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Lone parents

Use our Single Parent forum to speak to other parents raising a child alone.

Original poster

Would you bother to have a relationship with someone who you knew wouldn't ever take on your kids ??

303 replies

IllegallyBrunette · 26/08/2008 20:53

Just wondering about this because of my other thread.

I don't expect any bloke I meet to launch into dad mode and promise to be there for me and my children for all eternity, but at the same time, I don't see the point of starting anything with a bloke who catergorically states that he doesn't want to take on another mans kids.

How about you ?

OP posts:
Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:24

AbbeyA - maybe my partner doesn't find it "upsetting" because I do so many things for the boys that their mother probably ought to be doing - at the moment sorting out their clothes, haircuts etc for school, buying shoes etc. I actually do more "childcare" than she does.

zippitippitoes · 27/08/2008 10:25

i think there is a cultural/social/peer/ etc gap here in thinking

outsourcing does sound ridiculously business speak

AbbeyA · 27/08/2008 10:25

I didn't think OP mentioned divorce. Lone parents aren't necessarily divorced.

AbbeyA · 27/08/2008 10:26

I shall drop it at this point-and just agree to differ.

LittleBella · 27/08/2008 10:28

I don't think there's any right way of doing these things. As long as the children feel secure, loved and valued and absolutely part of the family, any way can work. My big concern would be to try and have arrangements that facilitated that.

Agree outsourcing is a ridiculous word to use in this context. You've been spending too much time on threads with Xenia, Anna.

Swedes · 27/08/2008 10:28

I have two sons from a previous marriage and two children with my DP. It would make me totally miserable if DP didn't treat DSSs as he does our two joint children. We are a family. Ex H is involved with the children but he is separate to our family. Anna's version of stepfamily is a bit weird. But maybe it's because the boys don't live with her full-time.

FAQ · 27/08/2008 10:30

I'm guessing Anna would never consider adopting a child - as the attitude of "well they're not actually mine" probably wouldn't work too well

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:33

LOL but "outsourcing" childcare is pretty standard speak.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:34

Swedes - what about your sons' paternal grandparents? Do they treat your children with your DP the same way they treat your sons?

Swedes · 27/08/2008 10:35

Anna888 I would be very surprised if your DP is happy with you viewing your DD as more important than her brothers.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:38

Be surprised then.

What he finds hard to deal with is their mother's attitude to them - not mine.

zippitippitoes · 27/08/2008 10:39

i think i would find it quite hard to be a parent to a new partners children

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:42

zippi - but the point is - one isn't a "parent" to a new partner's children. One is a "stepparent". Stepparents do not have the legal responsibilities that parents have. It is a completely different relationship (but it can be an excellent one, providing IMVHO that one doesn't try to usurp the other biological parent's position).

My stepsons tell me things they don't dare tell their parents - precisely because I don't have the emotional involvement that their parents have, I can step back and help them work things out in an objective way. They know I won't get all emotional in the way their parents do.

Swedes · 27/08/2008 10:47

I would find it very difficult if not impossible to be a step-parent to another man's children. Precisely because I would be fear behaving as Anna888 does.

I would not have got together with my DP if he had children from a previous relationship.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:49

But, you see Swedes, the way I behave with my stepsons is very successful - we all get on extremely well, because we aren't pretending to be family when we aren't. Healthy relationships are about truth, not pretence and denial.

LittleBella · 27/08/2008 10:55

But for lots of people Anna, blending their families isn't pretence and denial. It's truth. They have the capacity to make a family which isn't only about genetic relationships. And yes it's messy, complex, difficult, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

But FWIW I agree with you that it's far healthier to be honest. On the proviso of course, that children aren't being hurt. There was a dreadful thread recently where some bloke was demanding his right to be honest about hating his SS. Which is obviously not healthy.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 10:58

LittleBella - but "blending" isn't about stating how relationships are going to be ("a partner must take on my children and behave as a father would") before they have started. Blending is about getting to know one another and letting the relationship take its natural course.

Swedes · 27/08/2008 10:59

There was a thread the other day about a woman who had found out her DP was saving up to send his child from a prev relationship to the private school while she was lobbying to move to a better area so that both their children could go to a better school. I thought it was shocking.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 11:01

Swedes - it doesn't sound as if the couple in question were having a very harmonious relationship.

FWIW my daughter goes to a private school and my stepsons to a state school. I do quite a lot of lobbying about sending the boys to a (better) private school. My partner would love them to do this (and he would foot the bill 100%) but their mother doesn't want them to - she finds it more convenient to send them to school as locally as possible.

Kewcumber · 27/08/2008 11:06

I'm trading on dangerous ground? People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones? Do tell Anna, what have I done that makes it dangerous for me to comment on me finding your phraseology amusing.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 11:08

No way KC - I'm not going to respond to your eternal digs about other people's families.

zippitippitoes · 27/08/2008 11:08

well maybe it is usual to say outsourcing in your circles anna it would be gobsmackinlgy weird among people i know lol

unless you were talking about haviong gear boxes made or the logistics of internet warehousing and delivery

Kewcumber · 27/08/2008 11:18

my eternal digs about other peoples families?! What digs exactly - haven't made any on this thread, by any stretch of the imagination - but by all means remind me of digs I've made in the past. I was commenting on your wording not on your family I really have no view at all on how your family works (not have I expressed any).

What glass house am I living in? I assume you either disapprove of my single parent by choice status or working single parent status. You're quite entitled to your opinion if so - you won't be the first, or the last and I'll rather you were a "man" about it and just said so rather than making vague allusions.

Kewcumber · 27/08/2008 11:19

oh and adding doesn't make me think your comment was meant to be funny, if that was the intent.

Anna8888 · 27/08/2008 11:21

Glass houses was referring to your semantics (you were referring to mine, right?).