner has those children that they dearly love and are more important than them, and as important as any children they have together. They see them as a threat and intrusion. When they say "someone else's kids" that's how they view them: as cuckoos on the take.

They know that if they keep reinforcing the idea that they are outsiders, eventually it will create a vibe that will repel the children from the home.

When some people have their sights on something, they'll let nothing get in their way.

"it's not that you stopped. It's the framing of it."

Yes. It isn't "we had a baby which meant getting the older kid(s) to extra curricular classes was too much of a struggle. We had to outsource that to someone else".

That would be a more normal framing of it.

@Squishedpassenger , yep someone else’s children like you didn’t choose to be in those children’s lives, they didn’t choose to be in yours.

I think this SM has gone over and beyond, DH is taking the piss.

But they aren’t someone else’s DC, they are her DH children and the behaviour is probably an unmet need that DH needs to deal with.

A totally different ball game when they’re all your own

🤦‍♀️

Ok first of all you are completely twisting my words in to something I have not said. I never said women are resentful of their partners having relationships with their children. And well… what relationship anyway? When it’s the stepmum doing the parenting for the dad. I am talking about stepmums feeling resentful of being taking advantage of and then putting their foot down which you seem to have a big problem with. The children don’t have to be disadvantaged by that if the dad just does his job as a parent.

You are talking about a very lazy argument that stepmums hate their partners having children and that stepmums hate those children. That’s absolutely not what I am talking about at all. Some stepmums maybe do feel like that from the get go and genuinely hate the child’s existence. That is absolutely not acceptable. But a stepmum at the end of her tether who has had enough of being treated like a doormat after showing the child nothing but inclusion and love and kindness, has very right to tell the dad to start parenting his child or they’re done.

Your cousin is not who I am talking about. I was a stepmum once and I never once spoke about my dsc the way she speaks about her stepchild. What a huge leap you have made.
But I did have it out with my now ex about how I am not doing the parenting for him anymore. Absolutely fair enough in my opinion.

And also I am not trying to pretend the relationship between the child and stepmum is random. But no matter who is in the child’s life - be that stepparents, grandparents, godparents, aunties, uncles etc.. the two people who are have the biggest responsibility for the children are the parents. I think because mums don’t forget about this and therefore don’t doss about, their partners don’t feel taken advantage of and it’s just a family being a family where everyone does their bit. No resentment from the stepdad because they have a decent partner who is a good mum.

That does not answer my question. Here it is again:

Do the teachers and TAs looking after 15 kids also look after their own baby at the same time?

Ah so both parents have had more children

they are prob feeling a bit squeezed out

he needs to spend more time with them and to have all his children

I’d do it if it was necessary or an emergency. Not liking clubs isn’t an emergency. My own DD would rather spend time with her parents than be in childcare too, so is it fair that she spends 51 weeks a year in childcare so SC can only do 39?

Putting my foot down and not doing it isn’t taking time with a parent away from SC (they can choose clubs and seeing dad at night, or staying with mum) but it is taking time with a parent away from my DD. Why would I prioritise my SC’s desires over my own DD’s?

But there is no need for your DD to be in childcare when either you or your partner are off work. You are making the choice to keep her separate to her siblings. Your partner needs to learn to manage all the DC they have