Mum & money

[Bedford85]

Just looking for some opinions if poss I have a 13 year old step son who lives with his mum close by.

For context my DH and I have been together 7 years and have a 3 year old. DH is a brilliant dad, always been involved, holidays are split and stepson is with us every second weekend. He did come during the week previously but was deemed disruptive to his routine. DH pays more than the minimum maintenance money as well as numerous extras eg school stuff, lunch money, football club, hockey club.

The issue we have is with mum. Her finances are clearly none of our business but when it concerns stepson naturally we are concerned. Mum has quit her 2 mornings a week job and is unemployed. She’s fit and able to work but chooses not to. From what I gather she’s never had a ‘proper’ job and is either not working or flits between jobs doing a few hours a week. Again her choice but as a result DH maintenance money is funding her life and stepson is going without. She never buys him clothes or pays for any of the extras we do. It’s us who pay for holidays and treats, he never gets anything from her. We have since found out she’s asking relatives and friends to take stepson overnight and for meals again so she doesn’t have to spend on food shops.

AIBU that this is not what maintenance money is for? It’s to contribute for the upbringing of the child not to fund someone’s life allowing them to quit working? We both work full time but it just seems unfair. Both parents should be contributing not just DH.

You're going to get vilified, but I agree.

I completely agree with you that it’s frustrating.

I agree that she of course should be using the maintenance money to ensure her son has everything he needs but unfortunately there's not much you can do about the way she chooses to spend her money.

If you're paying over the CMS amount I would consider paying through CMS then spending the additional money you usually send her on clothes etc for your DSS.

How does your DSS feel about things? At his age he can choose who he wants to live with. Would he feel better living with you or is he quite happy at his mum's?

@Toooldtoworry yeah I’m waiting on the abuse. I just don’t understand choosing not to work and letting your son go without. His life would be so much better and he’d have better opportunities. As a result DH is shouldering extra costs. It all seems so unfair

@Illpickthatup thanks for your reply. Tbh I think he’d rather live with us and we would be happy to have him but I suspect he has a sense of loyalty to his mum. What’s worrying is he is already making comments about not getting a job when he’s older!! We are trying to show that working hard allows for better opportunities and nice things but when his closest influence is choosing not to work it’s hardly surprising these attitudes are beginning to show

I've noticed on here that dads who work part time or are SAHD are vilified as it means they can't pay as much towards their children. It's fine for mums to do this though.

Aside from anything else she has made herself vulnerable as your DH could just start paying CMS minimum at any time if he wanted to. He could also lose his job, get sick etc. What about when the child reaches adulthood and the money stops and she's been out of work for years? Not to mention saving for a pension.

We had the same situation for years and it was so frustrating; DH just gave the basic maintenance and would pay for extras directly as it wasn’t about the money but about making sure DSC got what they needed so paid for clothes, school uniform, trips etc and learnt to pay directly to school and not to mum. I had to just block it out in the end as focusing on it only made me annoyed

@NewNameNigel you’re completely correct! We often wonder what will happen in the future when he no longer has an obligation to pay. As a mum myself I can’t understand this mindset. You want to do everything in your power to provide a nice life for your children. Some people are unable to work and I get that but when you can it’s just so strange.

For some balance I will offer the view that it’s exceedingly difficult to work as a lone parent - it’s worse with older children as childcare availability is less and they need taking to activities etc. Schools have difficulty understanding that parents work and there’s always a parent event (during working hours) every few weeks. Throw in holidays and sickness - it’s not a walk in the park keeping a job while being a lone parent. I say this as someone who is a lone parent, and has always worked full time. People in a couple just won’t get go difficult it is just to keep your job, let alone cultivate a thriving career.

It's hard work. My stepkids mum was unemployed for several years and trying to drum some work ethic into our teenage DSS was a challenge. He now lives with us full time, is working full time and helps out with housework.

We got my DSD a GoHenry card when she turned 6 so we're already starting to teach her the value of money and earning and saving for things she wants. Not sure if you have anything like this in place for him although it's a bit difficult to manage when you only have him a few days a month.

Also, stop trying to understand his mum's behaviour or you'll drive yourself crazy. I gave up trying to work out the inner workings of the ex a long time ago. Now I just roll my eyes so I hard I sometimes worry they'll one day roll out my head haha! You just have to accept that not everyone has the same priorities as you and not everyone does things the way you would do them.

There's really no excuse for it when he's 13. Different if he was 3 and she had to look after him all day. Just pure laziness expecting other people to pick up your slack.

