AIBU to refuse travel sport training during our custody time?

[MonkeyMaze101]

Posting here for traffic. It will be long but don't want to dripfeed / leave out anything that might be relevant.

For background context: DH & I work FT. He has one teenager from a previous relationship and we have 2 preschool aged children together. Stepson is 50/50 between here and his mothers home.

Now the AIBU: Last year SS mum signed him up to a travel sport without discussing with us. Essentially he would have 2 training sessions a week (one on her day, one on ours) and a game / tournament most weeks. These games are minimum 2 hours drive away from our home. Whilst obviously we are happy that he is playing a sport, we couldn't physically get him to the training during our access because of our work schedules and needing to collect other kids from childcare and having to feed everyone etc. For a few weeks his mum collected him from our house and dropped him back but she was always making nasty remarks about how we were lazy and unsupportive. We took him to pretty much every game / tournament which often meant lugging the young kids along or my DH missing out on a full day with them if it was too far. After a few weeks his mum just stopped collecting him during our days. He also missed probably 50% of the training on her days.

There have been half-term and summer camps that stepson has been signed up for and that we have either paid fully for or contributed toward. Out of a total of 9 days, he attended 2 days of the camps (on our time).

This year his mum has signed him up again and the revised training means it is 75% during our access. We live a 30 minute drive from the training grounds. We physically cannot get him to one day of the training (50%) again because we won't be finished work, collected from school and daycare and home to feed everyone before the session starts. My DH told his ex that we cannot take him this day and to facilitate it (because she's being quite nasty again saying we aren't supporting and we are full of obstacles) we could swap days so that the access arrangements all change by 1 day. That would mean that she took him every week on Wednesday (the day we can't do) and we would take him each week Friday. She has denied this and said its unreasonable because she wants Friday evenings with stepson too. That's fair and makes sense but the training sessions go on until 9pm so there's not really much Friday left unless of course she wasn't taking him?

We suggested that we just have that arrangement during the sport season, meaning it's only half the year. That was a no go. We suggested we trial it for a few weeks and see how it works, that was a no go. She has suggested that she will collect stepson and bring him back on the Wednesday. Are we being unreasonable to say that no, that doesn't suit us? Midweek one or both of us are often working late at night and we don't want to have to go to the meeting point at 9.30pm to pick up Stepson.

YABU: Just suck it up and struggle so he can do the sport, even though it's less than ideal for the rest of the family.

YANBU: You have offered solutions and the other parent needs to compromise too.

. (sorry meant to add quote)

It’s a new sport, so he is not training for the national/Olympics. Just drop it or facilitate to the extent you easily can. Kids are not entitled to hobbies at the expense of the rest of the family’s sleep, convenience and especially not income.

You paid (partly) for the unattended new sport camps though, right? I meant that if he's expecting that again, he can pay for it himself.

Maybe I missed this - what reasons has SS’ mum given you for not wanting to swap Weds and Fridays? I imagine she has some - maybe they would make sense to us? Maybe not. But i don’t think it’s possible to judge AIBU without this.

It might be reasonable for DH to say that DS needs to choose between his high level sports. Two elite sports per child can be a lot for any family with more than one teen
But bear in mind that when DH says this SS and his mum will hear “it’s too difficult bc of DH’s his new young family and his job” .

Sounds like hurling or gaelic? Possibly rugby, lot of practice lot of matches in either.

If you are that rural surely he can get the bus eireann school transport rather than your husband sitting around?

Missing point of thread, I know its you dont like the ex and you want us to agree. But id stop fighting her and start helping the son. Sooner or later he will lose interest or be old enough to drive there.

Her response was "I want Fridays with SS too". That's all we got.

DH explained to SS that because of work, he can't take him. He asked him did he want to drop the other sport for this new one which he said no.

I completely agree about over doing it and we had that conversation last year with SS. He knows that if DH thinks he's overloaded (either physically tired, drowning in schoolwork or not having enough social downtime) then he'll need to pull back a bit. It wasn't a problem last year as he didn't attend all of this new sport.

He does get the school transport. It drops him 20 minutes from our house.

But id stop fighting her and start helping the son.
No problem, I'll pack in my job tomorrow to make sure SS can attend something we had no say in, and that his mum can't be bothered bringing him to most of the time, and that she won't swap a day for. Nevermind having a roof over our heads or food on the table.

Ah yes. 3 camps of 3 days each. We paid for the 1st camp, he went 1 day. We paid 50% of the next camp, he went one day. We paid 50% of the latest camp and he never went. We won't be contributing to the next one.

A football game that is 20 minutes away and wrapped up in three hours? Must be nice.

This made me reflect on last weekend when my son had a meet time of 7:30, kick off for 12, two hours away and then home at 5.

Yeah I get he plays at the highest level but what you are saying isn’t unusual. My son is at the club six days a week and on the other day? Recovery, massage, 1-1’s etc all over an hour away.

