DSS is now 18 - surely things must change ......... ?

[Petal02]

So DSS has now celebrated (he didn?t have a party, he just wanted to go out for a meal with DH and I) his 18th birthday and starts back at 6th Form College (for his second year of A levels) next week. I?d like some honest opinions, especially from those of you who know the background details.

We?ve been operating flexible-ish visiting for the last few months, with some minor resistance from DSS, and on the whole it?s worked OK. DSS now works on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, just round the corner from where he lives with his mother. DH had (unsuccessfully) tried to ferry DSS to/from his workplace during his alternate weekend stays with us, but given the distances involved, it just meant DH spending Saturday and Sunday on the road, whereas if DSS had been based at his mothers, it?s literally a two minute walk. So DH has had to concede that it?s impractical to keep DSS with us beyond Saturday lunch time on access weekends.

DSS is very keen that he still has the same amount of time with his Dad, even though DH works Monday-Friday and DSS works Saturday and Sunday. Even DH had reluctantly agreed this is impractical. However as access weekends used to run from Thursday 4pm til Sunday 6pm, and now they?re shorter because they finish at lunch time on Saturday (before DSS starts his afternoon shift),DSS wants to shift his visits so that they run from Tuesday 4pm til Saturday lunch time. I understand that he?s losing two weekend days with his Dad, as he?s now working, and wants two extra week nights to compensate.

But having an ?access weekend? that starts on Tuesday (!!!!!!!) even though it finishes on Saturday lunch time, seems ridiculous for an adult. And that?s what DSS is now, he?s an adult. It surely can?t be realistic to maintain the same amount of contact hours that he had when he was 11, not when he?s working at weekends, and it?s logistically very difficult for DH to bring him over to us on a Tuesday night, because that means he needs lifts to/from college on Weds/Thurs/Fri which impacts greatly on DH?s work. Not to mention that DH and I often do stuff on weeknights. Should we stop these things because DH has an adult son?

In my opinion, things surely have to change ???. I don?t see why (although tell me if I?m wrong) DSS can?t be OK with Thursday 4pm-Sat lunch time? Yes, it?s less time with his Dad but he?s 18 now. Of course they still want to see each other, but I?m amazed that an 18 yr old wants so much rostered time with a parent. I?m also worried that DSS may cease his weekend job if he can?t maintain the same amount of contact with DH.

DH hasn't given DSS an answer on his Tuesday-Saturday request yet. I want to talk to DH about it tonight or tomorrow. But before I do, I?d like some opinions from fellow SMs. I don?t want to spend four consecutive weekend nights hanging out with DH?s adult son, just so that ? x? amount of weekly hours can be achieved. I think it?s all insane but I suspect I?m too close to the situation to see it clearly.

I agree with Bonsoir.
Your dss has two parents and two homes. I cannot imagine telling dd I expect her to limit the time she spends with me after her 18th Birthday.

You need to accept that dss is in your life forever. I am 33 and know I am welcome to stay at my parent's house whenever I wish.

The manner in which you talk about your husband's son speaks volumes (poor lamb )

Why shouldn't your dss be in your house (his home!) when his dad isn't there? I'm sure he spends time alone in his other home.

Littlefrieda you're calling the "child" a burden

Emotional support is not time dependent. A parent could spend 24/7 with a child and offer no emotional support at all, or alternatively a couple of days a week and significant emotional support.

In this particular case, the impracticable thing is going to be directly responsible for the boy getting to spend less time with his dad. And no, I don't think that the OP's dh should give up his job or endanger his family's financial stability - but wanting to spend time with your dad is hardly a trivial whim either. I get that it is a difficult balancing act, but it seems as if the boy is being demonised just,for wanting to spend time with his dad.

Lolwhut if you catch up you will see that the OP's DH has made a decision, and thankfully a realistic one that recognises the impracticalities of the suggestion.

Echoing what someone said earlier - I agree with Bonsoir, and I never agree with Bonsoir. Someone else said 'he's either an adult or he's not' - well, that's just not how it is. Moving from childhood to adulthood is a transitional phase, which lasts for years. You don't just wake up on your 18th birthday and have everything sorted. Plus many young people are living at home now through university and into their 20s, and have a more independent life than before but still enjoy quite a few of the benefits of childhood - food shopping, bills taken care of etc. It's hardly unusual.

