Enemy number 1 because I wouldn't collect sick SC

[Kikkkkk]

I'm just recovering from being really unwell with a horrid virus (not Covid). I'm exhausted and have spent much of this week in bed with headaches, chills, aching and sore and swollen throat. Today is the first day I've felt able to move about a bit better but still knackered. I also have a year old son and stay home part time with him, I work 2 days a week but have been off sick. My son goes to nursery on those two days and has been with my parents for some of the week too (including this week) so I could rest during the day and today finally sort some bits of housework too.

I got a call earlier this afternoon from my step sons mother asking if I would be able to collect him from school as they've called to say he's not feeling well and she's at work. My husband is at work too but can't always have his phone on him so she'd not been able to get hold of him yet.

I said no because I was unwell and she'd have to collect him herself or try DH again. She put the phone down and I assume went to get him herself.

I had a text a couple of hours later basically saying it was disappointing I wouldn't help, she's really stressed with work and can't easily take the time out of the day blah blah.

It's not the first time she's treated me (due to the fact I work part time I assume) like her childcare.

Was I really being unreasonable?! Like sort it out between yourselves ffs, I'm knackered, unwell and I have to go and sort my own son out shortly, I'm usually quite understanding but I feel that crap that frankly I really don't give a shit about her work.

"you are a family"

But don't go to parents evenings. Don't go to school performances. Don't attend birthday parties. Don't get involved with discipline. Don't have any input with anything health or medical relayed. Don't help with homework. Don't step on mums toes.

But you're a family and when mum says jump you ask how high and remember your place.

I would have done if I didn't feel completely like deaths door. It was a bit mean if you not to do her a favour. I would have just had a tv day when we got home if I was ill.

@cleocleo81

I would have done if I didn't feel completely like deaths door. It was a bit mean if you not to do her a favour. I would have just had a tv day when we got home if I was ill.

1) It sounds like OP feels she WAS at deaths door. 2) It might not be as simple as having a tv day, the kid could be vomiting or ill enough to need a log of TLC 3) It was a bit mean of the mum to be spectacularly rude when OP said she was unable to do it, thus marking her as totally undeserving of a favour. It is not mean to not give favours to people who are rude to you, it is just having healthy boundaries and self respect.

@cleocleo81

I would have done if I didn't feel completely like deaths door. It was a bit mean if you not to do her a favour. I would have just had a tv day when we got home if I was ill.

But the op arranged alternative childcare for her own son because she was too ill to look after him.

It didn't really sound like a 'death's door' situation - having a day off to have a rest and do some housework?

I'd have collected my SC if someone asked me to. The way I see it is if it was my own DC I'd have to drag myself out to do it, my SC are with me a lot and part of my life, it's not like it's just a random child.

@CornishGem1975

It didn't really sound like a 'death's door' situation - having a day off to have a rest and do some housework?

I'd have collected my SC if someone asked me to. The way I see it is if it was my own DC I'd have to drag myself out to do it, my SC are with me a lot and part of my life, it's not like it's just a random child.

She said she'd been in bed for a week. Minimising much?

For god's sake, you've even said it in your own post; "if it was my own child I'd have to drag myself out to do it". Why on earth do you think it follows that you should have to do it for any other that isn't just a random child, on the basis that they are with you a lot? Loads of people are with you a lot, but the only people that would make you need to drag yourself out of the house after a week in bed feeling like death for, are your own children.

I have NEVER seen somebody that ill and expected them to run errands and do people favours. I can only assume that posters on here are operating on the assumption that she has no more than a light cold, because the expectations that she should be operating as if this is a normal day for her are bizarre.

@CornishGem1975

It didn't really sound like a 'death's door' situation - having a day off to have a rest and do some housework?

I'd have collected my SC if someone asked me to. The way I see it is if it was my own DC I'd have to drag myself out to do it, my SC are with me a lot and part of my life, it's not like it's just a random child.

But it's not your DC, and it wasn't even their contact time. Her own DC was being looked after by someone else because she was ill.

I don't know about you but I'd find it much easier to throw a wash on when I was poorly than entertaining a child.

Nah if I'm I'll and I have arranged childcare for my own child so I can rest after, not a chance would I be acting as childcare for any other child be it niece, SC or princess libbet.

Women are not default childcare, if no options available it falls down to the parents who biologically created them and signed up to 21+ of doing so.

Some of these comments jesssuuussss

I agree that the DP should have primary responsibility, but there is no harm in doing a favour now and again. (I don't do school runs for my DSC but in a situation like this I would collect). It would mean they are 'owed' a few hours childcare on one of their days that might come in useful. If the mum refuses to do such favours back, that is a bigger issue, as flexibility should be mutual.

Its not just about family, thats why I gave the example of an acquaintance kindly picking up my son from nursery when I could not.

@jfhguseorjgijaerigjarfgj

I agree that the DP should have primary responsibility, but there is no harm in doing a favour now and again. (I don't do school runs for my DSC but in a situation like this I would collect). It would mean they are 'owed' a few hours childcare on one of their days that might come in useful. If the mum refuses to do such favours back, that is a bigger issue, as flexibility should be mutual.