I take him to every training. I watch every game. My other son, hes the same - cat 1 football. Three sessions a week and away games can be 2-3 hours.

My husband and I both work senior stressful jobs.

You have no idea how much of a non issue this is as if you wanted to you would make it work.

You have no idea how much of a non issue this is as if you wanted to you would make it work.
Any suggestions?

I’m in Dublin and wondering what the sport could be that all the matches are two hours away ? All in Dublin and you live in Cork ? Must be a very niche sport .

I'm actually gobsmacked at the number of posters berating OP, telling her of course it's possible to make it work, she just won't do it because it's her SS not her bio child, or because she hates SS's mum.

There's obviously been an outbreak of Reading Comprehension Failure tonight, combined with failure to RTFT.

I've tough skin 😂

There will always be people suggesting I'm evil because I'm the stepmother and I'll rise above those comments - it's to be expected.

And perhaps I could have added more info in the OP. I thought I had all relevant info in, but maybe not.

Maybe my DH & I are just being unreasonable. I am here looking for opinions so if people want to berates me that's fine, I'll try to take on board any reasonable comments.

Is there really no alternative way for him to get home from school? This seems to be a significant problem tbh. Your DH is spending 1hr15mins out of work time doing the school run for a 15yo.

It seems like madness to me to have a system where a child can only get home if a parent can pick them up a 20 minute car ride away. Surely the majority of parents work and can’t do this?! What do other parents near you do? How far is the actual school from DH’s work, or yours? Just wondering if you could swap so you get DS and DH gets the little ones. Or could DS stay and do his homework at school and you/DH get him later?

Contrary to other posters I think it is perfectly clear you’re working as a team to make sure DS can do his activities as much as possible and that’s lovely.

You seem to making up a lot of excuses as to why your SS doing perfectly normal teenage activities is too much for you and his father.

His father only sees him 50% of the time and most of that time he'll be at school so I don't see the issue with putting in a bit more effort on the days he does see him.

His other kids have their father 100% of the time.

If he's 15, he'll soon be out of your hair, and if he picks up on your obvious resentment, possibly permanently which may be what you want.

Is it impossible to take himself to training after school? Doesn't he have friends he could go with if he didn't come home?

We live rurally (Sweden) and TBH daily driving is your lot as parents of kids who want to do activities.

If he's really keen, reach out to the other parents on the team and see if you can work out a carpool schedule. I love a good carpool. You drive less and you get to learn loads about your child and their friends.

It does blow my mind a little that for entire generations, people have been complaining that there's nothing for teenagers to do and now there is, parents can't be arsed to take their kids there.

Is the price of a taxi madness??

Yanbu.
His mother signed him up without a conversation.
It is on her to make it work.
No way would I be dragging younger children out to this.
I don't believe its fair on them, or you.

SS does stay in school until 4.30 doing school work then hops on the bus. If he didn't have sports, he would stay until 6pm and DH would pick him up directly and be hone by 6.30pm and not have to log back in (maybe on occasion for 15 mins or so). The school bus drops him to his mothers town and we live 20 minutes beyond that. His primary school was 10 minutes in the middle of both homes so not an issue.

The options are school bus, or parents collect. In my experience, a lot of parents and particularly mothers work part time.

School is about 30 minutes from home where I work, 45 minutes in school parking/ traffic. If I was to get SS, then I would need to leave work early also and jump back online after so we thought it best that DH flexes his work schedule and that I stick to my full day and collect the younger kids. Then I can focus on getting them fed, play, bathed, bed etc while he gets SS where he needs to be. He will often send work emails while waiting for SS if possible but he can't do everything remotely.

A large part of why we suggested a day swap is because we are both pretty run ragged already and I genuinely don't know how my DH could add an extra day a week to this split pattern.

Hopefully in 2-3 years time SS will be able to drive himself.

As I've said previously, there are less than 15 people on the team who travel sometimes to to an hour to get to.the training session. We don't know any of them that live around us. SS only has one school friend who is on the team, and he lives 40 minutes the opposite direction (so an hour from our house).

It's not that we can't be arsed... we have things called jobs. I'd love to be a SAHM and im sure my DH wouls love to work less, but funnily enough that doesn't pay the bills. Surely it's not unreasonable to suggest to SS other parent that a simple day swap would mean SS could attend all of the training sessions (each parent doing 50%) instead of us being responsible for 75% of the travel?

We wouldn't be able to do it. A lot of people can't with jobs, children and commitments.
It would be sorry we won't adapt to this new sport but of course carry on with the first sport and that's it.

If the school bus is in his mum's town can he collect his bike and ride it your yours? Or arrange a permanent lift to one weekly training for the other sport so DH can work that night?

Not something I've looked into but I would hazard a guess at about €50 to €70 each way?

Ridiculous for a child’s sport to be putting your jobs at risk.
His mum can swap the days and take him on Wednesdays.
Or she can drop him off at the meeting point later on Wednesdays 10pm/10:30 when your DH is available to pick him up?