Surely there must be some other way around the transport issue, which I can see is a major stumbling block. Are there no other students living near the dad's house who also travel to college, who DSS could get a lift with (paying towards petrol of course), is it not cyclable, are there absolutely no buses?

SDT (( bangs head on desk)) its not about wanting to spend time with his dad, it's about adhering to the mathematical calculation of the access agreement. He actually wants to be there when his father is not, just to adhere to the strict rigid hours

Is public transport absolutely out of the question? Or is it DSS doesn't want to spend an hour on the bus

"He actually wants to be there when his father is not, just to adhere to the strict rigid hours"

Why shouldn't he spend time alone there? It is his home!

My ds sometimes wants to see his friends who live 30 mins drive away. Because we live in an outlying area with no public transport I end up having to do lots of the pick ups as most people in town get completely lost out here and are used to their kids using public transport. Sometimes I simply can't do the running around for ds as I have other plans, sometimes I shock horror don't want to do any running around as I want to watch crap telly and drink wine. Ds fits round me because I'm the adult doing him the favour. Whilst I do try and accommodate his wishes, I juggle it to suit me not the other way round.

My step children are also treated like petals dss and that their wants are seen as priority over everyone else's.

Kids (even big ones) need to learn and need to feel that their parents are to be respected, not their personal slaves!

My son's here sometimes when I'm not, I didn't realise that was a bit odd.

I'd better have a word with him.

Balder, but do you go hours out of your way to ensure your son is at home alone?

Morecrack- have you read the thread? It would take a significant chunk out of his fathers working day to get him to and fro to the house which may be empty. I can just imagine a thread about an NRP who spends hours transporting his child to and fro from an empty house, possibly losing money (and so less maintenance for Pwc)

Pffff at extra curricular activities making a difference to Uni applications. My Dbro has Aspergers, behaves VERY much like the OP's DSS, needs and craves routine, and got into a RG Uni having never so much as popped to the local shops after school.

Some teenagers are just slower to grow up. While I was working, and had my own home and a baby to look after at 16yo, my DD will not be ready to be 'grown up' at 16, or 18 even. My mildest estimate is when she has finished her education at 18. They are still children until they have finished Y13 IMO.

OP - would your DSS turning up on an ad hoc basis, for example, say, Monday night, Tuesday night, Thursday night and Sunday night, with no advance notice suit you better than knowing when he will be there because there is a routine there?

Did you think that your DSS's 18th birthday would make him magically want to spend less time with his dad?

What shines out to me from your posts is that you have been pinning everything that you WANT your life to be to this 'magical' date of your DSS's 18th birthday, it seems like you want to live your life with your DH in a particular way, and your DSS existing means that until now, that has had to be put aside. It seems like you feel that you have been patient enough waiting for your life to be the way that you want it to be - which seems to be child free - ignoring the crucial fact that your life will NEVER be 'child free'. Whether your DSS is under or over 18yo, he will ALWAYS be your DH's child.

If you wanted a child free, uncomplicated life, why have a relationship with someone who already had a child?

Because a life doesn't become child free the moment your DSS turns 18, it just means that your DH has an older child needing his affection and time, albeit in different ways to how he did as a younger child. Your DSS will ALWAYS be your DH's CHILD even when he is 50!

When my DSS1 hit mid teens we saw less of him because he wanted to be out with friends / not miss parties etc and his mum lived 3 hours drive away so on his weekends with us he could not see his friends whom he found far more interesting. We considered this quite normal (most of my friends kids saw less of their parents at that age - us parents become soooooooo boring).
I would have said that is the normal progression of things. teenagers need to break away from their parents to develop as fully functioning adults - this takes a few years.

The relationship has changed again now that he is at uni and visits us and spends hols with us (bringing girlfriend). We are more interesting now (or at least the beer cupboard is!!)

Petal - I think you have taken a bit of a bashing - the Step-parents forum is usually a place where we can let off steam without being judged and say things we would never say in RL.

From what I remember of previous posts Petal has worked hard to try and help her SS become independent without threatening his time with his Dad, but that this is proving very difficult. I agree that SS needs to learn that the world does not revolve around him, but that he needs to be flexible and considerate of other people and their needs and responsibilities. Surely this life skill is just as important as an A level.

Wow, this thread has moved on a lot.

I have been sort of hovering here - I can see both sides. On the one hand, I don't think it's entirely reasonable to expect things to change right now because he's just ticked over from 17 to 18. I think the end of sixth form would be a more appropriate moment to do away with formal, tallied-up-hours contact arrangements.

