To think kids in blended families don’t have two homes

[StRidiculous]

In EOWE type scenarios where the vast majority of time is spent with one parent, I don’t think the children believe they have two homes at all.

I 100% agree they don’t feel the same about our shared kids as they do about their mum’s kids with someone else. It’s natural, in my opinion, because of the time they spend with each. But it did make me very sad to hear SD saying our children aren’t even their real siblings.

@StRidiculous your stepchildren spend so little time at your house, that’s why

Yanbu. When I was the child I always thought of it as home and my mum’s house.

As an example: the council don’t allocate rooms for the same child in two houses, so say a mum had a council house for her and her children those children would have their rooms there. The dad can’t then have a room allocated for them too. Any rooms in his house will be allocated to his second children/stepchildren who live in that house full time. So in the eyes of the authorities a child only has one home.

Yes I agree. If it was 50/50 and we lived close by then perhaps they’d feel differently but they don’t.

And child benefit is allocated to the main home, dentists and doctors can only be registered to one home, child maintenance is paid…

My DH's parents both married again and had other children. He moved between both homes but was never made to feel as though either of them was his real home.

I think this is sadder. My SC have stepparents and younger siblings in both homes too, but due to spending the majority of time at their mum’s, I do think they feel that’s their home. If they did 50/50 they may feel like they don’t fit in anywhere.

Surely you must realise that you can not speak for all children who have parents living apart in the myriad of different ways that is managed by families? Some will feel like they have 2 homes, some won't. There is no right, wrong or definitive answer here.

My SC have two homes, which they refer to as mums house and dads house. I've never once in all the years I have known them heard them say 'we're going home'. When my DC ask where they are going they say 'to my mums'.

They have their own rooms, all their own stuff here, they have front door keys and are able to come and go as they please (even when it's not 'our time'), they can rummage and help themselves to whatever in the kitchen, I do all their laundry, they bring their friends here, they walk into my bedroom and sit on the bed for a chat.

It's their home, they're not visiting, so they treat it as their home. I'd feel it was pretty sad if they couldn't.

Yes I think usually there’s one “home”. Ds has 5 nights in 14 with his dad plus one evening a week (so very nearly 50/50) but if he says “home” he means mine generally. I think it’s just that “home” is usually only a word used to describe one place (in factual terms). If he is having a weekend at his dad’s and is at the park and tells his mates he’s heading back to his dads, I’m sure he’d just say he’s “heading home” though and he feels “at home” enough there, it’s just that in factual terms he says home and means the one place he is at the most (ie my house). I wouldn’t necessarily read too much into it that they don’t feel at home at the “other home” though, if that makes sense! There’s lots ds likes about his dads more than my house!

If parents have 50/50, full set up on both houses and live in the same village, both involved with school/friends. Kids invite friends to both houses. Then with a excellent collaborative relationship between parents yes kids could feel like they have two homes.
my kids had home and dads house.

It wasn't the time spent in the houses that made him feel like he didn't belong.
It was that wherever he was he was made to feel like the cuckoo in the nest.
All the other chicks belonged there, he was a visitor from a broken marriage.

A "home" isn't built of "stuff" - a home is where you feel loved, wanted, safe, and belonging. If divorced parents are doing it right, then the kids do feel they have two homes, but "Dad's House" can be full of all the possessions that could be conceived of and still not feel like home. Meanwhile other kids may have relatively less "stuff" at their EOW home but still feel "at home" there.

I don’t think it’s possible to feel ‘home’ is somewhere you spend 2 nights a fortnight, if the place you spend 12 nights a fortnight is somewhere you feel comfortable and loved too, for the vast majority of people.

As my SC are growing up, they clearly feel their mum’s is home. And I think that’s fair enough.

It's this.

Some kids may live substantially in one house but never feel like its home.

Home is a safe space, where you feel belonging, are free to be yourself, where you feel comfortable, not an interloper etc.

Even in nuclear families some members may feel like the house is not a home.

In fact, when I was at uni I didn't feel like my dorm was my home as such, but a housemate who had a horrible home felt like they had a safe space for the first time.

My SC lived with me so it was their home, they didn't consider their mums their 'home', but then they never stayed over there either just went for tea every now and again.

Growing up I never felt welcome in my dads house, rarely stayed, it was his wife and kids house and I stayed on the couch the odd occasion I had to stay.

I think this “two homes” idea is mostly a lie parents say to make themselves feel better for destabilising their children’s childhood.

What a cuntish thing to say.

I don’t think there’s anything more we can do to make SC feel like our house is their home. Their primary connection is their mum, because they spend and always have spent the most time with her. Home is where she is.

What are you trying get from this?

My stepdaughter would say "I'm going to mum's" or "I'm going to dad's". At both she had a bedroom to herself, mugs in the kitchen with her name on, bikes in the shed, toys, books, clothes, toiletries, bags, makeup, sports gear etc. Up until Covid she was at ours mid week and weekends but was at her mum's more. She came out of Covid an older teen and things shifted.

I recognise that mum's probably felt more like home as she got older because it was closer to her school and it was easier to hang out with her friends there than at ours with younger siblings killing the vibe.

Her parents were never together so there was no "home base" that either parent moved out of. She's been close to 3 sets of grandparents, cousins, aunts & uncles.

It's different now that she's an adult working full time and living at her mum's 100% (it's closer to work, it's a more grown up household than one with younger brothers in and less space) but when she was in primary school she definitely had two homes, both engaged with school, did pick ups and watched hobbies & sports, shared birthday parties.

I think it very much depends on the set up, the relationships, the proximity to school and friends and all sorts.

As a child my ds lived with me and stayed with his dad at weekends but as a teen/early 20s he lived with whoever it was convenient at the time, he moved in with his dad when he got a girlfriend who lived in his town and then when that broke off he moved back with us because it was near the college he wanted to go to.
He has his own place now but will always think of this as home as with his dad’s house and has a key to both.
He has moved back home a couple of times before he got settled, once with us and once with them because both times one or other was closer to different jobs.

Most importantly he will always have a home with both of us if he was ever in need.
He was 2 when his dad met his step-mum and 3 when I met Dh so he was always brought up with two sets of loving parents and has never been treated as a step child or half brother.

I disagree. I feel quite at home in my parents house where I have never lived (they only moved there 3 years ago) and where I stay about once every 6 weeks.

eg I if we are out and about but staying there fir the weekend I will say to my son "lets go home" and mean that I think we should return to grandma and grandpa's house, not our own home elsewhere.

But this is beside the point because I don't even expect to have two homes. Where you are being unreasonable is declaring that because your SC don't feel this way, therefore no children do.

If they didn't feel safe/happy with mum they probably wouldn't look at mums house as home in the way that you describe.

Also, some of it is just speech, some kids see it as mums house/dads house as they see themselves as a part of that.

Why do you care so much as to how they view mums as home? are you saying you cannot view somewhere you hardly stay as home because you want them with you more or to make yourself feel better that their feelings are on them and not how they are treated in your home?