Holidays with or without DSD

[terracottasaucer]

How do you manage holidays with step children? I feel like I’m not allowed a holiday with my own children, and made to feel evil for even wanting to.

Does DSD holiday with other parent. If so I think that you should do one holiday all 5 of you one holiday the 4 of you.

That's fair as long as there's not a vast co feast in the holidays for example the 4 of you disney land or 2 weeks in Mexico and all 5 of you 2 nights in butlins

It’s totally irrelevant if the stepchild holidays with her mother or how many times a year she goes. That is none of the OP’s concern.

@SunQueen24 That is us down to a tee! my OH is on call every other weekend, which obviously cannot be his contact weekend.

@terracottasaucer

I’m not responsible for her parents not being together, so this idea that it’s a defenceless child not asking to be in this situation isn’t my doing either. It’s life. I am allowed a life I choose, with my own children.

You are allowed to make choices in your life yes. You chose to be with a man with a child. You didn't have to make this choice but you did. With your choice comes responsibilities and consequences. If you didn't want the reality of having a step child you shouldn't have made the choice to have children with a man who had a child.
Having made your life choice you now can't throw a strop because of the result of step family life.

It’s not ‘throwing a strop’. As a PP has also said, step mothers still matter, and it’s only human to have some emotion with it all.

@terracottasaucer

There are experiences I would like to give to my children as their mother (and no, Disneyland is not one of them!). Should they go without those because their father had a child before them?
This is true of ALL family set ups. Should your dc go without the experience of being an only child? You took that away by having more than one child.
Should a dc go without the experience of not having a disabled sibling if they have one?
Should 2 girls suffer with the lack of experience of having a brother?

It's just nonsense. Your dc gave the life you brought them into. That life includes having an older sibling. This is normal to them. It's only you who is making it weird.

You've been with dp for 15 years. So since the child was what? 2 or 3?

How are you still not comfortable with them?

It’s been up and down with some phases easier than others like any parenting would be I expect.
I’m only human, all I can do is worth through it as best I can.

I think I’ll call it a day for this thread. Thanks all.

I get it, OP. DSC were okay when they were younger but as teens they were absolutely horrendous. Anxiety, fear of going out which manifested as anger, couldn’t be left in a room alone with our DC as they couldn’t be trusted. And you don’t get a say in how it is to be handled, but this is in your home. You can’t relax for a second when they are there.

I stopped holidays as they were not a holiday, they were a punishment. I told DH to go without me, thankfully Covid sort of solved the problem anyway, then they were older.

We used to go on some holidays with just my children, sometimes with my stepchildren as well. Sometimes my DH would go on holiday with just his children. We mix-and-matched depending in what else was going on in everyones' lives.

Step children should always without exception be invited on hols.

If you wouldn't exclude one of your kids I wouldn't exclude one of his.

A solution would be to offer to take her or offer the cash it would cost to take her. At 17 that would seem a great deal.

But you cannot (despite provocation possibly ) make differences.

I could never love a man who prioritised some of his kids over others. What a despicable waste of space he would be.

OP, you take your children on holiday yourself as you are paying.
If he doesn't want to go that is fine.
Can your parent join you?

Tell him to fund his childs holiday and go on his own.
These are precious years when your children are young.
You likely made a mistake having children with him, don't compound it by spoiling this time by being made to feel bad for wanting a peaceful time on your own with your children on holiday.

Men love to manipulate women to feel bad for wanting anything with their own children.

Do you pay towards his child?
If so perhaps rethink it.

I wish women could realise the awful consequences of having children with men who already have them.
Not surprisingly you are the main earner.
They always ensure second time round she is solvent, home owning and a good earner.
Most would never re do it, if they had the chance.

My friends daughter has recently broken up with the father of her child.
They were living in her house and planning on marrying at Christmas.
She had a sudden invitation during the summer to go to a friends villa in Spain for 2 weeks with her 1 year old as her husband couldn'tmake it.
Her friend also has a 1 year old.

He was very upset because she refused to take his 6 year old daughter.
Apparently he thought she should as it would help out with summer childcare.
She wouldn't back down. He gave her the silent treatment for the week beforeh she left.
She came back from the holiday and told him it was over and she was done.
He tried to back track but she told him it was over and she could not move on from his silent treatment of her and it was over.
She wanted him out of her house.
Thank god they hadn't married is what every one of her mothers friends said.
She looked after his child a lot during her mat leave because of pressure from him and his ex, which she now bitterly regrets.
Never again.

Ok. I'm a step parent to adult step kids but never the less I always remind myself that they are ALL his kids .
I would literally lose my shit if my child was left out by my husband and some hypothetical future step mother.
They are not second best.

As step mothers we have to accept that our partners love their kids the way we love ours (if they are decent men) and there for would not enjoy (feel guilty ) about a holiday without one of their kids in the same way as you would not want a holiday with one of your children and the other one sent to your mums.

It's annoying and unrelaxing but you need to suck it up until she doesn't want to come. (Alternatively you could offer her the holiday or cash alternative) and keys to the house
At 17 I'd have bitten your hand off for that .

