I know there’s been a similar message on this thread, but my issue is with school uniform being kept back. For years I’ve struggled with my daughters’s dad keeping lovely clothes that I’ve sent my daughter to him in. Then having her return in clothes that are too small or just old hand me downs that are of the wrong gender or size etc. My daughter would look so unkept and unloved, that we would get glances from people when we were out with her following pick up. When it came to sending her back or her being picked up on a non-school day, we wouldn’t feel right making her wearing uncomfortable or small clothing and she would ask us not to. She would often get embarrassed about it. Of course, we sent her in our clothing and it wouldn’t return.
Nowadays, she’s picked up on a Friday after school by dad, so is wearing her school uniform. For a while now, the situation has been that she returns with their clothing on and no uniform to speak of. When asked about the missing uniform, we’re told that it will be looked for, sent back, isn’t there, hasn’t been seen or will check the washing pile etc. It never returns. This has gotten worse, so I now have to replace her uniform each week. The entire outfit each week will never return and this over the course of a month is costing me a fortune. My daughter says that she’s seen clothing bits on occasions and has asked to bring them home, only to be told no.
Over the last 4 weeks, I’ve sent an updated reminder list each week of the uniform which hasn’t been returned. I’ve included an image of my daughter in the uniform before going to her dads, sizing, names in labels and brand descriptions etc. She’s lost 4 black PE hoodies in 4 weeks, so 1 per week along with everything else. Last night I asked that he bring the uniform id bought this month back today at drop off.
He arrived and said that he’d forgotten it all. I sent a message to our group chat (with both stepparents and parents on it) to say that we were struggling to fund all of the uniform that doesn’t come home. I confirmed that my daughter now had no uniform left and needed the whole lot to be bought again (I’d lost an outfit per week and most things come in packs of 2, so I get 2 packs of 2). I asked that we both go halves in buying the school uniform from now on. Then I asked that on a Friday night, my daughters dad let’s her get changed out of her uniform at home or school (we live beside the school) and that the school uniform is left here. That was it isn’t lost.
The reply was that my daughter's step mum had asked her ex husband to drop the missing uniform off tonight. He’s not long been and I was handed a small bag of uniform items that were ‘lost’ last year and now don’t fit. Nothing from this year that fits. I’ve now asked three times about items being replaced and going halves and they continue to ignore that bit. They’ve also ignored the request to drop off bits. At a loss as to what to do 😭