Elder daughter father giving rules about my younger kids

[Dazedandconfusec]

My elder daughter is 12 and Grade 5 piano and flute and began guitar in an afterschool club at school last year. She gave up violin when the teacher moved house but still has two violins which she occasionally gets out.

My ex has facilitated her music and has bought all of the instruments and paid for lessons but I obviously had to facilitate the lessons for flute; the piano teacher comes to the house.

My younger daughter elder daughter’s half sister, has now started piano at school. Elder daughter has locked piano as her dad has instructed that my younger children cannot use the piano or have use of the other instruments.

Op you are talking as if it's set in stone your eldest is going to make a career in music. Let's be honest here, if she does then it's going to be as a music teacher unless she is both remarkably good and remarkably lucky.

Plus your ex is unhappy that you went on to have other children but can't be arsed to have his own daughter 50% of the time.

And you are letting both of them dictate what happens to a family where one is 12 years old and the other has fuck all right to say anything.

She's 12 I'd put money on her completing the levels and then dropping it all together.

I'd by a cheaper piano. Put the good one in her room, if she has to use it as a bed then tough and I'd make her practice...and practice and practice. Until she realises that sharing is a good thing.

Him I'd tell to fuck off... your giving house space to a big item, another child playing it properly isn't going to damage it or wear it out so either he shuts the fuck up or steps up in the parenting department (I know you don't really want that but he's trying to control your life and you cannot let it continue, so call his bluff)

How exactly do you know what she would or wouldn’t have agreed to? She readily acknowledges that her oldest daughter has more than her younger siblings, and that she isn’t going to deny her those things.

“My elder daughter has lots of opportunities that the younger two don’t. If they ever comment on this in the future they will of course realise that it is because they have different dads.”

The piano is there specifically to facilitate the daughter’s interest in music, and the rest of family have, up until recently, left it alone (and even then, it was just the younger daughter who briefly used it). Does OP say outright that she knew it wasn’t to be used as a family piano from the beginning? No, but what she does say suggests she knew this was the case.

“My ex has facilitated her music and has bought all of the instruments and paid for lessons…Elder daughter has locked piano as her dad has instructed that my younger children cannot use the piano or have use of the other instruments.”

She also refers to it specifically as her piano. Not ‘their piano’, or ‘our piano’. Her piano.

“I will not disadvantage my elder daughter as so many people think I should by getting rid of her piano”

“I think my elder daughter would prefer that her piano is not shared but wouldn’t have challenged me in this way unilaterally.”

She also seems to have become aware that this is coming from her daughter, via her ex:

“I do hope that this will work out in a year or two when younger daughter becomes older and more proficient and maybe elder one will be less precious.”

She knew her daughter didn’t want to share the piano, but assumed she’d get used to her sister playing it, or at least wouldn’t feel able to object.

It's 10 pages since the OP commented on her thread and it's really tedious to hear the same 2 or 3 posters making the same points over and over again.

Some people seem incredibly over-invested in this!

I am not sure OP is on the thread any more.

But OP, if you are, why on earth don't you just say to your ex "stop being so ridiculous and mean-spirited. Of course both children should be allowed to play on the piano".

You have a child together FFS! You were once close enough to bring life into the world? Why can't you communicate enough to make this very simple and obvious statement?

If he is a nice man generally, the he obviously just isn't thinking about the mplications of this, and when asked to, will surely immediately see how ridiculous and awful he is being.

So just ask him to think about this for 19 seconds! Remind him your other child is your daughter's half sibling. (If such an obvious observation is even necessary).

By indulging this bizarre caprice of his, and allowing your daughter to help with it, what total weirdness are you allowing into your lives?

And for what reason? Just to avoid having a very logical conversation with a man you once loved enough to have a family with?

Why???

Ignore this comment wrong post

This is bonkers @Dazedandconfusec
its not ‘more nuanced’
, its just common sense and common decency.
of course many a teenager is happily going to along with a parent who treats her like a golden child no matter how ridiculous the parents’ game is, but it’s not teaching her anything healthy or helpful for her growth as a fully functioning member of society.

your ex is being pathetic and if you believe that the eldest daughter really doesn’t want to share something as huge as a piano in your communal space then you need to have some words with her about cooperation and collaboration in a family, let alone a shared household.
If she really does share this attitude then her and her dad need a dose of reality.
Dont pander to this nonsense .

Exactly this, he wants this he can take the piano and facilitate the lessons. Alternatively get the lock removed off the piano permanently.

The piano does not belong to the op. That would be vandalism.