AIBU to think that equal often ends up being unfair on resident DC not DSC?

[DuggyOnDown]

Another thread got me thinking...

We often see it trotted out on here that everything should be equal between DSC and resident DC.

However, I often find that that is actually unfair on resident DC, something which I think a lot of posters never think (or care) about.

My example on the other thread and the main one for posting is things like Christmas presents.

So according to lots of people here, DSC and DC should get exactly the same (in terms of cost obviously presents aren't always going to be identical) and it doesn't matter what my DSC then go and get at their mums house.

But why doesn't it matter? Especially as children get older, resident DC will be aware that their siblings also then go and get things at mum's house too so why is it totally unfair to expect DSC to understand that resident DC may get a little more at our house because they also get things from their Mum but it's expected of resident children not to care or be upset about it?

For example, my DSC got loads last year for Christmas from their Mum and her parents. Games consoles etc... And couldn't wait to come and tell us all about it, including their half sibling. It seems that our DC is just supposed to accept this and not be upset but that my DSC would be scarred for life if our DC got more spent on them at our house than they did.

Why is one unfair and the other not?

I always feel on this subject that people tie themselves in so many knots trying to be equal that they actually end up being unfair on the resident children.

I'm sure someone will come along and tell me it's fine because 'at least my child's parents are together' but I don't agree that children should have to be grateful for that. It's not how they think.

DH wants to treat both children equally, which I can understand but I don’t know what to do with mine

I honestly think the only fair way to do wills is to leave yours to your DC. That way all children have 2 parents to inherit from, not one having 2 and the other 3 (potentially 4 if the other parent is in a relationship too).

I agree about days out too. I really don't get why people say it doesn't matter what DSC do with their Mum.

It does matter. If it matters to DSC what their half sibling does or gets, then why would it not matter the other way around?

Equality and equity are different things.
I treat my SCs and own DCs equitably.
SCs and my DS get for example £250 spent on them at Christmas/birthdays because they all go to their other parent’s house and get more presents from that parent and their extended family.

My DD is solely mine (dad is no contact) so I always spend far more on her so all kids are treated fairly. I also put more into savings for my DD as my DS’s dad contributes to his and I’m the only person saving for my DD.

My/our wills will also reflect the fact that 3 of the children have other parents to inherit from.

@SpongebobNoPants

Equality and equity are different things. I treat my SCs and own DCs equitably. SCs and my DS get for example £250 spent on them at Christmas/birthdays because they all go to their other parent’s house and get more presents from that parent and their extended family.

My DD is solely mine (dad is no contact) so I always spend far more on her so all kids are treated fairly. I also put more into savings for my DD as my DS’s dad contributes to his and I’m the only person saving for my DD.

My/our wills will also reflect the fact that 3 of the children have other parents to inherit from.

I agree. Your set up does sound fair even though is not exactly 'equal' in your home (not taking into account their other parents) which some posters would say was wrong on here. I just don't understand how it could possibly be wrong.

We do things equal in our house as in same Christmas present amounts and same will amounts etc.

I do firmly believe that in our home everyone should be treated equally.

I don’t feel the need to balance out any of the bad bits the children experienced with regard to their other parent (in DS1’s case his mummy is dead and in the case of my two girls their father was flaky an utterly unreliable when they were kids) so we decided not to do it with the good bits either because you also can’t guarantee things.

Instead they were all treated the same when it comes to big holidays and big days out (we didn’t stay locked in the house when the girls were at their dad’s but we didn’t do big family days to special places without them) and we spend the same on them at birthdays and Christmas. We had the same rules and routine, there was no disneying at any point, and for us that worked well.

I don’t think there’s one right or wrong answer though. Every family is different

I’m a step-child and my dad and step-mother spent the same on me for Christmas and birthdays as they did my brother (the child they have together). Because my mum also bought me gifts I got more for every occasion. However my brother got to live with our dad full-time, so as a child I always considered him to have come out ahead (it’s not how I feel as an adult though).

My dad and step-mother did what they considered to be fair with their children and didn’t concern themselves with what my mum’s side of the family did. When you take into account extended family and friends, things will never be completely equal anyway.

