Left DSC home alone

[Work1]

This happened yesterday but I'm still fuming about it to be honest.

I was due in work at 9am, husband starts at 7am so I've been dropping DSC at their holiday club on my way to work a few times when they've been at ours and we've had to go into work. They don't particularly like going but it is what it is.

Anyway yesterday morning DSC (9) was in a foul mood, refusing to get up, point blank refusing to go to club, saying 'make me', saying they were too tired and so on...

Anyway, it got to the point where I was going to be seriously late for work and I had to drop our child off too so I just fucked off and left. I rang DH and told him he'd need to come home from work and deal with it and I left and went to work.

DSC rang his mum and she's furious he was left alone but I am passed caring. They will now need to sort holiday clubs out or time off themselves as I won't be helping with it again (she's dropped them off with me beforehand too to take them to clubs as she starts work earlier than me). No way was I being late for work because of a 9 year olds tantrum and I wasn't dragging him out to the car either. Instead of being furious with me how about being cross with your child for being so naughty?!

DSC rang his mum who was furious - absolutely she is entitled to be. At no point does it say she was furious with OP.
She can be furious with her EX for putting their child in such a position. She is absolutely entitled to. She can be furious with someone she trusted for putting her child in that position. She is entitled to an opinion.

You do know this thread isn’t about you don’t you 🤣

A really sad thing here is actually that, if the poster had made a thread about her specific situation, all the posters she’s so angry with (including me) would be on her side. In her situation the ex behaved atrociously and it must have been hugely traumatic.

I think the poster has probably hidden the thread now for her own well-being, so it’s probably best to leave her be.

You must be hard of thinking

she rang the child’s father who left to come home immediately

that’s not abandoning a child.
that’s not leaving it without a second thought

it’s leaving a child for a few minutes while his father drove home.

what the op did wasn’t wrong or neglectful

the guidance says to judge the situation for your self for short periods of time. That’s what happened here.

the step mum bashing and over pandering of poorly brought up kids here is appalling

in any case. Op won’t be repeating this as she won’t be carrying the load for this kids parents again.

kid will miss out, but whatever… perhaps he’ll learn something

MzHz good summary totally agree.

Leaving a bolshy 9 year old in bed on their own In their own home having rung their parent who is on their way and will be there in 30 minutes is in my view not unreasonable. The law leaves it to the parents discretion and many adults (admittedly not all) would agree this is reasonable. It’s nothing like leaving a 5 week old alone is it now 🙄

Succinct as always.

The more I read step parenting threads on MN, the more I realise I would be beyond appalled if any of mine got involved with a man with children.

Unbelievably thankless.

@ThePumpkinPatch I wouldn't know your children's father has passed because a) I don't check peoples posting history without a specific reason and even then it seems a little invasive to me.
b) this post isn't about you (so haven't focused on every comment you have made)

As much as a mum I sympathy with what you have experienced. You are and have been conflating two very different scenarios . Since you don't have step family experience (I don't knock you for having a opinion), but it's a little much to come along and say the things you have said not only to other posters but to OP calling her a bad mum (I paraphrased on your wording there).

@billy1966 I love my family and its quirks but I have to say to anyone. It is hard hard work and I would say this to my DSD too.

Although I would say that about having kids as well !

Wow.

If this was OPs child, she could have physically picked them up, put them in the car in their pyjamas and taken them to the club like that (I’ve done it before - once - DD soon learnt that it wasn’t an idle threat).

If she had done that to DSC, you’d be lacing her for putting her hands on someone else’s child.

9 years old, not 9 months old, for around 30 mins. My own DDs refused to come food shopping at that age so were left for around an hour.

OP - I left my (ex) step child home alone when he was 10. His behaviour (and my ex’s refusal to deal with it) had pushed me to the brink, and he was constantly vile to my own DC. One particular day, I just took my DC and walked out, phoned my (ex)H and told him to get home (from the pub) and that I wanted him and his child gone from my house before I got home.

If my DDs behaved like this with their step mother, they’d be read the riot act.

Definitely having children can be hard at times...lots of times....but step parenting is at a whole other level IMO.

We adore our two daughters thatva great girls, I have absolutely no difficulty in saying that we would want so much more for them than step parenting and the huge sacrifice it appears to involve.

IMO it is what happens to kind, vulnerable naive young women that are largely sucked into an au pair/ house skivvy scenario.

It can apparently happen to women very easily.

