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Original poster

Just wondered what your opinions were on this. How to manage DP's expectations.

534 replies

MinesADecaff · 07/06/2013 10:53

DP and I are expecting our first baby. He has a DD who's 5 and who lives with us about 60% of the time.

Three days a week it's his responsibility to arrange childcare for her after school. At the moment a childminder picks her up and then DP collects her on his way back from work. I work FT too.

But now he's started talking about how, when I'm on maternity leave, I can start picking up DSD from school. But I really don't want to. Especially not in the first few months when I'm still getting to grips with being a new mum and feeling knackered.

I don't have any family or friends where we live - everyone is at least an hour away. So I'd be on my own with new babe plus DSD until DP got home.

I'm not completely averse to the idea once I've got a routine established with the new baby and I've found my feet a bit. But I've got a feeling that DP is going to be expecting me to be doing the school run the first Monday after he goes back from paternity leave.

AIBU to say that for the first six months or so I just want to be able to bond with my baby and find my feet as a mum without having to provide childcare for his DD too?

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NotaDisneyMum · 10/06/2013 17:57

she has said that she wants to go and read a book instead of picking her dsd up

Do you know - I've said that about my own DD, how awful!

I remember having a text conversation with my then DH promising him all sorts of things if he'd pick DD up on his way home - I was sunbathing in the garden and really didn't want to move.

Need I say more?

brdgrl · 10/06/2013 17:59

Decaff, I was a bit flippant there, but seriously - you are not asking for too much, and please please don't start doubting your own instincts and your own limits. That will do more to harm your relationship than anything else.

motherinferior · 10/06/2013 18:00

Sometimes it is only the prospect of a few hours off with a book that makes the company of my children bearable Grin

And I can say that, of course, because they're my birth children. Were they my step-children I'd be shouted off MN.

BalloonSlayer · 10/06/2013 18:01

I haven't read all the thread and I am not a step-mum, but my sister is, She is widowed with 2 DCs of her own, and has no family close to her.

She adores her step children yet has been known to foam at the mouth at being the one who has to do pick up because her DP is late home from work.

She points out "They have TWO parents, and local grandparents, my DCs only have ONE parent and no one else, why do both their parents get to not have to pick them up and do as they please while I have to race there and do it?" Confused

TheDoctrineOfAllan · 10/06/2013 18:02

Yy NADM - sometimes me and DH take a day off together and go out for the day, leaving our biological children in the childcare we'd have to pay for anyway.

Crazy, ain't it?

Jemma1111 · 10/06/2013 18:02

Ok , turn it around

If your partner who is your child's stepfather decides he doesn't want to pick up your child from school when you can't do it (even though he lives with you) what would you say ?

"ok darling you do your own thing "
Like hell you would .

AThingInYourLife · 10/06/2013 18:04

"Because , if the Op is avoiding even school pick ups , and she has said that she wants to go and read a book instead of picking her dsd up , well do I need to say more ?"

Um yeah, you do need to say more.

Why the fuck shouldn't she go and read a book on her day off from work?

Why should she spend the afternoon looking after a child for whom there are childcare arrangements already in place?

Why?

Sometimes I want to read a book instead of doing the school run.

If there was paid childcare in place, you better believe I'd be reading my little head off rather than standing outside the school gate.

And the differences in my case
1 it's my actual child
2 I am not pregnant
3 the school is a 2 minute walk from my house, not a bus ride away

Doing the school run is work.

It is work that somebody else is being paid to do.

Why should that work be given to the OP just because she takes a day off?

Why should it be given to her on a permanent basis just because she has a baby?

This is like those grim SAHM threads with all these bossy women declaring what work other women should be doing for their husbands.

Owllady · 10/06/2013 18:08

The child is settled with a childminder going about her normal business, she will have a new person to contend with which is a half sibling. I think that's enough change for a 5 yr old tbh without complicating matters

motherinferior · 10/06/2013 18:09

Jemma, your alternative universe seems to be one where the OP's DH would usually be doing this, and he can't and the OP is refusing to do it for him. This could in fact be a completely valid thing to do...but in reality it's not the case. Three days a week the little girl goes to a childminder and then comes home. The OP suggests this continues while she gets (literally) to grips with her new baby (I do realise that in your alternative universe she's already had a baby...)

Jemma1111 · 10/06/2013 18:09

You all know its not just about having a day reading a book to yourself ! Ffs of course that's ok if :

The op hadn't originally posted about not wanting to do school pick ups because of wanting to be with her new baby , therefore excluding her dsd

AThingInYourLife · 10/06/2013 18:11

"No, jemma, you really don't need to say anymore. In fact, please don't."

:o

Doh!

Scratch my last answer. This is what I really think.

I love how a childminder is supposed to get a paid afternoon off so a busy pregnant woman can spend a rare day off on the bus and doing childcare.

We should stop teaching girls to read.

It's giving women some terrible notions that they should have any access to leisure time.