However, let's not forget that it's DSS who has essentially changed things, by taking a weekend job and now wanting to juggle contact arrangements around that. I presume that if that hadn't happened, normal weekend contact would have continued without all these extra problems of how to get him to college if he stays at his dad's etc. I agree that it's not fair for him to unduly suffer and not be able to do normal things like take a weekend job, just because his parents are separated. But at the same time, he's aware of the reality, of where his dad lives and where his job is, and I'm surprised that he didn't consider all these practicalities and how the job would impact on his contact time and whether his dad would be able to take him to college etc, at the time of taking the job.

I don't think it's reasonable for him to expect to be able to do as he wants and for everyone else to work around him. The fact that he has shown no interest in learning to drive, despite that potentially being the solution to a lot of these contact issues, doesn't look good for him.

Petal - seems like one solution could be to get him to take an intensive driving course and hope for a quick pass and get him a runaround. If that's done by Christmas, then I think it would be entirely reasonable to go with DSS's proposed contact plans until the end of sixth form. After that, a lot will depend on if/when/where he ends up going to uni.

I think that one important thing a parent needs to install in a young adult, is the need to think through decisions and take responsibility for their own actions. I agree with the above poster, in taking the weekend job, he should have thought about the practicalities. In life you can't just have your cake and eat it, he needs to learn to weigh up his decisions, looking at the positives and the negatives. If he is not taught to see this now, he likely never will.

And why on earth DO you and your DSS's dad live such a long way away from his mum's house and his school, in an area with no access by public transport.

If you hadn't chose to remove yourselves like this at an earlier point, then you wouldn't be having such an issue now. If you had moved somewhere that was accessible from his mum's house and his school by public transport, then he could jump on a bus and let himself in!

You and your DH have CREATED this situation by choosing to move somewhere that makes him reliant on lifts in order to get to his other home.

Why anyone would move somewhere like that when they have a child to consider is beyond me.

And why is this such an issue (it'll take X hours out of DH's work) after your DSS's 18th birthday if it wasn't before? Did your DH change job during the summer holidays? If not, then why is it suddenly a problem now your DSS is 18 when it wasn't 6 weeks ago when he was 17?

If he was coming Thurs-Sun before the weekend job, then surely your DH still had to pick him up from college on a Thursday, drop him off on a Friday, and pick him up on a Friday? What is the difference?

And as for you complaining that his mother refuses to do any of the pick ups/drop offs/meet halfway, unless it is the mother that has moved away from where you and your DH currently live, then it was YOUR choice as a couple to move there, and you would surely have factored in contact arrangements in your decision to move there. Why should the mother have to go out of her way to pick up/drop off/ meet halfway when it wasn't HER choice for you to move somewhere so goddamn daft?!

That is a good point, allnew.

And why on earth DO you and your DSS's dad live such a long way away from his mum's house and his school, in an area with no access by public transport.

If you hadn't chose to remove yourselves like this at an earlier point, then you wouldn't be having such an issue now. If you had moved somewhere that was accessible from his mum's house and his school by public transport, then he could jump on a bus and let himself in!

couthy - the assumptions in that comment are truly staggering.

Couthy, how do you know petals dp moved away from his son? We live in the back of beyond and it was his ex that moved away whilst still expecting do to do ALL running around.

Maybe petals dp moved to where the work was to support his son?

If he had stayed local and claimed benefits and not paid any maintenance , I can imagine the comments on here!

Why don't you get him to give up the job, recompense him for his lost earnings and leave the weekend arrangement as it is. And make him do a few hours homework instead of the paid work. It sounds the least worst option to me.

He is just about to apply to university and needs your support, Petal.

Couthy, two things: you clearly haven't read the thread properly. And most importantly, we used to live quite close to the ex, but the ex moved away to be nearer her new husbands job.

Couthymow speciality is making assumptions about NRPs, just ignore. She's accused my DH of all sorts in the past despite knowing nothing about him or me

Why don't you get him to give up the job, recompense him for his lost earnings and leave the weekend arrangement as it is

I'm so cr*p at parenting

If this is how I should be raising my DD, then she may as well go and live with her Dad full time now, because I'm obviously doing her no end of damage.

I cannot ever imagine a situation where I would even consider that approach as an option - is it really the way good parents would resolve it?

I think I got lost in this, is the bus a no if you drop him off at the bus stop so he can get into the nearest main town to the college? As in would he get the bus or is he refusing??