Step kids want to live with us full time.

[ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

My dh has two children to a previous relationship. They are with us Friday to Monday every other weekend. I have one child and we have one child together.

Our blended family works fairly well. Step kids are lovely and a credit to their mother. Dh is a bit of a Disney dad, but does put a lot of time into them.

I have a great relationship with the kids, but this is because I don’t parent them at all, as in I don’t force them to clean up, do homework etc. I just enjoy the fun parts of life with them.

Our time with them is fun, they have boundaries but it’s generally the fun house. The kids want to live here full time. I don’t think it’s a good idea because I am not going to put the time into parenting them like I do with my kids. My dh works until late so most of the parenting would be left to me.

The kid’s parents are negotiating what to do, but I don’t know if I should be honest about my concerns.

Surely you volunteer when you choose to marry a man with children? I'm sorry but I find it so strange people think it's ok to get involved with children who have already been through their parents separating, meet someone else and have new siblings when the new partner knew all along they weren't going to treat them as actual family? So no, I don't think it is unfair to say that people should be 'blending' families when they are not, or ignore children that did not choose to be in their lives and lives with their parent. Wherever both parents live it should be their homes where they are treated as equal members of the family.

Sorry, OP chooses to stay with a rubbish Dad and chose to get involved with one in the first place.

Adopting a neglected child you don't know is completely different. Only similarity is it involves a choice to take a child into your life which OP did.

Seriously doubt any adoptive parent would get through the adoption process if they listed the things OP has about what she won't do and what she allows when they should be in a family environment they feel included in and looked after properly. Realistically if any concerns were raised, it will not only be the DH been looked at badly. She is an adult within the household and while my family legal knowledge is a bit rusty, has assumed responsibility for them in that context.

So thank you actually for your comment. I feel I have been less harsh now.

@SheilaFentiman some rural schools round here don't have admins manning the office and don't always run breakfast club every morning if they haven't had enough children to book in for it to make it worthwhile, so dumping and running with the expectation of breakfast club being run wouldn't be a good idea and would be frowned upon

A stepmother taking her stepchildren to school, leaving them in wraparound care there, knowing they can have a school lunch, and letting them wear yesterday’s uniform, is not neglect. HTH!

How does the couple with 21 kids do it fucking hell out most of us to shame her wouldn't they.

The dad did exactly that when he left for work in the morning. Dumped and ran. Why should he get to dump his kids and get to work on time but OP is expected to be late to her work or late for dropping her own kids off?

"all these posts seem to think that ONLY the OP should take on extra"

Most of the posts are saying it is the DH who is failing to provide basic parenting to his kids.

Why is she shameless when they’re his kids ? He does the fun stuff, she does the grunt work - proof of which is that if she doesn’t do something it doesn’t get done. And now he and his ex want more contact to be worked out between themselves with no involvement from the OP, who will no doubt be expected to pick up more slack from Disney dad. And you think she’s the shameless one ?

I'd rather do wife work than stand by and allow children to be neglected.
OP has the right to stand by and do nothing, that doesn't mean she is right to stand by and go nothing.
We pretty much all agree the dad is a useless twat, but colluding in it doesn't make the step mum any better.
This is reminding me of those women who have affair with married men - yeah, he's a prick and the one to blame, but the ow doesn't come out of it looking like a good human being either!

If this was me I'd have covered his arse once and if it happened again I'd have dropped the kids off at his work or called their mum and told her the situation.
But there's no way I'd be allowing my h to neglect his dc and writing that off as him not doing the 'little things' that a mum does. It's basic care and a fundamental parenting obligation.

OP, do you never worry that if something happens to you, one or both of your children will be left living with this man?

OP very obviously does not ignore the children. Marriage isn't indentured servitude you know, where a woman is now obliged to pick up all a man's responsibilities so he can flit through life playing Uncle Dad. What a bizarre notion.
Surely he knew he was becoming a Dad when the kids were coming out of his ex? Surely he was volunteering to wash their school clothes when he had sex without a condom? Surely he knew when he split from their mum that other women are not their mum? Surely he knows that women are (generally, work still to be done clearly 🙄) considered equal human beings these days and not just service humans?
Surely he knew all of this?

How long does it take to put a few items in the washing machine and make a sandwich. She is not giving up a lot of her time. How did that woman do it with 21 kids. Is she giving something up by doing that?

If they have 21 kids there will be older ones to take on the responsibility of looking after the younger ones.

This someone has to care and make some noise. OP cam not be this laid back what if it were her children going with out basic care.

Sending DCs in dirty uniform, without lunch, not monitoring homework, not prioritising activities - other DCs being treated differently - in most schools that will be flagged as neglect (and that's the least it will be classed as - it could be flagged as abuse because of the psychological impact).
And if the step-DCs move in then it will be happening much more regularly than every weekend.
No-one is saying OP needs to do this. But she knows she has married a man who is a complete waste of space, and she knows what should happen when DCs are cared for (because she does it for her own DCs) then she should flag it to her DH's ex. This isn't about point scoring or wife work. It becomes about being a responsible citizen. Posters are on here all the time because they're worried about DCs and want to work out how to report their concerns. And everyone encourages them and supports them. OP knows these DCs are receiving sub-optimum care (because her DH is a lazy irresponsible arse) she should flag it to someone who can do something about it. The obvious starting place is to his ex. But yy she could also contact the school - but she probably doesn't want to do that because it puts the focus back on the house she lives in with her DCs.

