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.

Yes, probably once a month. It’s not as frequent as they’d like, but we also want to spend time as a family, see wider family and friends and allow DH one-to-one time, so it’s hard to fit in.

You’re projecting and making stuff up now. They’ve never said it doesn’t feel like home, and I’ve never said it shouldn’t be their home. They refer to their mum’s as home and our house as Dad’s. Given the time split, I don’t see that as a problem.

They’re welcome here as much as they want.

You’re about to get slated I reckon for moving far away from your husband’s kids! Any man having them less than 50% is a bad parent according to MN

I have never known anyone in real life to do 50/50

If she’s loved and looked after in both houses, does it really matter if she feels one is home? I think children are biologically wired to be closer to their mums a lot of the time, and also it’s natural to feel closer to whoever you spend most time with.

I really don’t think it’s a failing.

Hi OP, firstly great job for doing everything you can to make your SC feel welcome and fully belonging!

I think different ages bring different things. The age the kids are now is absolutely when they often retract a bit and want the simplicity of one Homebase, are very bonded to mum and want one local social life etc…. I don’t think your husband should agonise over this. However, new ages will come. Mid to late teens they start to be able to hop on buses themselves and it takes less parental intervention to ‘decide’ where they are. Especially once they are old enough to be home alone, so you don’t even need to be there to greet them/pick them up from the station. You may start getting more spontaneous requests and it’s vital then that the DC don’t feel the need to negotiate for the right to visit unexpectedly. If it is a (secondary) home, then it shouldn’t be ‘not tonight…x/y is sick/we are tired’ or worse ‘we had planned to go out as a family’ etc. this can really swing kids from ‘I have a second home whenever I want it’ to ‘I’m a visitor by negotiation’. I think this point is a real fork in the road.

Then you reach late teens and sometimes kids actually decide at that point to switch full homes/ maybe coinciding with different sixth form choices or they end up with more extended time they can be based at the second home with study leaves, or they are rubbing up against the primary home parent in a way that’s bad for everyone etc… the mother bond isn’t necessarily as anchoring- the relevant framing through sixth form and uni may be more parental rapport, character blend, more overlapping interests or a more convenient, pleasant location/ living space.

I think it’s at this point that if you have not been fully welcoming/accommodating through earlier years, older kids won’t even consider coming to live with you. But if you have, you may be surprised- you may flip to being the primary home!

You have said - repeatedly - that your house is not their home. And that you do not think there is any point in trying to do anything about that.

Thanks! They genuinely are happy here and we all have a lot of fun together.

Teenage changes is an interesting topic that DH and I have discussed. Personally, I expect once SC are secondary age they’ll start getting work (they have family members close to their mum’s who have already promised weekend waitressing and babysitting), and wanting to see friends, and we’ll go through a phase of only seeing them occasionally or when we take them on holiday.

Again, I think this is normal and DH thinks it’s impossible!

If we keep the doors open on their terms I think they’re more likely to be closer to us when older, than if we force contact they don’t want. But I do appreciate it’s hard for DH because he’ll barely see them, whereas a resident parent would.

Completely agree with this. As the "step-child" in this scenario, my dad would tell us this was our second home but his wife behaved otherwise. We were treated very much as guests, literally perched on the edge of the sofa holding tea in a china cup and saucer while polite small talk was made. I was 10!

Overnight stays were clearly an upheaval as her children were shifted around to make room for us and extra pillows and blankets were dramatically dug out of cupboards. It was almost a relief when they had more children and there was no room for us any longer.

We only went there once a month but it felt more like a duty visit than anything else, and we usually couldn't wait to get back to our real home.

I’m sorry you experienced that. In our house, SC have their own bedrooms and are treated the same as our DC.

I don’t think somewhere you only stay at the weekend would ever feel like “home” BUT you can still feel at home there if that makes sense, and for me that is whats important here. As long as the kids feel welcome and feel at home, it doesn’t matter if they understandably wouldn’t call that second house their home.

Absolutely- that’s on dad to make it their home! My dc are at home with me or at dads. It helps that they have an a step mum who treats them as her own and love them very much.

I agree, I think it’s natural semantics and it doesn’t really matter as long as they’re loved and comfortable in both houses.

I also think it’s natural that they’ll want to spend less time with us as teens. It’s just going to be tough for DH but I don’t see it as a rejection of us, just of growing up and natural separation from parents, which is going to be amplified for him because he sees them so little to start with.

It's happened before but I'm not overly bothered. Moving away was the best option for everyone for a range of reasons and SD still sees a lot of us. She's nearly grown up now anyway and she's always known she has a home with us whenever she wants it.

Finding common interests is the way to keep teens/young adults in communication with you

Thing is though that this matters to your DH. You might not care you SCs don't see your house as their home, but he does. I think I would too. Would you really not be sad if your kids didn't feel like your house was their home?

That makes perfect sense, there's no way local authorities can provide children with multiple bedrooms across multiple homes!