On the whole, I think what matters most is treating all children fairly, which won’t necessarily mean exactly the same. For example, I have two children and when my oldest is in school, we may do something fun with our youngest, simply because an opportunity arises and it doesn’t make sense to avoid doing something fun because one child isn’t available. I think the same logic should be applied with step-children, which means that as a child, my dad and step-mother did fun things with my brother when I wasn’t there. The problem would be if they arranged things for times when I couldn’t be present to specifically exclude me.

Of course it’s absolutely fine to spend quality time with one child in any family situation.

Because even though kids appear to care more about the materialistic side of it, and therefore the more the merrer, deep inside, what makes them truly happy deep inside is to feel loved, cared for and that they have a clear place in the family unit.

10 years down the line, their memories will be of warm, fun, festive Christmas with the people they love and live them, not the amount of presents they received.

10 years down the line, their memories will be of warm, fun, festive Christmas with the people they love and live them, not the amount of presents they received

So the same obviously applies to DSC then and it doesn't matter if resident DC get a bit more at Christmas say, so long as they have memories of fun, warm, festive Christmases?

I’m a step-child and my dad and step-mother spent the same on me for Christmas and birthdays as they did my brother (the child they have together). Because my mum also bought me gifts I got more for every occasion. However my brother got to live with our dad full-time, so as a child I always considered him to have come out ahead (it’s not how I feel as an adult though)

I think the fact that you mentioned seeing it differently as an adult is sort of what I mean tbh.

We can all see how you as a child would think your brother was 'ahead' because he lived with your Dad. But I could also see how your brother as a child, may not have agreed. Children don't see things the same way adults do which is why I don't always agree with the 'well your child's parents are together' arguments, because a child won't see it like that.

It just seems to me that posters never really think about resident children will view things, they are only ever concerned about the way a step child does. So in being 'fair' (in child terms), they are actually being unfair on another.

DH and his ex don't split presents, so if DSC wants a games console and a tablet for example, they'll usually end up with both GC from Mum and tablet from Dad for example, it's not like DH pays for half and their mum pays for half.

It would be seen as unfair if our DC got both a games console and a tablet from us when DSC only got the tablet despite the fact they had gotten that at their mums, if that makes sense?

I understand the Christmas present example is literal and materialistic (and it's not actually what happened at Christmas in our house!) But it's an example of what people seem expect on here and I often think no one actually thinks about it from the resident DCs POV when they are talking about 'everything equal all the time'.

10 years down the line, their memories will be of warm, fun, festive Christmas with the people they love and live them, not the amount of presents they received

So the same obviously applies to DSC then and it doesn't matter if resident DC get a bit more at Christmas say, so long as they have memories of fun, warm, festive Christmases?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘a bit’. I think any child would notice that their parent chose to spend noticeably more on one child than another. I can’t imagine looking at either of my children and deciding to spend less on them because of what I assume someone else may spend on them. I buy what I want them to have, regardless of what anyone else may buy.

I think the materialistic side of it fades on both side compared to the emotional bit.

My half sister and I didn't always get along great, but we considered each other sisters. If a relative (usually distant), gave her something she always shared with me. She never cared to know what I got at my mum's. Similar, I never told her all the presents I got there and never brought them.

@DuggyOnDown

10 years down the line, their memories will be of warm, fun, festive Christmas with the people they love and live them, not the amount of presents they received

So the same obviously applies to DSC then and it doesn't matter if resident DC get a bit more at Christmas say, so long as they have memories of fun, warm, festive Christmases?

Did you deliberately ignore the first part of that post just to make it fit your clear agenda?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by ‘a bit’. I think any child would notice that their parent chose to spend noticeably more on one child than another. I can’t imagine looking at either of my children and deciding to spend less on them because of what I assume someone else may spend on them. I buy what I want them to have, regardless of what anyone else may buy

It's not really the parent spending more though is it? I'm accounting for the fact that my DC gets presents which are bought by BOTH their pMum and Dad as does DSC, the difference is that DSC Mum and Dad buy them separately, me and DH buy them together because our money is joint.

The point is for the parent to give in relatively equal measure to all of his or her children. The children then know that their mom or dad did the same for all of " their " children. Surely, we all try to teach our children that what happens in other homes does not concern them. As a parent , you are responsible for what happens in your household.

As long as the children know that you were fair in " your home" it should not be a point of discussion what happens in a household that is not their home.

