To think choosing to spend Mother’s Day without your kids is weird

[InkyB]

DH’s ex has emailed us to let us know she’s planned her holidays next year and to ask us to accommodate. We usually have DSC every other weekend and half the school holidays plus Wednesday nights, and we have a draft plan for next year already, but are usually flexible both ways. She books her holidays very early because she’s far more organised than us!

One of the holidays she’s booked is a four night trip over Mother’s Day, so we’d have them Weds-Sun evening. It wasn’t supposed to be our weekend at all.

For context the children involved will be (future ages) DSS11, DSD10, our DD3 and she has a DS4.

AIBU to feel a bit put out by this?

Firstly DSC both have clubs on Sunday morning so it’d mean being out with one of them all morning, cooking a rushed lunch then DH driving them back in the late afternoon and getting back after DD’s bedtime.
Secondly, DSC are often mopey about their mum doing stuff with her youngest and not them, so it’d be a weekend of reassuring them and pretending Mother’s Day doesn’t exist.
Finally, I’d like a Mother’s Day where DH’s focus is on me and our child, not running around after his ex?

Maybe the ex’s partner has booked it in advance for her.
anyway you have 1yrs notice here so you are being unreasonable & a little selfish.

your hubby could take the child to the sport event in the morning, including taking the rest of the kids so you can have a lay in.

no need to rush a lunch, either plan in advance or book somewhere for a nice dinner early afternoon once everyone back from sport/event.

when hubby takes kids back to mum you get some 1 on 1 time with daughter - so what if hubby misses bedtime, its one night & he is dropping his other kids off not being a deadbeat.

step kids might enjoy being part of the family day. Maybe they are mopey about you doing things with dd without them too. You can surely understand how they can feel left out from both sides.

you are mum AND Step mum so no you don’t get to be selfish & exclude your step children cos you want it to just be ‘your family’ they are family too

he isn’t running round after his ex, he is running round after his children like decent fathers do. Genuinely don’t get why women like you have kids with someone who has kids when you can’t/won’t/don’t see them as family. Those kids do not deserve that

she is right though. You don’t want them. You don’t want them spoiling your mothers day cos it should be for you and your children not your step children.

its not up to you to say no. They are your husbands children, its his decision not yours

I think it’s also fair to tell your husband and the kids that you DO want to celebrate Mother’s Day this year. Especially if that’s the biggest issue. You can say that you understand why they don’t want to celebrate with you, but that you are also a mom and that you want to celebrate and be celebrated on Mother’s Day.

“I’d like a Mother’s Day where DH’s focus is on me and our child, not running around after his ex” - this is so needy.

What I find weird is that you’re making a point of saying you just wanted Mother’s Day to be you, DH and your child. He has other children and your a blended family, so deal with it and I hope your attitude doesn’t show to the children.

But also why is his ex going away with just her DH and their DS and not taking the others away too?

Those poor step children are being pushed out both sides! Very poor attitudes to have.

just like Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, teachers day, nurses day, Halloween etc etc etc … Mothering Sunday (to give it its correct term) is sheer unadulterated commercialism.

It isn't but you married a man who had children . You dont have to run after the DC on Mothers day, you can spend the day with your child and let your DH do everything for DC.

I suppose what you cant have is a MD that involves only your DD and your DH which I suppose is annoying if that is important to you but as I said you married a man woth children, sometimes the nuclear family dream does not always work out.

Next year book your own weekend away for MD in advance if it is so important to you. Get organised and then you will be more likely to get what you want on MD

By that reasoning, I assume you think it’d be fine for me to book for DH, DD and me to go away for Father’s Day, even though it’s due to be our weekend with the kids? It’s a year’s notice and we’ll let their mum have Father’s Day this year?

Wow! Imagine being those two DSC!

Your mother wants to be with DH and new child plus your Step mother wants to be with your father and her DC.

Give your head a wobble, thing of these poor two DSC and may take a little moral high ground a bit of ammo for the future... something along the lines of "you did want your own children on mothers day so I'll have them"

BTW its just a day. Mothers day really wont mind if you move it along to another weekend

YABU

An update, DH and I discussed all the date swaps his ex suggested, and will be agreeing to most of them but declining Mother’s Day and another weekend of my cousin’s wedding weekend.

they are 11 & 10!! They dont get to choose to go on a family outing, tell dh he must make them come along on a Mother’s Day outing or say no, and that you plan to not support any more flex in plans ever if he decides to say yes but then not make the kids come out.

otherwise this does not seem a big deal.