I think at 17yrs it’s ok to ask this. My own 17yr old is thinking she doesn’t want to come on a family holiday with us next year and if she doesn’t then I can do something that her brother wants to do instead of trying to find middle ground for something they both like, we could also do something with my boyfriend and his daughter.
I don’t think taking step kids on every holiday is always feasible, there may be times that there other parent wants to take them away at the same time or there is a family event they need to be at, that doesn’t mean they are excluded if just means it’s not practical to take them.
For me, when I was a step parent the first time we always did a big summer holiday together and then for example I took my kids to spend time with friends over my birthday in Cornwall while my step daughter was away with her mum. Should I not of gone to Cornwall while she was away? Well I don’t think it was wrong at all.

I am a step child (adult now) and a mum of my own two lovely girls but me and my sister were left out time after time after time. My dad married someone else who already had a son and then they had a son together. It wasn't just holidays, they both got iPads, we got £100 in a card, they went on holidays abroad twice a year and we were never invited, days out, meals out, whatever and we never ever went. My mum was a single parent working two jobs and worked away, it was my sister who cared for me, not my dad and step mum because she/they didn't want us there. She didn't have the financial resources for holidays really, we had weekends in Devon and cheap holidays to Spain last minute off the teletext!
I had counselling a little while back and the counsellor said to me "what role did you dad fill?" I said, "I dunno, none really, he was there but he didn't do anything!" I accept that it's a him problem of course, but I will also never forgive my step mother, she should have known better. I was only 9 years old. I will say this to you OP, it never leaves you, make the right choice.

If it's a family holiday, then I think DSC should be invited.

If it's just you taking your own dc away without your DH, and you're paying for that, then it has nothing to do with DSC.

I’m a stepmum. We have holidays that include dsc and holidays that don’t.

Their mum has a similar arrangement but as there’s more of an age gap between them and her younger kids she often just takes both sets of kids away seperately for an easier life.

They’d probably prefer DH to take them somewhere by themselves but we can’t afford that & I don’t see why my kids and I should miss out on family holidays when dsc end up (overall) having more holidays than them

OP, if you and your partner split up and you had children with someone else, would you go on holiday without your current children? After all, your new husband would deserve to have a holiday with his stepchildren, wouldn't he? And what if you couldn't afford to take all the children - presumably you would think that the younger ones should have to miss a holiday just because their mother already had children, right?

We’ve got three kids between us. One is mine, two are DH’s. The two oldest are now adults.

When they were all kids we did loads of combinations of holidays. Eg, all 5 of us, the two eldest plus me and DH. My child and me and DH.

Now it’s just DH’s youngest who’s at school, it’s just the three of us. I’ve enjoyed all the different combinations really 🤷‍♀️

They aren't his step children, they are his children, that's where it differs between you. Fine for you to take your kids away alone but if he's coming yes he should be including his dc unless it's not suitable, it which case he could take them to an alternative

Should the step children go on every holiday? No. They will probably have holidays with their other parent which your DC won't go on

jesus wept. It’s hardly a like for like, is it? Your children are never/highly unlikely to ever be holidaying with your partner’s ex. How ridiculous.

Holidays are complex. Children should be included as part of the family on both sides. Too frequently they aren’t. I don’t think that means they need to go on every holiday but persistently leaving them out is cruel and not conducive to the concept ot ‘blended’.Sometimes they will get more holidays than resident children - theme’s the breaks.

I'm not a step parent but my DH is to my DC. I'm a foster carer. When my DC were younger we took them on a foreign holiday each year. We had 1 week me and DH went on holiday alone and grandparents took time off from work and cared for the kids. When my DC got older just the youngest DC came with us and foster DS came too. Again grandparents cared for DS and foster DC for 1 week a year when DH and I went off alone. Grandparents lived in a seaside town so my kids were always very happy to go to them.

>>Seeingwhatsreal · 28/10/2024 15:39
>>We do holidays separately. We take our dc together and dh dc go on holidays with >>his ex. Otherwise SC get double the amount of holidays .

The wording here is unambiguous. The reason for holidaying separately is to ensure that the step child does not get more holiday than the other children. Good lord, that does sound petty. I hope this family doesn’t subtract in other areas, such as love, support, and attention, to keep things “fair.” There’s nothing like being penalized and limited by one set of people because someone else was kind to you. And it’s unlikely, if you’re the kid, that you caused the family divorce and the resultant setup through which additional people might be caring for you in another house and make you so unfairly “advantaged.”

Yikes

I think it’s stories like this that make some pp quite vociferously anti-SM.

I also want to go on holiday with just our children. Why shouldnt we want that experience? Especially when they are little. SC get to go away with the other side of their family...do people forget that?

Also not saying to NEVER go away with everyone but why cant there be balance? Its the one thing i feel really strongly about and causes lots of repetitive arguments...why spend thousands of pounds if you wont feel comfortable or enjoy yourself? Yet DP will...