Things are rarely fair when parents break up. The parent that cares enough to be the responsible one tends to end up with everything dumped on them. The biggest problem here I think is that usually the RP is the responsible one and while this would still be an unfair situation for the responsible parent it wouldn't be such an issue for the child. Id be paying minimum CM in his shoes, paying for school dinners if they have them, buy clothes for child to take home and so on. Find a way to work around the issues so DSS gets what he needs. Ultimately that's the priority. You can't change her behaviour and it's pointless feeling angry about it, try to find a way to drop the rope and focus on finding ways to get DSS what he needs.

But he's 13, so unless he has any disabilities or learning difficulties there's no reason why she can't work. A 13 year old can get themselves to and from activities and can manage a few hours home alone after school.

Going to go slightly against the grain here.

If you have him every other weekend he's with mum a lot.

She is presumably housing him and feeding him, nagging him to get up in the morning and go to school, etc etc. She's (again, presumably) done all the running around when he was younger in terms of getting him to after school clubs.

It's much more important to children that they are loved and emotionally supported than given treats and holidays.

Obviously if she is literally not feeding him at all and not buying him any clothes at all then he is being neglected, but is that the case?

Teenagers can be very very emotionally demanding in ways that can be hard to imagine before you have them. Ignore the treats and holidays - is she a good parent?

Potentially - but then again maybe not. Do they live in a city with reliable public transport vs is it a rural location. Plus, some people seem to feel teens need a parent around more as evidenced by the high profile female celebs that have quit jobs to be around for their teens.
Type of job could also be an issue if they need her to do shifts etc: again not simple as a lone parent.
She could just be lazy, or it could be more complex than it seems on paper. From the luxury of being in a relationship with your child’s father, it’s very hard to imagine the difficulty when you’re doing it by yourself.

Ok so you can’t control what she spends it on, but you can reduce it to the correct amount ( using the calculator) and then use the rest to buy more things for him. Alternatively you could try and have him more ( or both!)

these mums who can’t be arsed to work and think they are owed are really just so crap and I’m sorry your step son isn’t being prioritised by him mum when he really should be.

I half agree with you
but also, she has to find a job that fits around childcare
and if she did all the childcare whilst he was younger (and when this was harder to do) her work history and cv probably aren’t looking great or giving her many options.
I also know lots of people who choose to be on benefits, even though they would like to work, because it pays more. In that case they feel like not working actually provides more money for the child.

i think it’s difficult that she has dss 26 days out of 30 a month, presumably does provide a decent amount for him in that time (certainly more food, water, gas, electricity etc) than you do. And certainly she’s doing a lot more of the day to day parenting, that frees up your dh for your family and work and you’re still not happy with her.
only you know what ‘More than required amount’ of maintenance is as well, I know people that get 20quid. ‘more than that’ is still pretty low. The people I know who get that much still have to hear their exes still talk about how they’re living off the exes money, when it certainly costs a lot more than that to raise a child. I’m not saying this is the case here, but just making the point.

i think your argument stands in theory, but I think in reality it’s not that simple.
what also stands out is that instead of wanting to make sure DSs is ok, maybe offering to take him more if she is struggling and reopening conversations about custody, you’re just concerned with your money. I know you’ll say you’re not, but if your concern is really dss rather than what’s fair, I don’t think this would be what you’re talking about, if you really felt like she couldn’t feed him.

This is the biggest load of utter bullshit I’ve read on here for some time ( and that’s saying something!) don’t defend her!! She was only working two mornings before so she’d hardly been overstretched!

I was a single parent of 2 kids for 5 years and I always worked full time.

only lazy people make these kind of excuses! And from what the Op is saying, this mum is just plain lazy and there is no excuse for that!

Childcare??? He’s 13 FFS.

My DHs ex quit her job, lost her company car then claimed he left her without a car because he dared to take his own car with him when they split and expected him to provide her with a car. They weren't even married. The self of entitlement with some people is unreal.

She's in for a rude awakening when maintenance comes to an end!
I would pay the minimum through cms and spend the extra directly on what the child needs.
She needs to get a job and take some responsibility

Some of these women are wild!!

my husbands ex got made redundant after they split and then still only got another part time job despite always complaining she had no money . Both kids were are secondary school but apparently she could only work 16 hours a week. She moved in with another mortgage wallet 6 months later - paying bills clearly didn’t suit her 🤣

Yep. The gravy train won’t run forever. Surely must know she has less than 5 years left of this. YANBU she’s unreasonable (and lazy!) as it’s not what child maintenance is meant to be used for

This!

What his mother does or does not do is none of your concern, so long as the child is looked after. If he isn't, cut maintenance down to the minimum recommended and use the rest of the money to buy the things the child needs but isn't getting.