Why do you separate my/our/his children . I’m a step mum and this territorial mindset is foreign to me.

Most of the time they are treated exactly like DD (in an age appropriate way!) but for this specific weekend, I’m not their mother, and they don’t want to pretend.

There are other occasions on which they’d rather not be at ours, like family weddings on my side or trips to see my aged relatives. Blended families are not exactly the same as nuclear families, no matter what some people want to pretend.

I would tell mum that the kids want to spend md with her their mum

I thought at first that this was another person moaning about having their step children. I can't believe the ex is taking one of her children away and not the other two.

True it wouldn't take long to check but I wouldn't think to stop and check was what I meant. Would never occur to me to stop and think "oh maybe I shouldn't book a holiday because it might be a made up commercial holiday" 😉

1. The day can move, noone is going to check.
2. Yes, its a holiday, but maybe its one of those big family things and she's tacked a break on.
3. It's mother's day, a Co opted church thing. I can't be arsed with it, are you very religious?

I have 3 kids, eldest 2 have the same dad (is this similar) yes, I have been on days away from home at weekends with just the youngest. Once, because there was a hobby commitment for both the eldest, once because I needed them to be with their dad (only fair to him) before I spirited them away for 4 full weeks of summer. Once because the small portable tiny baby could be accommodated and not bored to distraction at a funeral but not the two older ones that had to be at school all day - and it was far. Another time (now) because they're older and don't want to do x,y,z so there is a combination of visiting dad / staying home alone (go on, shoot me for my cruelty). Families are complicated. Blended ones have extra calendars to accommodate.

You are absolutely being unreasonable. Why does it have to involve cooking a rushed Sunday lunch? Eat out or get hubby to cook a lasagne and something the day before you can pop in the oven.
They might not even have the same clubs by next March, even if they do they can miss one week if it’s such a big inconvenience.

Also, why does it mean pretending Mother’s Day doesn’t exist? You can still celebrate, you are their stepmum.

I lost count of the mother’s days my stepson was with us, it wasn’t even a something that would concern me. Until recently my mother’s days were taken up with hubby’s grandmother (we were her only family, she was effectively his mum). He’d be having to rush off and pick her up, having to drive her home later and make up a bed for her… we needed to do something grandmother friendly etc. In family’s that’s how it goes isn’t it.

Although having seen she is going away with her younger child that feels super cruel. I’d be upset for the kids - hey I don’t even know them and I feel sad for them. If that’s why you were upset about I’d agree, but it’s not.

Frankly then, if replicating your childhood Mother’s Day was so important, you shouldn’t have married someone with kids.

And you lost me at ‘she only has the kids for the benefits’.

But you chose to have a child with a man who already has children

It’s what it means to the children.

They don’t deserve to be without their mum on Mothers Day if it means something to them

Especially if their mum is celebrating it with their sibling but yet is so cavalier with their feelings.

OP shouldn’t have been put in this position by her DH’s ex, where her step children don’t want to be with her…they want to be with their mum.

Glad you have told her no I would’ve mentioned as I said before that it’s Mother’s Day and her children want to spend the day with her as she is their mum

So she can cancel the holiday or she can take all three of her children on holiday

And you lost me at ‘she only has the kids for the benefits’

Me too. I was also bemused at the children’s teacher taking them aside to discuss how depressed the children were at missing next year’s mothers’ day with their mother. None of mine ever had a clue when MD was until they started making cards at school.

The children already spend most of their time with their mother and her youngest. They are supposed to be unhappy that the mother spends more time with the youngest child - the only solution to that is 100% of time with the mother. Presumably they are conveniently happy for their father to spend vastly more time with his youngest than with them?

We don’t know why that weekend was chosen or if it was due to a family event. Its most likely that the mother is less obsessed with being the centre of MD than the OP.

I also don’t see why the OP can’t have a nice MD with the SC there - that is life in blended families.

Bottom line is the OP doesn’t want her SC around on MD. OK she feels how she feels but dressing this all up as being a hard done by SM when the DM is doing the bulk of the care and giving a year’s notice of a planned holiday is silly.