:o

TheDoctrineOfAllan · 10/06/2013 18:11

Jemma, the child is being picked up by the childminder. Given her age, she has been picked up by the childminder three times a week since September and possibly the previous September. DSD isn't sitting in the playground or something.

So yes, I absolutely would say "ok darling, enjoy your book".

Jemma1111 · 10/06/2013 18:11

Eermm , I've never said the op already has a baby so please don't make things up .

I have said that if she took on a man with a child she takes on his child .

Owllady · 10/06/2013 18:11

doing something does not equate to one thing
life is far more complex than that

some of you are making me feel old and I am only 35

motherinferior · 10/06/2013 18:12

No, she doesn't want to do school pickups for the first month or so of her new baby. So what? You seem to think this is equivalent to locking her step-daughter in the cellar.

parttimer79 · 10/06/2013 18:14

owllady you are in fact as wise as your username suggests!
jemma I think you need to look at these very calm, child-centred responses from owllady and see why people are taking issue with your rather broken record approach to the poor OP.

TheDoctrineOfAllan · 10/06/2013 18:18

Jemma, if OP had been picking up DSD all along and wanted to stop for six months when she had the baby, that might be different.

But nothing changes for DSD if the childminder continues to pick up.

Jemma1111 · 10/06/2013 18:24

Well just because dsd is only 5 she will be aware that her SM will be at home with her sibling when she is taken to the cm's house .

She is bound to wonder why she can't be at home too.

Owllady · 10/06/2013 18:31

Jemma, what do you base this on?

AThingInYourLife · 10/06/2013 18:32

My 5 year old is always asking to go to after school childcare.

There is no reason at all why a child of that age should be upset by the idea by being in childcare for a few hours.

What if her SM was at home working?

She'd be less busy, but still unable to look after DSD.

It's not beyond the wit of a smart 5 year old to understand that just because an adult is at home doesn't mean they are available to look after you.

TheDoctrineOfAllan · 10/06/2013 18:32

Or she might wonder why a caring adult ie the childminder who's been in her life for a year or more isn't any longer.

Stepmooster · 10/06/2013 18:39

Hi Decaff I thought you would get flamed, and you are braver than me for saying you wanted to go read a book on this thread instead of picking up DSD. I've had to really think twice before posting something like that as the high and mighty brigade shoot you down in flames. God forbid as a step parent you may want to be selfish once in a while!

LittleBearPad · 10/06/2013 18:40

Jemma she will likely wonder the same thing about school. However on the basis she is happy at the childminders (and there is absolutely no suggestion she isn't) it really will not be the end of the world if she continues to go there for three days a week, or whatever the OP and her DH agree in the coming months (and hopefully post-birth when OP has caught her breath). Life isn't as black and white as you would suggest.

Plus newborn babies are very boring and really crap at playing with five year olds. I think my niece was sorely disappointed by the efforts DD made at the games to begin with.

theredhen · 10/06/2013 18:51

I used to work from home and put my ds in childcare. He knew mum
Was busy and couldn't devote time to him. He went to child are and had fun with other kids and adults who could concentrate on him. Far better than being stuck at home in front if a DVD because his mum didn't have time for him!

wannaBe · 10/06/2013 18:57

This isn?t about the op wanting to have a day off to sit in a café. In fact the café wasn?t even mentioned until about 200 posts in. In fact for me this isn?t even just about the op ? it?s about the prevailing attitude by what seems to be the majority of stepparents on here that when you marry a man who has children those children somehow remain detached from your family ? they are his children and his alone, and he and only he should take responsibility for them. This thread has even degenerated to the extent that it has been suggested that now that the op is going to have her own biological child it is perhaps no longer appropriate that the husband?s child (you know, the one who is already biologically his) spend as much time with them and that the biological mother now be required to take over more.

Now the biological mother?s input into this child?s life is IMO irrelevant on this thread. There are plenty of biological parents out there who let their children down on a regular basis, but that?s a different discussion. But can you imagine if this was a man suggesting that the op?s biological dc spend less time with them because they were going to have a child between them? There would be outcry! (and obviously it?s not the op that has suggested this, but plenty of others have, and have agreed).

Yes, I can imagine that the op?s dh is scared too. Scared that his partner, who is already fairly apathetic wrt his biological child, will be less so once she has a biological child of her own. It?s a natural fear to have.

But I didn?t imagine it would be long before someone wheeled out the ?he is controlling? line.

I think this thread highlights something I had long thought ? that women are far less accepting of stepchildren than men are, predominantly because it?s not the norm for stepchildren to spend the majority of their time with their father, therefore most women who marry a man with kids only have to have them part time, whereas a man who marries a woman with kids is more likely to have them on a more permanent basis iyswim and is therefore required to be more accepting. And as such, women are far more accepting of the fact that women are less accepting of their stepchildren. If this was the other way around and it was the op?s biological child the responses would be vastly different.