Its not just about family, thats why I gave the example of an acquaintance kindly picking up my son from nursery when I could not.

Well actually the mum had primary responsibility with it being her time, didn't she?

I would 100% pick up my friends child if she needed me to. I wouldn't if I was ill. I might ring my other half and ask him to, perhaps if my friend was really struggling.

Who is it benefiting? The child is ill and you're ill. You might end up making one another more poorly. The child might require more care than you are able to give. And guess what!! An ill child usually wants a parent.

"Buttttt familllyyyy" yer yer have a look at the stately homes thread and see how much fucked up dynamics and damage operate under that little umbrella.

At the end of the day OP was asked a favour said no and set a boundary and mum had a wobble. With favours the tricks in the name you aren't entitled to it.

@jfhguseorjgijaerigjarfgj

I agree that the DP should have primary responsibility, but there is no harm in doing a favour now and again. (I don't do school runs for my DSC but in a situation like this I would collect). It would mean they are 'owed' a few hours childcare on one of their days that might come in useful. If the mum refuses to do such favours back, that is a bigger issue, as flexibility should be mutual.

Its not just about family, thats why I gave the example of an acquaintance kindly picking up my son from nursery when I could not.

There IS harm in doing favours for people who are rude and ungrateful.

And again, OP does not need childcare from the mother, nor would she get it for her child if she were to ask. OP and her partner are not one person, he is the one who might need childcare from the mum.

@jfhguseorjgijaerigjarfgj

The thing about the acquaintance thing is that it is very definitely framed as a favour and with an expectation that it will be reciprocated.

But, even within your own post (and writ large over so many other posts on here), there’s some level of assumption that this is an obligation and responsibility for the OP. She’s their SM. They are part of her family. And so on. And somehow her failing in that obligation (to both the children and their parents) is worse than the fact the parents aren’t bloody doing it.

But it’s not. They may not be ‘random’ children, but stepchildren are not a stepmother’s children. My nephews are not random children but I’m not their parent so I don’t have the responsibilities and obligations (or the decision making authority that comes with it) that they do. I can choose to do the nice bits with them and, if I agree to help with anything else, it’s a favour not an obligation.

It doesn't come down to have ought or not.

It is plainly a case of how the processus for doing favours operates in this set up. It should go both ways. Not forcibly in the sane way.

There are regular threads about RP expected to have the kids when they are due to be with their dad but the SM is due to give birth or gas done so and needs some peace and quiet.

Again, not a case if 'ought to' but of reasonable request for help.

I fee lucky that my ex and his partner as well as myself and oh always operated on the basis of flexibility and in this scenario, she would definitely have picked up my kids, just it was a given that I would keep the kids when she gave birth or gone to pick them up if she'd gone into labour quickly whilst they were there.

@vivainsomnia

It doesn't come down to have ought or not.

It is plainly a case of how the processus for doing favours operates in this set up. It should go both ways. Not forcibly in the sane way.

There are regular threads about RP expected to have the kids when they are due to be with their dad but the SM is due to give birth or gas done so and needs some peace and quiet.

Again, not a case if 'ought to' but of reasonable request for help.

I fee lucky that my ex and his partner as well as myself and oh always operated on the basis of flexibility and in this scenario, she would definitely have picked up my kids, just it was a given that I would keep the kids when she gave birth or gone to pick them up if she'd gone into labour quickly whilst they were there.

People must have a lot of very martyrish step parents into their lives if they genuinely would have dragged themselves out to do an unnecessary favour for someone who was rude to them whilst they're at home so ill the most they've managed to do is put a load of washing on. I don't know anyone that do that. Most people who are that ill stay at home and don't do any favours.

If you've given your own child to your parents because you aren't well enough to look after him, then of course you don't have any need to be picking up her sick child because she'd have to leave work early and that's inconvenient for her. She's basically saying, "I don't care if you're too ill to look after your own child, go and get mine, I've got work to do". The audacity.

It's not your child. You've made provisions for someone else to have yours because you are ill. You don't need to make provisions for a child that isn't when there are two actual parents who aren't collecting him. It's her problem and the father's problem.

@vivainsomnia

It doesn't come down to have ought or not.

It is plainly a case of how the processus for doing favours operates in this set up. It should go both ways. Not forcibly in the sane way.

There are regular threads about RP expected to have the kids when they are due to be with their dad but the SM is due to give birth or gas done so and needs some peace and quiet.

Again, not a case if 'ought to' but of reasonable request for help.

I fee lucky that my ex and his partner as well as myself and oh always operated on the basis of flexibility and in this scenario, she would definitely have picked up my kids, just it was a given that I would keep the kids when she gave birth or gone to pick them up if she'd gone into labour quickly whilst they were there.

It wasn't a reasonable request.