We would be appalled if this happened to either of ours.

Their lives are far too precious for such an outcome.

I have enormous respect for those who make a success of it.

@billy1966 I think the premise of a blended family is what makes it more likely to fail ie the more complex the system with more parts the more points of failure.

If you have a easier time depends on how well. (Or not well) the cogs work. Some people as per this thread show peoples automatic assumptions when it comes to step parents. That's already adding a element of hard/difficulty that doesn't need to be there. Add in existing trauma from the first relationships break up (to mum, dad and Dc) it's already quite difficult. Mum and dad not having a good relationship or having a relationship which they can co parent effectively, just adds another layer and so on and so on.
Step parents are only treated as scivvy if one or more of the participants lets that behaviour happen.

Me as a Dm would never treat my Dd Sm like this, and I would never let me child think it was acceptable to behave like this. If my ex had said don't worry sm will do drop offs, I would be bloody grateful not treating her like my employee. But you just don't know how people will treat others.

I wouldn't change my family as it is, but would I tell my Dd to approach with massive amounts of caution. Hell yes.

@pitchforksandflamethrowers you are absolutely correct, the characters involved hugely affect the outcome.

I'd be very wary for my girls!

Agree I would hate for either of my dds to blunder into this scenario. Young women would be well advised to not go near any man with kids. There was a thread on here once that was almost unanimous with step mothers saying if they knew from the outset what it involved they would have walked away.

I remember it well.

With the greatest of respect, IMO step parenting is for the spectacularly naive.

I can understand how it can happen, especially if you don't actively dislike children!

Fortunately through babysitting in my teens I largely found young children a complete PITA and would have run a mile from any man who even vaguely presented with dependents.

But then I need not have worried, my parents and those of my friends would have been genuinely appalled at the prospect of this for us 35 years ago.

@MsTSwift I think it's hard because when you marry a single man he is just one cog turning the wheel, when you marry a man with kids it's not just his cog you need to worry about but multiple others that will impact the wheel turning and you won't know how they work for yourself until much later

I consider myself lucky and dynamics all work well (ish) but it bone breath takingly hard I won't lie.

@billy1966

"With the greatest of respect, IMO step parenting is for the spectacularly naive.

I can understand how it can happen, especially if you don't actively dislike children"*
*
With the greatest respect unless your also going to call a mum naive for creating children with a man that she will later split up with, you are talking waffle. No one I know is mystic Meg. You don't say to parents well you knew it would be hard this parenting lark was hard while they say they are struggling.

You also don't suggest they don't like kids, and that's why they are struggling as parents... c

It's naive comments like this that suggest sp who says step families are hard automatically don't like kids 🤯 and that's why they are finding sm hard... mind blown

Excuse me now I need to go bake my ginger bread house and get the fires ready. Obviously 🧙‍♀️

Sorry don’t really understand that post. When I was dating in my twenties I wouldn’t have accepted a date with a man with kids. Hard no.

@pitchforksandflamethrowers I couldn't understand a word of that.

Similarly to @MsTSwift I simply wouldn't have entertained a man with children as a date.

We all have our criteria for a partner, childfree would have been a given that simply wouldn't have arisen.

It's not about judging people whose relationships have broken down, its about making a choice about what MY boundaries were.

Ah let me make it clearer as I had a newborn in my arms and it was late. Tiredness had over taken.

You are both entitled to say that's my boundary and I wouldn't go there.

But when you come into the step parenting board suggesting :

step parenting is for the spectacularly naive.

That's a judgement call, because your implying that people are stupid not to be able to predict the future.

I knew my DH when marrying him, I certainly didn't know in depth say his ex, or the impact she would have on my life.

You don't wander up to people getting married and say, you know the statistics on this, your likely to end up in divorce. I knew this so didn't do it.

This board isn't a gottacha moment for all non step parents. Feel free to offer advice on the topic at hand, but just because you can be a 🛎 end on the internet,doesn't mean you have to be.

I hope I have been clearer !

its not a surprise though is it that choosing a man with an existing family is risking a load of pain and hassle?

Never forget that thread literally every SM further down the line said if she knew what she did now she would not have entered the relationship. Situations like this over and over. It seems particularly tough on women. Don’t want that for my daughters picking up after someone else’s kids! Why make life harder for yourself? I was very very picky about who I married though maybe that’s not romantic but I will be encouraging my girls to be the same. Even avoiding Australians because I didn’t want to live in Australia or have a husband pining for Australia! Yeah you can’t exclude all disasters but this scenario is avoidable. I know it’s not PC to say sorry.

