To say if DP doesn’t take time off, SC have to come less?

[Balaciette]

DP is a workaholic and has four children, three from his ex-marriage and one by me. We have SC half the holidays and as every holiday approaches, up materialises some Very Important Reason why he can’t take time off work.

It always ends up with him taking the time off (and being grouchy about it), me taking the time off (and being resentful about it), or some other - female - relative being roped in (which is stressful because I WFH therefore am de facto host whilst working).

I’m sick of it. AIBU?

100% this!

THIS.

Not your kids not your problem. BUT you can’t just “have the sc less” unless that’s what the kids and mother want too. HE can’t just bounce the problem into the ex. It’s HIS parental time. He needs to take time off or pay for clubs AND do the drop offs and pick ups from those clubs.

Always find these posts difficult to digest. Women continuously choose to marry and have children with men who already have children, only to not really accept said children and want little to do with them. I don’t know what the solution is because so many women on here seem to do it when lots of men without children exist in the world to procreate with.

I’m assuming like most people in the U.K. he has little annual leave, for most it’s less than a month a year so he can’t purely use this to see his kids because he’d hardly be able to. Does he have a job where he can feasibly WFH and try to work around them? Again, not many do. So who knows, I suppose he’ll have to pay for a childminder or something if you’re unwilling to help.

An unpopular opinion if the kids are really against holiday club, perhaps (if distance allows) he should ask mum if she’s open to keeping them in the day, then he collects them after work. & financially compensate her for it, it’s her time off after all. And definitely not every day, only the days he absolutely can’t take off due to ‘big important reasons’

Yes!

You have one child. He has four.

Every time you cut work/take extra time off/ try to work from home whilst ostensibly also looking after his children whilst he continues working on building his career - you are taking something away from your own career and future finances.
It's hard to quantify but he is continuing to put everything into his career and you are not able to. I feel this might impact your future opportunities and future finances

He is not making the same level of sacrifice. It is a very unequal situation... and of course its impossible to deal with because his very important work things are always an emergency.. always important and because you've made yourself flexible.

They are not an "emergency" or if they are, only because he makes them so...if it happens regularly, then he has to make the effort to have a regular plan to deal with it that doesn't always involve you ditching your concerns every time, to step in for him.
If he can't look after the kids, he's probably not pulling his weight in the household either ... and how often do you both get a chance to go out and socialise together.

Of course there has to be give and take and partners should step in for each other but from what you describe It does seem like your living arrangement completely facilitates him at your expense. What does it do for you?

How would you be situated in the future if you should decide to split? Are you financially independent or would you have made financial sacrifices... It's maybe time to consider how to make things more equal and how to protect your future financial security.

nailed it.

Agree with this. I find the ‘not my kids, not my problem’ attitude so weird. You’re either a team or not. Not to say that the father gets to lay all the childcare at the OP’s door but why can’t the OP be expected to help?! It sounds like the father does actually use his annual leave so it’s not like he’s doing nothing particularly as he has them for half the holidays.

So really he just expects you to arrange something for his DC so he doesn't have to worry about it? Get him a copy of the DSC school calendar and tell him he needs to make plans in advance, not wait until it's days away then complain.
I have a feeling he thought now you had a DC together you'd be doing all the childcare Op, that's why he gets grumpy, he didn't expect to have this problem.

how old are the children?
the solution isn’t having them less but finding appropriate childcare, it primary school age they can’t just choose to stay home rather than go to a holiday club. If high school age they don’t need looking after so there shouldn’t be an issue with them just being home.

I think the honest answer is he struggles with SC, they used to be easy children but now they’re a bit older they argue a lot and are demanding. It’s easier for him to be at work than with them (same for me). But he doesn’t want to admit that or ask to reduce his time with them because he does want to see them… But not to solo parent them for days on end.

the fact you wfh shouldn’t mean that they can’t stay there with another relative. There just need to be rules about you being left to work/ them not getting in your way. But I don’t think you working from home can rule that out from being a suitable solution.

Primary age. They are very vocal about hating holiday clubs and babysitters (their mum uses a lot of the latter, and we have used holiday clubs in the past).

I think DP fears that if we use holiday clubs, they’ll opt to stay at their mum’s.

This is an issue that is only going to get worse as they get older if you continue to work from home. There really does come a point where they can a) fend for themselves while eating you out of house and home and b) still irritate the crap out of you by creating a whole ton of mess lounging around all day or inviting friends in without asking [and that's just your own kids] while you work.

Presumably there is a decent age gap between the two sets of children? So it's a problem to be worked through now while you have a child in childcare for the next 4 years before school hols and wrap around care becomes a problem close to your heart too.

You two need to sit down and work it out. If they are getting slightly too old for holiday clubs is there an alternative like a teen babysitter who will take them swimming, scrambling around the woods or something vaguely outdoorsy in the mornings, supervise and make a sandwich lunch and leave them in front of a film in the afternoons. For a couple of weeks gap between his annual leave cover and needs it's manageable. Same at Christmas and other hols.

Or he rearranges the finances with his ex if she is amenable to having them for longer in the holidays.

He pays for childcare nanny holiday clubs.
And housekeeper

Even if he had stayed with their mother, it would still be as much his responsibility to sort holiday childcare. YABU to think any woman in his life should solve his problem. He should pay for holiday clubs.

God those poor children. Their own father can’t be bothered to parent them.

What type of holiday clubs have you tried- maybe work with them to find ones that they are interested in based on their hobbies/likes. Maybe not in all the smaller holidays but at least for the summer there are normally quite a range of different things.

They are very vocal about hating holiday clubs and babysitters (their mum uses a lot of the latter, and we have used holiday clubs in the past).

I find kids buck up their ideas a bit when they don't have 24x7 access to a TV/iPad etc. Smart plugs are genius for this. If they have a part in the planning, they may be more amenable. DH and his ex will have to coparent on this. Very little point in having them if they are just sitting in front of the TV

I can't quite see the logic of this.
If you married someone with a lot of debt would you expect to help pay their debts for them?

how many weeks are you actually talking about here once you take out the time he does spend off work with them? It doesn’t sound like a huge amount.

I have to say I would not want to take unpaid parental leave - not because of not being paid but because it would be an issue for my employers (rightly or wrongly). Thankfully there are some very good holiday clubs around us.

And he has succeeded, hasn’t he? Got a second woman to fill the vacant position pdq, and secured her with the usual golden handcuffs: a baby.

You can’t compare debts to children who live with you part of the time. Would I expect OP to do a drop off or pick up if she’s working from home? Yeah. Because that’s helpful. Would I expect OP to use her AL to look after them? No. But to refuse to have any input is weird.

I wouldn’t do a pick up or drop off whilst I’m working from home, because I’d be working…

I’m happy to spend our family holidays all together, obviously. I’d always help in an emergency, and I’d be happy to do the occasional day over the year if it was discussed and planned in advance.