Even if op wasn’t at death’s door, and was fit as a fiddle merrily going about her day doing whatever she would normally do, she would still have no obligation to pick dsc up.
This was all a favour for the mum. It wasn’t at all for the dsc, so I don’t know why people keep dressing it up as a big honourable thing to do for the child. The child was picked up by mum, probably the person he wanted the most! The mum just didn’t want to leave work, but that’s not the OP’s problem.

@funinthesun19

Even if op wasn’t at death’s door, and was fit as a fiddle merrily going about her day doing whatever she would normally do, she would still have no obligation to pick dsc up. This was all a favour for the mum. It wasn’t at all for the dsc, so I don’t know why people keep dressing it up as a big honourable thing to do for the child. The child was picked up by mum, probably the person he wanted the most! The mum just didn’t want to leave work, but that’s not the OP’s problem.

Precisely.

It's unfathomable to me that people are still coming out with banal things like "oh it would have been nice to do her a favour", "why be mean" etc.

Do any of them do favours for people that regularly slam the phone down and give them tellings off for not doing it? If so, where is their backbone and self respect?

@vivainsomnia

Yes

I don't think its an "obligation" or "responsibility" in the same way as if it were your own children, which is why I'm not attacking the OP. I'm sure I would grumble about it, I'm not a martyr or an angel. However I would do it because:

1). I would be concerned about DSC who I consider to be a part of my alternative family (not the same as nuclear family).

2). As a favour to DP who also does things to help me out when I need. Both with my own DS (although I understand OP doesn't have this set up), but also in general.

3. Because this would mean the mum would owe DP a few hours on her day which could well come in useful - for me as well as DP, seeing as we live together.

If the OP does not have this set up of reciprocal flexibility and help - with her DP and between him and the mum - than this is a wider, bigger problem.

The OP made it obvious that she does not have this kind of nice, reciprocal favour doing set up in the OP.

She described a woman who had a go at her dog not having done what she wanted and who regularly views her as a kind of unpaid nanny: “It's not the first time she's treated me (due to the fact I work part time I assume) like her childcare.”

Part of the reason that I find all this ‘but you are a family’ stuff in relation to a stepfamily is that it doesn’t reflect what stepfamilies can possibly be like in the societies that the people posting this stuff live in.

Potentially, stepparenting is an alloparenting relationship - one in which no parents provide parental care. But there are enormous stumbling blocks to the success of this in highly individualistic, ‘neontocratic’ (an anthropological term that refers to societies where ‘the needs of the child’ are - rhetorically and strategically at least - supposedly paramount) societies.

Successful alloparenting relationships require many things that this cultural context just doesn’t not afford.

1. It requires a more collective orientation towards childrearing - and the loss of individual control and choice that comes with it. The whole ‘it takes a village’ cliche is premised on the other adults in the village being able to discipline and instruct children as they see fit. Parents don’t expect to make their own personal choices about how they raise their children; they do it in the way that suits the community at large. They don’t kick up a fuss because they’re children were told off by someone else; they accept that they and their children need to behave in ways that are widely acceptable.

1. It’s most successful in societies that don’t pretend to be child-centred. Alloparenting is most common in societies centred around respect for elders, and where children are just expected to fit in and adapt to what works for the adults. No one would expect to have to reorganise their home life around the child in the ways that are expected on MN. Particularly not where it involves inconveniencing everyone else because that child is allowed to decide what’s for dinner every night in her mother’s house (for example).

There are lots of lazy fathers in all communities. Obviously. In societies like this one, that laziness combined with an individualistic sense of entitlement and a veneer of it being ‘all about about the child’ make everything much, much worse.

Its not just about family, thats why I gave the example of an acquaintance kindly picking up my son from nursery when I could not

Was your acquaintance ill at the time? Because if they were and you knew, then proceeded to give them shit when they said no I'd think you were a dick as well. If not, then it's not the same situation is it.

@WeDontTalkAboutBrunonono

Its not just about family, thats why I gave the example of an acquaintance kindly picking up my son from nursery when I could not

Was your acquaintance ill at the time? Because if they were and you knew, then proceeded to give them shit when they said no I'd think you were a dick as well. If not, then it's not the same situation is it.

I can’t imagine that anyone would feel that they had any right whatsoever to give an acquaintance shit for not doing them a favour. Especially if the reason they’d said no was that they were ill.

You need a strong sense of entitlement to them doing the thing for you to respond like that. That means you don’t see it as a ‘favour’. You see it as something they’re supposed to do and you can legitimately be annoyed if they don’t.

You need a strong sense of entitlement to them doing the thing for you to respond like that. That means you don’t see it as a ‘favour’. You see it as something they’re supposed to do and you can legitimately be annoyed if they don’t.

The mum thinks the op is an extension of the father and that’s where the problem lies. That’s where the expectation and “disappointment in the op” comes from.
She has a strong sense of entitlement to assume anyone other than her child’s father will drop everything for her child.

I bet she didn’t put the phone down on her parents (the people who would usually help her as confirmed upthread) when they said they wouldn’t be able to help her. Because she has respect for them. Clearly no respect for the op at all.

You are right. Both a sense of entitlement and a lack of respect.