What happens if the step kids have more affluent grandparents who provide a large number of costly gifts? Do you expect that you or your parents should do the same in order to prevent your children from becoming upset?

Those kinds of experiences are the teachable moments that we can use to explain real world functioning and differences to our children.

Did you deliberately ignore the first part of that post just to make it fit your clear agenda?

No, I'm asking why this logic of complete equality only seems to apply to one child but not the other.

I do understand the point about parents not being together and there being deeper issues I'm not suggesting that there aren't any emotional issues in respect of DSC and that you don't have to treat carefully due to that, I'm suggesting that whilst that may be the case, in trying to 'fix' that, the suggestions often end up being unfair on another child which no one ever seems to care or think about.

OP will you balance out negatives that your DSC get or is it just the nice things that bother you?

Say for example your DSC don’t inherit from their mother because of care fees or circumstances?

Or if they can’t go on nice days out with their Mum if she becomes sick or disabled or skint will you stop going on ones with your DC when they are not around?

The answer, I bet, is no.

It’s only ever the good bits people want to balance out. Obviously your DH wants his children to remember nice family Christmases and the likes. Not coming to your place and feeling like the second class kid while their half/step siblings open a massive mountain of presents. There’s a balance.

@ZombeaArthur

I’m a step-child and my dad and step-mother spent the same on me for Christmas and birthdays as they did my brother (the child they have together). Because my mum also bought me gifts I got more for every occasion. However my brother got to live with our dad full-time, so as a child I always considered him to have come out ahead (it’s not how I feel as an adult though).

My dad and step-mother did what they considered to be fair with their children and didn’t concern themselves with what my mum’s side of the family did. When you take into account extended family and friends, things will never be completely equal anyway.

On the whole, I think what matters most is treating all children fairly, which won’t necessarily mean exactly the same. For example, I have two children and when my oldest is in school, we may do something fun with our youngest, simply because an opportunity arises and it doesn’t make sense to avoid doing something fun because one child isn’t available. I think the same logic should be applied with step-children, which means that as a child, my dad and step-mother did fun things with my brother when I wasn’t there. The problem would be if they arranged things for times when I couldn’t be present to specifically exclude me.

Of course it’s absolutely fine to spend quality time with one child in any family situation.

Funnily as an adult I still think my younger brother did/does better.

I think spending the same on Christmas/ birthday presents isn’t the issue per say. If you want to get you step children a pencil case while buying the resident children consoles then there is an issue but it shouldn’t need to be exactly the same.

Those things could happen to anyone. I could end up the mother who can't leave my DC any inheritance, or sick and disabled unable to take them places so they can only go with DH when he's free etc... in those scenarios, either child would still have a Dad to potentially inherit from or to take them places.

And for what it's worth, although not the point, I imagine we would do a lot more with DSC if their mother ended up bed bound and unable to take them anywhere.

The point is people make so much effort to balance out what they deem as the 'bad bits' that they don't give a toss how it affects the other child (ren) in the scenario.

Bedrooms is another example. I've often seen it on here, RDC expected to stay in the boxroom because DSC uses the double EOW. That is unfair. It may also be unfair that DSC only sees their parent EOW but it doesn't make it okay for the RDC either.

And honestly this isn't about my situation or my DH. It's not a problem in my relationship it's just something I've picked up on on here.

It's a really hard one I think.

I think it's easy to forget that the resident child "gets" less, and I don't agree that "well they live with dad so it's okay" as is often said on mumsnet.

However, I also never specifically bought dss less because his mum was also buying for him, because we didn't know what she'd buy or what she'd spend so it felt irrelevant really. On the other hand, dss is a teenager and ds is 4 so head no idea of cost and didn't care what his big brother was opening because he had also got what he wanted. We never had a problem

Or even just that the logic seems so hypocritical. It's so cruel for RDC to get a bit extra at Christmas and they can't possibly understand but it's not cruel for RDC to listen to DSC telling them all about the other stuff they got from their Mum and it doesn't matter. Both are children who don't always think as logically as adults do.

Oops posted too soon.

I think things like holidays, activities, wills are all best decided on the individual situation you can't make a blanket statement about them I don't think.

We've taken dss on holiday, and we've gone without him and nobody's feelings got hurt.

Anecdotally we don't have wills yet because we can't decide what's fairest.