I don’t want to do another holiday with DSS

[Penelopevoncleef]

Simple as what the title says. Whether I get bull dozed for this or not but I’m at the end of my tether

quick background, me & dh share two toddlers age 3 & 2 and he has DSS age 9 who is with us EOW. We love our holidays abroad and work very hard to save up for them. DSS has always been on every holiday with us and never missed school as we make sure it’s not term time when we book. In all the years I’ve known him, he has never once been abroad with his mum or even anywhere in the UK. So all his holidays abroad and UK have been with us.

so the last couple of years our holidays have been tricky with DSS and to be honest I find him ungrateful. Last year over the Christmas holidays we were very kindly treated to Disneyland Paris off my parents who’d had a pay out. It was what they wanted to spend the money on and they booked and paid for the whole thing, including our spends (we provided the children’s spends for things like toys/ keepsakes).
anyway DSS behaviour was diabolical, the first kick off was when we arrived at our hotel to find my parents had booked us to stay at the Cheyenne and not the marvel hotel. I just want to add he hasn’t shown interest in Spider-Man for 2 years now. They booked the Cheyenne because it was all they could afford given the amount of people they were paying for, not the theming. I felt really sad for my parents for this. Then following that it was 3 days of complaining and moaning about being bored, wanting to go on all the big rides but there were huge queues and didn’t want to wait, constantly demanding food and drinks. Just blatantly ungrateful. So after day 1 I had to say to dh, for all our sake, that we would separate and I would go off and do all the ‘baby stuff’ with the little ones so DSS wasn’t bored. We managed to salvage the trip and my toddlers loved it, but they kept asking where daddy was and dh was upset he missed them meeting Woody and going on the rides with them. In those circumstances I didn’t know what to do for best, I didn’t want the trip to be ruined and I wanted everyone to enjoy it as much as possible. My toddlers can’t go on the big rides and DSS hasn’t got the patience or tolerance for jointing in the smaller rides or meeting characters and watching parades.

anyway this brings me to our Easter holiday - this year we went to Tenerife and honestly I was dreading it. And I wasn’t wrong to feel like that. I basically spent 10 days with my toddlers by myself - one of which still had a nap so I had to co ordinate that too whilst still entertaining the older one in the baby pool. DSS was in a constant sulk, it was too hot, air con was too cold, food wasn’t nice, pool was boring, Wi-Fi wasn’t good enough, wanted to sit in the hotel room a lot, in the end it honestly wasn’t work the sulking or the kick off when trying to be strict with him. dh ended up following him around and I was with our toddler on my own which was bloody hard work. Also he was very unkind to my 3 year old who was ‘getting on his nerves’ and flung all of his toy fish into the pool when he was playing at the side.

im honestly don’t work working really hard and paying half towards these holidays and not enjoying it. I don’t think I’m selfish in feeling like that. My dh has said he now feels the same and starting to resent DSS coming away with us. He feels like he never gets to spend time with his other children. We just feel it’s not right to take our other two children away and leave him at home with his mum who never has and probably never will take him anywhere.

has anyone else ever been in this situation? What did you do?

I feel very sorry for this 9 year old child.

It’s not OP’s responsibility to parent him. She is a step parent.

He isn’t entitled to the holidays. He has ruined enough of them that he now doesn’t get to go.

Ouch! What a harsh approach and totally unnecessary against a child.

I do too because I have seen my DD go through it. Now her dad takes her for a meal alone once a week. I literally had to read him the riot act about how unfair these situations were for her. He sent her to her room in the summer holidays last year bevause she refused to go to soft play!! She is walking home from school on her own why on earth would a child that age want to go to soft play.

You are unreasonable to expect a 9 yr old to be grateful to his parent for taking him on holidays.

I think ultimately this is on your husband, he choose to have more children without working out how to manage his son.
It also seems that your DSS doesn't spend enough time with his dad's new family to have a relationship with the little ones and be able play with them, that would be normal if they were all one family.

OP hasn't got back and I think a lot of us think it's relevant to know what the response is to the behaviours, how his behaviour is outside of holidays and in general and how good dh is with boundaries and generally parenting. Does he see him regularly during the week even though he doesn't stay, is he part of his life or someone he sees EOW? I too feel sorry for him.

He is 9, not 3. He has had a chance to correct his behaviour and hasn’t. Time for OP to look out for her children.