The woman with 21 kids will be relying on the older ones to help out I would imagine, so not the same thing at all. And if it doesn’t take long to put a few things in the washing machine or make a packed lunch, why can’t he do it ? The need for packed lunches was brought up five minutes before they were due out. Why is the OP the one to stay and do this, making her late for dropping off her own kids and also late for work ?

Dunno, how long would it take the dad? OP has said she doesn’t have time to do washing on weekends, so I’d guess she has a laundry system to ensure her kids have clean uniform. Her DH could, if he were minded to, buy his kids extra uniform to be washed on the OP’s existing schedule. Or washed on his own schedule. Or just as spare in case the other stuff doesn’t get washed. He could make a sandwich the night before school, or book them onto school lunches for the Mondays after his contact weekends, or get up earlier on workdays and do it. It doesn’t take much time so he can do it, no problem.

@AaaaaandBreathe

"Surely you volunteer when you choose to marry a man with children?"

No you don't - and this has been discussed a thousand times. You volunteer for what you volunteer for, nothing is automatic. I volunteered to have my EOW dictated by the need to see DSS, I volunteered to be with someone who has a child they care about equally to the ones we share, and would have to pay for. I volunteered to be friendly and welcoming to said child when around them, I certainly don't ignore them. But I didn't volunteer to take on a parental role, and was clear that I would not. Sure, my DP might ask me for favours relating to DSS sometimes but that's what they are. Sure, I treat DSS like family, but not like my child. I'm more like an aunt or grandparent - who might help out but who would sure as hell become resentful and probably refuse to continue if the parent started taking the piss. And they wouldn't therefore be guilty of neglecting them, because it was never their job in the first place. They just aren't volunteering to take over.

The more I read from the OP, the clearer it is that, if her stepkids come to live with her, her dh and the other children (hers and theirs), her dh will not be independently motivating himself to do his fair share of the parenting - whether you think he should do all of the parenting for his children, or whether you think they should share the responsibility for parenting all the children.

The only way the OP is going to get him to step up and do even the bare minimum is for her to organise the jobs, tell him what he needs to do, and then make sure he does it - and that is just leaving her with the mental load of all of it.

Even the uniform and packed lunches issue demonstrates this. Her dh should be making sure his children's uniforms are washed and ready to wear on Monday, and doing their packed lunches, but it is pretty clear that the only way that will happen is if @ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh takes on the mental load of supervising him doing it all.

I feel sorry for the children - and there is a part of me that thinks that, if her dh isn't stepping up, and the kids are regularly going to school in unwashed uniforms and without packed lunches or lunch money, it would be the kind and caring thing for her to step in - either wash the uniforms herself on Friday night, so they are dry and ready on Monday morning, or nag her dh to do it - and the same goes for the lunches. But equally, I can see that, if she did start doing this, even whilst they are only there every other weekend, she would end up doing it full stop - her dh wouldn't start being a better dad - he'd just happily abdicate the responsibility to her.

I can't see a good answer to any of this. The only thing the OP can do is to sit her useless dh down and have a come-to-Jesus talk with him, setting out all the things that a parent has to be responsible for, telling him that he is already failing to do the bare minimum of that for his children, every other weekend, and then to ask him how he plans to parent his children - with all the extra responsibilities that entails - without just assuming that the OP will do all the extra work.

If his response to this is positive, and he accepts he needs to up his parenting game massively - and if he agrees to a trial period, during which time he must show that he has actually learned the lesson, and made the changes, then maybe she could consider the new arrangement - but frankly I am not optimistic that he is capable of it.

The problem is the op is to laid back and watching it all happen. If she don't like it she needs to use what God gave her a mouth.

Exactly. There's no reason why their dad can't manage this.

@Laurdo at no point in time have I let the DH off the hook for being a crap parent, but because one adult in the house is shit then the other adult has to step up. If school did ask questions, and I am not suggesting social services will be called in, they would be expecting at least one adult in the house to be looking out for the children

She's not though. She said she reminds him over the weekend and he always just says I'll do it later.

Agreed. It's so weird how some people have higher expectations about how you should treat a random neighbourhood kid better than their own children's siblings. Yes, feed your son's friend who comes over for a playdate but whether your son's brother has anything to eat is nothing to do with you.

She was there at the time and if she didn't want to do it she should have made noise.

Dad is never going to get any better if OP is constantly wiping his arse for him. And as soon as she starts picking up his slack he'll get lazier and lazier and she'll end up having to do even more.

I can't believe the OP is being criticised here. The step-children already have two parents and happy enough with her to want to move in fulltime.

Step-parents get so much shtick if they want to tell off their step-children, etc.