lack of advent calendar isn't my issue!

[utterlybuttered]

Sick to death of the wife work expectations from DH.

The latest is him stressing that HE hasn't got DSC an advent calendar and this has apparently turned into the whole "how awful you didn't get DSC one, you'd get one if it were X (our child)"

Our child does have one, my mum bought her one. But yes if she didn't I'd have made sure she did. Because I'm a bloody parent.

I'm sick of him failing in HIS responsibilities and then acting like they are my failings, presumably because I'm a woman so those are my sort of things to sort?!

What's the point of the man @utterlybuttered ?

Err, but she didn’t go and buy one for one child and not the other. She isn’t playing games.

I know that, but she also didn’t tell her DH that she wasn’t buying one this year so he needed to. What I’m saying is just speak to each other. She hasn’t told him that her DM had bought child and he hadn’t been asked to get one for their joint child so probably rightly or wrongly assumed it had been taken care of.

Equally, he didn’t tell her he hadn’t bought any advent calendars! Despite (as per OP’s post) the fact that one or other of them picks the calendars up, so it’s not specifically OP’s job to buy or to manage the buying of calendars.

Anyway, we are going in circles, I will leave it there.

His job to have figured this out with his child’s mother. Is one advent calendar travelling between their houses? One for each and SC has catching up to do on doors when at other parents?

@OneTiredMother i assume it will be the OP’s responsibility to co-ordinate door opening …..

And I’m waiting for someone to suggest the stepchild receives two advent calendars (or at least an incredibly expensive one) to compensate her for having separated parents!

He's his DD parent, he doesn't get to pass his duties onto his wife and blame her because he can't be bothered to get his act in gear. Far too many men leave everything to their wives, then they divorce and think the next women will pick up the slack.

He probably is useless but I’d have checked his child had one. I hate step kids being excluded.

Either od the childs parents could have checked and sorted this

Why is this for the OP to sort out, and not the child’s mother or father????

It's also entirely possible that the DSC has one at their mum's house anyway. Which is fine, it's the sort of thing that doesn't make sense to cart back and forth. So I'm assuming the DH was only stropping about his own household!

One of you needs to go get an advent calendar for your SC and you need to communicate with each other! I've got my DD one, her dad and his GF ( probs his GF as her dad is useless) has got her one, my DP has got her one (we don't live together), my DP's parents have got her one and my mum also got her one. We all make sure she has what she is is as family by both parents DP's

You all need to communicate so your DD doesnt get a crazy amount of advent calendars

She lives it, she's the only kid in both sets of families. I'm just glad she's accepted by both our new partners families and treated as their own. I can't imagine having a SC and my mum or me not getting them an advent calendar. I get in the OPs scenario the dad should have done but it doesn't change the fact there's a child that will have no advent calendar ay his dad's

For next year get one of those refillable wall hanging fabric ones and a big box of wrapped chocolates. Then sneakily put the correct number of chocolates in every evening after dinner so everyone in the house that evening gets a chocolate.

That’s a lot of wifework for OP, when her DH CBA to even nip to the Tesco garage

It’s not a zero parent-work idea but it is a permanent resolution to a source of conflict. And it would reduce future parent-work to OP’s DH nipping to the shop for a box of celebrations when they’ve forgotten about it on the 1st of December.

I’ve been a SM for 11 years, I have never bought my SC an advent calendar in all that time.

Mainly because I think they are just another way to commercialise Christmas (don’t even start me on Elf on the shelf). But then I was born in the 1970’s & they didn’t become a thing until the mid 1990’s.

But also because they have 2 capable parents able to buy them one if they want to.

Look up the NACHO method of step parenting - not my kids, not my problem. It will save your sanity.

@NorthernSpirit Are you saying Advent calendars didn't become a thing until 1990s? I was also born in the 1970s and we had advent calendars in the 1970s. Originally religious ones because we grew up in a Catholic house, then chocolate ones when my Dad bought them. You might not have had them but they were available.

At the end of the day there is a child here with no advent calendar at their Dad's house. My best friend is a step Mum and would never have let this happen. I think @utterlybuttered you set yourself up to have this issue because over the years sometimes you have bought the calendar. This inconsistency means he has relied on you at times instead of leaving him to sort it out.

You need to communicate more effectively. You also didn't inform him that your Mum had bought your DD an advent calendar. Did your Mum ask if her step-Grandaughter needed one? Or does she just buy for her biological grandchild?

You need to communicate more effectively.

I realise you might be singular or plural here, but DH could have solved this whole thing by asking before the evening of 30/11. Which I think is OP’s point - why is it on her to check the kids have ACs, to the extent of a nasty strop from her DH if they don’t?

How does this cut down work? Because every year (a) someone needs to buy the chocolates and (b) someone needs to fill the calendar.

Jesus but I hate the way some women on here will fall over themselves to find a way to excuse the father and blame the stepmother on here.

Why is that? Is it because their own kids have stepmothers do we think? And it’s a way of them venting their own spleen?

Not the point of the thread but we had advent calendars (with pictures behind doors rather than chocolates) in the 1970s.

I think the original idea began with Lutherans in the nineteenth century.

Back to the thread - while it's not OP's responsibility, it's a bit disappointing that at no point was there a conversation between the adults in the household - 'How are we sorting the kids' advent calendars?'

Same with the pictures in windows, in the 1980s

It's not just stepmothers though is it? There'll be loads of families on here where if the DW didn't buy the advent calendars (or at least ask DH to do it), it wouldn't happen. If the DH has form for not usually sorting these things out, then it would have been kind of OP to remind him for the sake of her DSC.