do bio kids get left out?

[coffeeaddict11]

To step mums who have had no children and then had children with their dp..have your children together been left out? Me and my partner are deciding on trying for a child of our own. He has two children in which we have overnight one night a week. Looking at some comments on here it seems like a lot of dads concentrate on their part time kids out of guilt and their dc with their partner get left out?

China you are spot on! My dads partner controls every aspect of his life, but its only because he let's her. I suspect he's just really lazy and just goes along with what she says.

Its maddening but I can't blame her, just him. He is afterall a grown man!

I have DSS 18, DS1 13 and DS2 9 and would really hope that neither DSS nor DS1 and 2 have felt left out.

When DSS stays he is treated equally with the boys (although less so now that he is more of an adult so we treat him more as such).

We have had holidays with DSS and holidays without him. He has always been invited to come but if he could not come/did not want to come we would not rearrange to suit him. He comes camping with us some times but we also go without him.

DH and I talked about this when we had DS1 because I wanted to be clear that rules we had for DS1 had to apply for DSS for example tidying up, trying vegetables - we both agreed that whilst with us DSS had to be subject to the same household rules precisely because I did not want the boys to feel left out. This is DSS's home too and therefore the chores and rules that come with that apply as well as the other fun things.

We have always tried to make sure we do fun things as a whole family i.e. when DSS is here, but also when it is just the four of us. DH has one on one time with DSS some weekends just as we both have with DS1 and DS2.

We do a lot of "nice" stuff on non-access weekends for several reasons.
E.g. 1. It is unwise to book/pay in advance to do anything with the DSC because their mother deliberately does not let us know in advance when/if they will not be coming (and they are seemingly unwilling/incapable of knowing about their/her arrangements in advance either)
E.g.2. A lot of the "nice" weekend activities we would be doing, e.g. Weekends away, don't neatly fit into the strict hours of the access rota from which their mother will not budge
E.g.3. Their mother would prefer them to miss out on 'nice' activities with their father so makes every effort to scupper any plans she becomes aware of

Sounds reasonable to me, needaholidaynow

we both agreed that whilst with us DSS had to be subject to the same household rules precisely because I did not want the boys to feel left out. This is DSS's home too and therefore the chores and rules that come with that apply as well as the other fun things.

That's a great point.

I found it difficult not to be resentful of DSSs (2). Whenever they were with us, DH just ignored DD. wouldn't have been so bad except that he never spent much time with her anyway. It annoyed me the way he'd leave work early to pick them up and give up footie on those weekends, but when it was just the three if us he never helped out with the school run and always played footie. Grrrr. Now we're split, don't see or hear of them at all, except from DD, at least I know DH now being a Disney dad to DD too, and I no longer feel like a glorified housekeeper!

Excellent posts China.

Enjoy your break Needaholiday!!!

I believe it is about striking a balance too... The example of children not even being able to have an ice cream without others getting jealous is very sad.
What I was trying to say is that if we have trips out to places that both children would enjoy, we usually save it for when they're both here. DD gets to do things when dsd is not here, we don't keep her at home, doing nothing until her sister is there...
If friends with simillar aged children (From toddler groups etc) invite us to do stuff, we do it.

So instead, your own DC misses out on one to one time with their own parents because their halfDSis has a mother who doesn't share your family values.
^This is putting words into my mouth, our DD spends plenty of time with her parents by herself doing fun and age appropriate activities. When it comes to family holidays we take both girls because the essence of a family holiday is that the family is present. Why would we want to go on holiday without her? Especially as she wouldn't have a holiday unless she came with us....

When talking about kids/ skids I just think unless it is necessary to point out that they're step kids, there's no need.
I have no problems with it being used on here to put a conversation in context and have never heard it used in RL.