Gosh, some parents lose all sense of normalcy or appropriateness when they have a new relationship/ kids.

what would an older child do at soft play? It’s so ridiculous and then they use it as an excuse to opt out of actively including their child in the new set up.

This is why I never want my kids to be in any sort of blended family set up. Fundamentally, his behaviour is communicating that he doesn’t feel wanted or loved. It’s quite obvious really, you both looking down lovingly at your two biological children and he knows that you both don’t really want him there so fuck it let’s kick off about wanting to stay in the Marvel hotel or because it’s too hot.
This could be easily solved by your DH stepping up and going on holiday with his son on his own. I mean you’ve created this situation by teaching him that if he kicks off, he gets 1:1 dad time. So let him have that.
He sounds like a child who has been through a lot and has pretty low self esteem. He’s also 9! It’s a tricky age.
Think about what his needs are communicating. His wanting to go back to the hotel room could be because he feels safe there. His tablet or the TV could be the one containing factor in what otherwise feels like gatecrashing some other family’s summer holiday.

We don’t know what, if any, effort has been made to parent.

So you just throw the 9 year old to the side rather than parent? And we wonder why blended families don’t tend to work - it’s frequently the behaviour of selfish parents. I’ll repeat - he is 9 - a child!

So he kicks off and the end result is 1-2-1 time with his dad. Winner for him!

Again, the responsibility isn’t on OP.

She has been paying for holidays for him to be a spoilt brat. The consequences of that, for him, has been unadulterated 1-1 times with his dad and doing whatever he wants. If he wants to be spoilt, he should face real consequences.

And it is the adults that have facilitated that. So rather than parent they are going to go nuclear with the consequences which will suit the OP. She no longer has to have the child in her way.

Exactly right. She is not his parent. His poor behaviour has been rewarded for long enough. What happens when he’s not there is, frankly, none of his business. If he gets 1-1 holidays without his dad, it’s just reinforcing the poor behaviour.

Exactly she is developing into a young a teen her body is changing. She doesn’t want to go swimming either which I totally understand but he thought she was just being a brat. His loss though bevause she won’t sleep over like she used she wants to be with me because I do age appropriate things with her. I take her hmv she loves music and sometimes feel like her dad barely even knows her and she has picked up on that.

i have stayed single and kept her as my main priority so she will be fine one present parent is enough.

I had a big age gap with my full siblings and hated having to spend all day doing baby stuff because my younger sibling couldn’t do the older stuff - and that was a full sibling situation. Of course you had to split up at Disney - a 9 year old was never going to want to do the baby rides all day. You chose to have this age gap, you can’t just leave the older one out.

Does your step son go on holiday with his mum? If he does then start booking some holidays off peak so just you, DH and toddlers.

You are not thinking about this AT ALL from the 9 year olds perspective.

he has one parent and two half siblings who are essentially visitors in his life.

EOW is no where near enough, he’s basically an absent parent.

a 9yr old is not able yet to see any one else’s viewpoint. All he sees is a family, doing stuff geared to the little ones, which he is a gooseberry for

his behaviour is a result of yours, but more your husbands actions.

it is utterly abhorrent parenting - of his father - to ‘not want to do holidays any more with him’ when his behaviour is a result of his own shit parenting.

solution to this is his father spends far more time with his child, 121, than the pitiful amount he’s done to date

It looks like DH needs to spend more time with all his children so go away without das but also DH take him away just the two of them? I bet dad would love some special time with his dad.

So when you choose to have a family with someone who is already a parent you have no responsibility to be kind and include the children already in the family? No. As long as your new shiny family is protected - that is all that matters. A child being collateral damage is fine.

It is the dad who needs to step up but the OP needs to be supportive. Not have what is basically an adult tantrum because a child is getting in her way of what she wants.

But that’s not what’s happening, is it? The child’s a brat. So he faces the consequences of that.

And it seems this is his ONLY option if he wants to spend some time with his father! Totally unsurprising behaviour.

Is he? Or is he a typical 9 year old being forced to do things that suit his much younger half siblings and having piss poor parenting? How he is behaving is a reflection of the parenting he is receiving I suspect.

He’s spoilt. He is definitely not too old to meet characters etc. he needs a hard dose of reality.

Exactly I thought my child was being a brat but when I recognised the reality of situation I pulled her back from it and didn’t force her to go when she did not want to. Guess what she is the happiest most easy going child again.