When I got together with DH I was very cautious, kept myself at arm's length in case he decided to go back to his ex and child (I was not the OW, but it wasn't that long since he moved out), months passed and we got more serious, I was so happy to see that he and ex seemed to be absolutely bossing the whole co parenting thing, I actually really admired the way they both put their child first.
Then a year down the line, long term future/marriage/babies having been discussed, ex finds out I exist when DH decides to let her know, with a view to introducing me to their daughter in the next few months when ex is comfortable with that.
All hell breaks loose.
All of a sudden every bastard thing is a problem. The sudden demands start and he's the devil's spawn because he refuses to drop me at the last minute to take child so she can go to whatever last minute urgent plans she suddenly had.
Then we go from "you don't have her enough (by "enough" she meant "when I demand") to "you're not getting her at all, I'll fight you all the way on this, no way Yousee is meeting my child".
But that swiftly went on its arse because she did actually need him. So I met DSD 2 years in, things having settled, stood in DHs kitchen and took a lecture on what I wasn't allowed to do with and for her child (which was a cheek, I thought, to assume that I automatically wanted to do these things for another woman's child but anyway, I wanted her to feel better about it all so I nodded along)
Can't remember what the next damn thing was but she stopped contact again so solicitors got involved and after a year of back and forth messing around it was only when he said he would have to cut maintenance back to CMS level to continue to pay solicitor retainer that she suddenly became reasonable again.
The refund from solicitors when they didn't in the end have to go to court paid a fair chunk of my engagement ring, so every cloud and all that.
All was calm. Then Engagement and my pregnancy kicked off the next round of BS.
Think the revelation that actually contact and maintenance have stayed the same when DS was born has possibly helped her see that DH is not a bad guy out to steal her child or abandon her child or screw her financially and actually life is better when we all get along because I'm here to help out in a pinch too now. Which I do happily, although I do absolutely hold the line and refuse to fall into the stepparent as general skivvy role (which DH to be fair to him has never expected of me).
So all is now well, relations are friendly, everyone helping each other out, DSD is happy even though she knows I'm not her mother, which is apparently suppose to be very traumatic for a child.
It's been a rollercoaster. Nearly got off a couple of times but I'm glad I didn't. After a year of carefully observing DH and ex working together, no dramas, him never dropping me for her like some posters say he should have ( he would ask if I could swap a Tuesday for a Wednesday but if not then ex was told no and that was the end of it, except the time DSD hurt herself at nursery and had to go to A&E, I was dropped quite rightly and he was there before ex was) I thought we were quite safe to proceed.
I didn't realise the trouble even the notion of my existence would cause.
But then ex didn't realise that she probably shouldn't have had a child in a volatile relationship that was going to end before that child was out of nappies.
Guess nobody's crystal ball was working.

Ooft just call me Tolkien for waffling on so much 😳

@Yousee your DP sounds like a diamond in the rough of Disney dad guilt parenting. Love that he had his boundaries and did what's best for everyone involved.

@Yousee spot on.

@MsTSwift your allowed to be fussy, your allowed to say not for me ect but for me my family is richer for the people in it.
And when everyone puts their crap aside it works well.

Thing is I don't have a romantic notion in my body especially when it comes to kids. Hassle it maybe (but every child is, even your own- it's just acceptable to say that about your own). Your forgetting that some of us like our DSC (I won't profess to the love notion) she taught me many things.

The worst part of being a sm is peoples automatic assumption that your some Disney evil villain and find the need to tell you that or some village idiot.
Which I am neither, just a human doing her best

It also just happened that although my first marriage ended (through the death of my first baby and ex being a right 🛎 end) my second marriage I found my person.
Typing that makes me sound like maybe I am a romantic. Hopelessly so. And that I think I can live with.

It's so offensive to come onto the step parenting board and proclaim how stupid step parents are and it's something you'd never have done.

Well done you for always making perfect life decisions 👏 and although I've divorced my exh and step family dynamics was a large bone of contention - it wasn't a given. Lots of step families are happy and thrive. It all rests on whether your dp is a wet lettuce/or abusive and a taker sort. We don't go on the relationship board and say the same thing to people in abusive relationships, it's odd how many people like to do it on the step parenting board.