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

[IllegallyBrunette]

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 ?

OK semantics fine - don' have a problem with you commenting on mine when I use inappropriate wording. I do still think it odd for you to descibe the possibility of your stepsons having more than two parent figures as "unfair" on your DD - I would have thought any child not growing up with two biological parents in situ would have more of a claim for "unfairness". Thats why I found your words/reasoning odd.

Lets move on to the "eternal digs" bit...

LittleBella,but relationships don't have to last for years to be 'valid', either. A 6-month (or 6 week) shagfest that ends when both parties agree, amicably, that they've had enough of playing with each other's bits and have nothing much in common out of the bedroom, is not a failed relationship, just one that has run its course. Even if you have a short lived shagging relationship that ends a little less than amicably (your shagbuddy suddenly stops returning calls or says or does something utterly crass), it's not actually the end of the world if you had fun while it lasted. There's a lot of good things to be said about casual relationships, such as they teach you quite a lot about people and how to spot nice ones and nasty ones, and if you are good at handling casual relationships you end up with a lot of nice longterm friends.

Actually, my stepsons see far more of their father now than when they were little and their parents were living together - so in situ has little to do with it. The bit that my stepsons really do complain about being unfair is that they were at home with a nanny all day when they were little whereas my daughter was with her mother. There is very little that we can say or do about that. We do, however, ask them what they would prefer for their own children.

Obviously it is a classic assumption that children will somehow see less of one or both of their parents if parents separate - but IMVHO that doesn't seem to be the case among the families I know locally. But then, all the parents live very close to one another.

No.

solidgoldbrass - I agree with what you've said. If you are in a realtionship which has as its basis mutual bit-twiddling, please spare the rest of us and don't bring him/her for a family Sunday lunch or introduce him to your nephews as Uncle Phil/Auntie Jane.

i dont think i would expect any man to take on my kids unless it developed into marriage. my kids already have a dad no matter how much of a waster he is. at the end of the day i am looking for company for me not a father for my kids though naturally he would have to accept i have kids.
my parents have never met my xdp dd from a previous relationship.

Yes I agree the "bit-fiddling" unimportant shagfests can be OK in theory, I've just never seen them work in practice. Becuase like any friendship, they do tend to overlap into other bits of your life. And since other bits of your life include your children, that's where the block is, for me. I simply don't have the babysitting support that would enable me to keep such a shagfest separate for any length of time. Or the time tbh. It's just so ... inconvenient.

OK LB, each to their own and I am used to them working in practice.

Actually, my dh#2 DOES have LEGAL responsibility for my ds from my first marriage. Absolutely. He's married to me, he's the father of my daughter, we share an equal role in the upbringing and well being of both our children. He drops Ds every morning and collects him every night. He looked after him AND our dd for six months while I was working away from home during the week. We all live together as a family. My ex dh and ex mil are part of that family and treat dd as if she is part of their family too.

I would not have married him, not remotely, nor would I have had dd with him, had the above been part of the deal.

WWW - but how did he get that legal responsibility?

Here in France there is no way I can ever get any kind of parental responsibility for my stepsons. Impossible. Even if their mother died, I could not adopt them.

little bella - try a shag fest with a man in the army they very conveniently bugger off for longish periods and are generally very grateful when they get back. Forget babysitting just turf them out of bed into the spare room before DC's wake up if it worries you

You obviously have better organisational skills than me, Solid. Even before children, I was rubbish at remembering to take the right things to a bloke's house. I can't imagine being more competent now...

so the thing you were too PC to raise against me was semantics Anna and you're not preapred to justify your "eternal digs" comments.

BTW - I'm quite happy for anyone else to chip in, I have on occasion thought better of a post I've made and apologise if anyone has thought I was having a "dig" at them. However not on any thread Anna's been on so am now concerned that I am inadvertantly pissing off swathes of people but taking potshots at their family.

So take your best shot now then I'll let it rest as its off the topic...

How interesting Anna. I was adopted by my dad when he married my mum, so clearly he was willing to "take me on". My biological father has never been on the scene. My cousin (or not, by your definition) was adopted by my aunt after she married her father after the death of her mother. Our definitions of 'family' are somewhat looser than yours though I think.

TheFallenMadonna - obviously if you were adopted by your mother's second husband, he did become your father - and all his relatives became yours. So it's not particularly a case of "looser definition" - the legal bonds were in place in your situation whereas they are not in mine.

KC - I don't need to demonstrate it because you fell to the bait and are doing it to yourself .

Ah, well, iirc Anna you're not married so equally does your dp have no legal relationship with you?

Anyway, prob have to agree to disagree here as I have tedious work to do

ken adopted the girl who went upstairs to brushg her hair and came down grown up

but then tracy was pretty scary he possibly regretted it

We have various joint contracts but not a marriage contract (but there are various forms of marriage contract in France, so the legal relationship varies from couple to couple).

I phrased that badly. I was going for two thoughts in one post, and it didn't come off...

We have step families as well as adoptive parents in our wider family - hence the looser definition.

Can you not do step parent adoption in France then?

And my dad is my mother's first (now ex!) husband. I think it might have been more complicated had my mother and biological father been married. In the pre-CSA days it was remarkably simple for him to disappear, for which I am actually pretty grateful, as it has made my life much more simple

sorry Anna - sometimes I really don't understand what you're talking about and this is one of those occasions. You are far too clever for me.

technically I am not yet legally DS's mother.

Kew - She's too clever for me too.

Step parent adoption is amazingly difficult here in France - both biological parents have to give up the child for adoption and then one bio parent has to adopt his/her own biological child with his/her new husband/wife.

Yep, that's what my parents had to do. My mother was not best pleased at having to adopt me, but it was the only way. Changed now I understand.