AIBU to refuse to cut short our holiday for childcare?

[UnhealthierWhy]

This is not our problem ???

We are on holiday currently with our 2 dc (2 and 4) (Disney Paris) due back home on Wednesday. Dh has 2 older dc from previous marriage (6 and 8).

He gave his ex money for holiday childcare which she ‘forgot’ to book the first week so I had to look after dc which was fine as dh had work. Next week her mum was going to have the dc but is now unwell. She is telling dh he needs to come home early to have the dc as she can’t take the time off.

She is constantly messaging and calling and we are considering just turning our phones off if she continues pestering us this way.

This seems to be a regular thing with her not arranging childcare and then expecting us to rescue the situation which we try to accomodate if we can but this is the first time we’ve said no.

A lesson to learn is that your DH books the childcare next time

But would I ignore my child looking after because of a chaotic ex, no. My plans would I just have to change and this is what happens when you are with someone who already has children you life is impacted. Having children is inconvenient at times, plans change and get ruined. Your ex should never be turning off his phone and as the plan for child care has fallen through (her mum) then both parents should sort this out together

How is it unlikely? If the relationship broke down when she was just getting pregnant then there could be 2+ years between that and the op becoming pregnant, maybe op is on the older side of motherhood and couldn't afford to wait any longer. It looks as though op and her husband are a solid partnership so maybe it made sense to have kids quite soon into the relationship.

Golden uterus syndrome.

Are you ok pet?
If you are trying to patronise me because of a typo, try harder. I dont get patronised.
Comments like yours make me chuckle.
If.you have to ask what standards, then you dont have them.

You are incorrect.
Hth.

People in glasshouses...

I was just thinking EXACTLY the same! Every single time, it's so tedious & completely derails the thread!

Have a word with yourself.
Or read the thread.
They take ALL 4 children together once a year.
They go with their own 2 kids once a year.
The 2 step kids go on holiday with their mum once a year.
Is that OK with you?

Has she met a new partner or is she single? It’s much harder if she’s doing it solo. You met him and had a baby very quickly as there’s only a 2 year age gap so maybe she’s feeling resentful.

That being said, there’s no way you should cut short your holiday.

Sorry? Did you read my post? I’m saying I wouldn’t ever feel guilty about leaving behind a child that wasn’t mine. In fact the idea of holidaying just with my own children is infinitely preferable than with others.

Hence why I wouldn’t be a SM

whereas holiday without my two children of 6 and 8? I’d hate it.

So I totally empathise with the op
but the husband… not so much

yep… I hold my hands up.

Hence why I would never be a step mum

Me: So… you have a a new born and a toddler?
Possible boyfriend; I do, yes

Me: bye

Read all the OPs posts

The older children went on holiday to Spain with their mother and her partner in May

Er, why should the stepmother be the one who has to suffer if the mother is too flakey to sort out childcare for her children even when she is given the money to do it?

Why isn't their other other parent, their stepfather, being expected to step up to look after them? After all, if he hadn't screwed the father's wife in the first place none of this would be happening, chances are. He ought to bear at least some of the responsibility.

Well nether the step-mother and step-father are the first port of call to take responsibility for the OP’s husband own children. He is. And he should parent his own children if their mother is unable to.

BTW responsibility for children/step-children shouldn’t be treated as a punishment for adult relationships.

It is being suggested that as well as having looked after her stepchildren because their mother made a mess of childcare arrangements, OP should also be punished by having to cut short her holiday with her own children in order to suit the convenience of this woman who is apparently unable to arrange childcare during the days she has her children. So yes, the OP clearly ought to be punished for being a stepmother. – Evil, evil, shades of Snow White and Cinderella; you'd think women in the twenty-first century might have grown out of children's stories from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but apparently not.

Oh, and be castigated all over this thread for the crime of, well, having had children, and existing, as far as I can make out. Burn the witch! They'll be saying she ought to be made to dance herself to death wearing red-hot iron shoes, any time now.

(No, I am not a stepmother.)

Whilst the man who is one of the originators of the situation has been mentioned about three times except as having, with his partner (that's the cuckolding ex), taken two children to Spain on holiday in May. And only by me and one other person (maybe two?) as perhaps, just perhaps, being on the spot and possibly, just possibly, able to look after his two stepchildren for a couple of days.

So I thought I would remind the righteous of his existence and culpability.

And I don't think the children's mother is unable to look after them; I think she is choosing not to want to, which is a slightly different matter. Supposing her ex were working on an oil-rig, she would be unable to summon him home to fill in for her deficiencies; but she feels fine about pestering him while he is on holiday, because how dare he look after his other children during the time she has the ones that are hers? There is no emergency, just poor planning on the mother's part.

FFS OP is not being “punished”. Children are not a punishment for adult relationships.

The consequence of being in a relationship with a man who has other children is that they will always be his responsibility. He will sometimes have to make sacrifices for those children, because they’re his children, and if you chose a relationship with this man then you chose to deal with the consequences, as an adult who willingly went into the relationship knowing he has other children.

Also ridiculous to take a 2 and 4 year old to Disney in the school holidays, they’re not even school age. They probably won’t even remember the holiday.
The older children will absolutely remember the summer they hardly saw their dad and he couldn’t help look after them because he was on holiday with his shiny new family.

I can afford holidays with my kids and if I couldn’t it would be somewhere I could! Because we’re talking about the parents of the kids and the partners who knew what they were getting into that’s why! I’d sell my soul before I booked holidays leaving out my young children that didn’t live with me! Especially at their ages.

🤣🤣🤣

Didn’t the mother know she was having children when they came out of her body? Didn’t she know she’d sometimes have to make sacrifices and sometimes things would be a bit inconvenient?
Didn’t she know that wasn’t her children’s partner she was shagging? Didn’t she know that screwing up her relationship with their father would mean things weren’t as easily managed as before?
Why is it only on OP to do all the knowing and sacrificing?

You do know you can read all the OP's posts by clicking on the "see all" at the bottom of any one of them, don't you? Because I am having to assume you don't, and thus haven't read the all the OP's posts, since you seem unaware of their content.

I have read them all, in fact I’ve read the entire thread since the start. The kids have had other holidays etc etc, the dad takes them away seperately and together. But kids brains don’t work like that do they. It might be “fair” to the adults’ minds but at the moment all they know if mummy is struggling and daddy won’t look after them because he’s on holiday with his new family. Whether the adults are in the right or wrong, the kids will remember this.

You keep using very judgemental terms like screwing and shagging. It doesn’t matter what poor behaviour the adults have done, the children aren’t a punishment. They’re a responsibility. The mother can behave appallingly if she wishes but it doesn’t diminish the father’s responsibility to take care of his older children and they shouldn’t suffer because of their parents choices.