I had similar. On the split my dad bought a 3 bed house and kitted it out for us to stay. We never really did and saw him twice a week. We were allowed to make ourselves a sandwich and get drinks. To then being introduced to our SM, who despite moving into my dads house imposed rules like. Ask before you help yourself that then progressed to being asked. Despite being upset over the change my dad’s side of the family would talk to us about manners and respect. We brushed it off as children but it did feel like your experience. You’d sit at the edge of the sofa and answer questions about school etc and be fed and watered then we’d go home. It felt more like a visit to an obscure family member than it did your dad. It wasn’t enjoyable and there was a relief on the car journey home, which again she had to be part of. Picking us up & dropping us home. Every part of our relationship with dad overseen by her. Even though she was never obviously hostile to us as an adult you see it differently, if she was working our nights with dad had to change. We never saw him without her. It’s affected to our relationship and I barely see or even think about my dad now. The problem with blended families is that the child is always the one that has to compromise, has to adjust to 2 different rules, as to see a change in a parent. Yet the SP will admit to how hard and awful it for them to navigate etc whilst ignoring the fact the kids find it hard and they’re kids with a lower emotional maturity. I hear advice on SP & SC having to meet half way and I think no, there’s an adult in this equation and whilst you can have boundaries you need to be the adult and come that extra mile.

I stayed with my dad one night a week. His house was home, but my mum's house was more home if that makes sense.

As I got older my feelings changed (my mum now lives in a different house with a partner I didn't grow up with so her house no longer feels like 'home' but dad's still does).

Regardless of whether children fully view both their parent's houses as 'home', I think it's important that we continue saying that children with blended families have two homes. Otherwise it gives the least involved parent and step-parent an excuse to treat them as guests/interlopers rather than full members of the family who should be given equal consideration regardless of whether they are their fulltime.

Genuine question, why are you blaming an unrelated woman for this rather than your dad, who should have had your best interests at heart?

I think my SC feel the same, that mum’s is more home. And I’m not proposing to pack their stuff in the attic! It’s just semantics and makes no difference to how they’re treated when they’re here. I think it’s more important to follow the child’s lead on how they feel than to insist they have two homes, two dads, two mums, four sets of grandparents etc. But clearly some people disagree.

Interesting about your mum’s no longer feeling like home. I felt the same when my mum moved in a new boyfriend.

I do blame my dad. He should have been stronger. I think at the time early 90’s her argument seemed reasonable. That this was her home and she would say her kids used to have to ask before helping themselves, whilst I think my dad should have said they’re here twice a week & only for a few hours on a Sunday and no more than 2 on Thursday that changing the rules now was pointless and unnecessary, he didn’t, but I also blame her, being a woman in her 40’s would or should have realised she was being out of order r

I think you’re blaming the wrong person. Even before she was on the scene, you barely saw your dad, and when you did, he wasn’t even feeding you properly - why were you making sandwiches when you were briefly there rather than him cooking?

Having house rules that apply to all the children sounds fair enough to me. Having two sets of rules is just going to breed resentment.

I often hear this kind of stuff from my adult friends who had stepmums: about how awful they were. When you dig down, it turns out the stepmum made them eat vegetables or do homework or something else their slack dad should have already been doing but didn’t bother with. Stepmums can’t win!

The adults have no such difficulties, do they? They just have a home.

I didn’t explain properly, we where 16, 13 & 12, her kids where adults with her youngest moving in being 18. She said the asking rule was applied to her kids until they started earning their own money & contributed to the bills. So we would sit in my dad’s house whilst he would help himself. My dad’s excuse was she buys the food shopping so we had to be asked. My sister asked her son if he had permission to open our dad’s cupboards. Which caused an argument. So it was a rule that her own kids weren’t asked to adhere to & something she wanted imposed on us despite only probably spending no more than 7 hours in a week in her home, had she moaned we hadn’t cleaned up after then that would be a fair point. She met my dad 6 months before moving in. We were not small kids.

He did cook for us but having a growing 12 yo boy who was always hungry my dad would say help yourself this is your home. That rhetoric changed with her. Try telling teenagers who was to blame. Of course we blamed her she was the changing factor.

why a step parent who doesn’t live with a kid would get involved in arguments over homework is beyond me anyway. Why? If he’s a lazy dad I’d be letting the ex give him an ear bashing over it and when he’d come complaining to me I’d say she has point. Tell your kids to do their homework that would be as much as I would be getting involved in that, picking battles is definitely good advice on that.

again dinner times. Seeing a child for a few hours a week id just cook the food i know they’d eat, especially if it’s like my arrangement was or that of yours. I know that routine for all kids is important but it’s also impossible to achieve when every week or eowe it’s disrupted because the sc will bring that naturally by just being there. Remember who has the benefit of 2 parents around all the time & who doesn’t. Your children will have had more benefit of their dad than the kids he had with someone else, which is why he would want to reiterate often that he sees your home as theirs to.