Had massive row after a lovely christmas

[GettingIt]

Me and DH have had a huge row over his kids. Basically they dont send thank you notes to people after christmas and I think they should. My kids do.

So I told them to start writing them, they refused and said it was geeky and they've never had to before I got cross at them and said I'd be disapointed in them if they didnt.

I left them to it expecting them to get it done and returned to find them playing on the xbox . I took the xbox off them until they'd wrote them and DH said I was being unfair and he'd told them they didnt need to bother . I was so angry with him. I insisted that they write thank you notes whether they wanted to or not and they started shouting stuff at me and DH just said "calm down" to them and I heard him say to them "ill talk to her" in a patronising way about me.

Anyway I was supposed to be taking all the kids to the cinema tonight so he could get some work done but I refused to take his kids until they'd wrote the thankyou notes. DH said I was being ridiculous and they wasnt going to write them so I took my own kids to the cinema only expecting the notes to be written for when I got back and they'd STILL not done them .

Anyway we'd arranged to have a take-away as a treat tonight and I have them until 9pm to get the notes done or no take-away, they didnt do them so I didnt get them a take-away and DH took them out himself and bought them one to completely undermine me.

So we've had a massive row straight after christmas when it had all gone so well up to now

My kids always write thankyou letters to people they have not seen face to face.

Having said that I would leave it- you cannot win in this situation- if your stepkids have been badly brought up it should not reflect badly on you.

Chardonnay...why do you think i may be having twins??

well, u keep saying what u will do with your children - and I assumed from your name that u are preggers??? So i thought, oh she must know she's gonna have more than one kid. Sorry, have i got wrong end of stick again???

I think it probably comes down to the OP's whole relationship with her skids. Does her DH expect her to deal with them as her own children over daily stuff? Is she expected to help with discipline or is all that left to DH?

If she is expected to be in loco parentis when the skids are with her, then it is not entirely unreasonable to expect them to be treated as her own children, which may include writing thank you letters. If dealing with the skids is entirely her DH's responsibility, then she should respect his wishes wrt the letters.

Holding them to ransom over cinema and take away was taking the whole issue far too far though.

we have no tradition of writing thank you letter apart from one year when I got a stationery set for Christmas and was desparate to use it. I only gpt presents form people I saw at Xmas (and thereofre said thank you at the time) or grandparents who I rang to say thank you.

I have grown up to be quite a nice person and reasonably thoughful and even verging on literate.

if anyone had insisted I had to earn a trip to the cinema by writing them when I was 11 I think I would have taken great glee in not doing it even if I wanted to go.

I might have been persuaded by an explanation of how lovely the recipient feels to get something and its a nice tradition to start. (maybe)

Lol - just had a very funny conversation with dsd about this thread. She thought I was going to MAKE her sit down and write thank you letters right now. When she eventually understood she said she'd tell me to "** off".

I'd stay well out of this. If their parents don't think they should send thank you letters then it certainly isn't down to you to insist that they do. And you need to sort this out with your dh away from the children, not start involving them in your argument.

When you're a step-parent you have to accept that you aren't always going to agree with how the child is being brought up. If you don't then you're heading for conflict and upset.

Chardonnay... if i am preggers, you know more than i do!!

Sorry..i probably didn't word my post very well! What i was trying to say was that my children (ds 4 and dd almost 2) will most definitely be assisting me in writing their thank you letters. And that they will continue to show manners as they get older. My ds is very hot on his 'pleases and thank you's' and dd is trying..she mutters 'coo' when you give her something!

There are two separate issues of upbringing here.

1. Whether or not to write thank you letters

1. Whether or not a stepmother should take unilateral decisions about her stepchildren's upbringing.

I personally think that it is a good idea to bring one's children up to write thank you letters, just as it is a good idea to write them oneself.

However, it is never the place of a stepmother to take unilateral decisions about her stepchildren's upbringing, unless (a) there is an issue of safety/danger (b) stepchildren's behaviour is causing distress to her own children

The OP should not have got involved. YABU.

Anna, I quite agree. I reiterate my point that I truly think the OP meant for the best, step-parent politics are a minefield, and I only know about it from my perspective as a child.

Hopefully this can be resolved so that future Christmases are a bit less stressful for all.