His parenting winds me up

[missL1987]

Bf of four years has two sons 8 & 11 who live with him 60 % of the time, I live on my own & don't have kids of my own. I am aware that there are people out there who believe I shouldn't have opinions on others parenting but I'm going to post this anyway...

My bf's parenting really annoys me, he babies them basically & I am starting to worry how this will affect them as they get older.
As an example; we regularly go for a meal out to a local carvery on a Sunday as we did this week. Kids generally misbehaved, wouldn't stand still, were loud, winding each other up etc but that's nothing other kids don't do it just adds to the stress. We queued for 15 mins for food & thankfully got them to the front without them causing too much chaos, neither child put veg on their plate, youngest took back a yorkshire & meat only, eldest had same plus mash. I tell myself it's irrational to be annoyed, he's paying for their food, his problem, it's no big deal. When we sat down he proceeded to to cut up the youngest's food. He's 8. No encouragement to even try to do himself. Neither child can use a knife or fork properly, both use their hands, again no encouragement to do so. It's one thing eating a McDonalds with hands, a carvery on the the other hand? The eldest (who starts High School Sept) also dropped into conversation he can't tell the time, he also only learnt to tie shoelaces a few months ago, the youngest still needed help at the loo until just before xmas
At home they have everything done for them, clothes picked up off the floor & put away, all food & drink made for them etc. At the weekend if bf suggests they go out for the day they kick up such a fuss he allows them to have their way & they stay in playing computer games all day. He has to bribe them to get them to leave the house.
I don't say any of this to shame them. I fully understand kids progress at different rates & bf has every right to bring them up how he sees fit as do all parents. But I can't help but get wound up at the lack of encouragement to do certain things, I worry, particularly with the eldest starting high school soon, how this will affect them. Bf also doesn't want to be seen as the strict shouty parent, boys mum let's them have their own all the time so they expect the same at his, it's like they're competing for who can be the favourite parent instead of both trying to be the best parents.

Has anybody else found themselves in a similar situation? Did you say anything or did you keep it to yourself?

I just posted about this issue on one of the other stepparenting threads called “Is DSD a Bit Clingy to Dad?”. (Old thread but worth a read) These issues exist even in families not dealing with the step situation, but I can only imagine how much worse they are in a step family. We had some similar although more minor issues in my family. Before they could be fixed for my daughter, my husband first had to work through his own emotional issues about why he wasn’t encouraging my daughter to be independent. It was a multi step process. It won’t change unless your OH decides to work on his part in it.

Everyone develops at a different rate. My kid is likely a bit behind in some areas regarding maturity, but we continually encourage her, dont enable her when she resists, and address it by emphasizing and working with the positives (exhibiting more maturity buys her more freedom and choices ). What’s distressing in your situation is the lack of encouragement for the kids to become independent. We went through many of the resistance to independence stages described by people here. Making food, cleaning herself, brushing teeth, etc.

I do disagree though, at being too tsk tsky about them not choosing vegetables at the restaurant. It’s a once a week treat, and one meal...does every single meal need to be perfectly balanced? Cant eating just be fun sometimes? I wouldn’t judge there unless you are aware of some serious, deeply entrenched poor eating habits that affect every single meal, and even then I’d try to up the veg at home meals, rather than worrying too much about what they select at their weekly treat meal out.

Good luck.