Horse riding dividing family

[Fatmamslim]

Not sure I know what I'm asking here..

But how do you cope if you have two children, one horse mad (13) and the other hates it?

We own a pony. Child is now competing and wants to spend every second of her life at the yard.

Younger sibling hates it. (8)

Weekends are spent divided as a family as I am at yard and dad is with younger child.

I work an intense job with unsociable hours which is the only reason we can afford said pony DH feels he never see's me and younger child starting to become resentful and says things like "great so another day I don't see you because of x's hobby" as we head out for yet more jobs/yard work/day of competing whatever.

I will admit I'm struggling with the balance. Daily I think about selling him and putting her back in a riding school but once a week but then I watch the joy in her face as she goes clear or gallops across the fields and know it would destroy her now. It is her life.

I feel pulled in all directions and I don't know how to fix it.

But yes of course I had times of having to cart siblings along to ballet class. But the next day ballet dd would be standing at tiny kickers watching toddler footie or at a competition watching her brother do karate. This is more like if I blankly said to my younger two ‘well you don’t have any interesting hobbies. If you want to spend time together come to ballet where we are every day and sit quietly on the bench while I watch your sister dance.’

At 13 she may not be old enough to be at the stables unsupervised but she could be there with non-horsey Dad so you can spend some time with younger sibling.

I would suggest putting some money into some livery services soo you don't have to go to the stables twice a day every day and can have some family outings instead.

The other consideration would be a sharer. Getting another teenager or small to do a couple of days a week would give you time off for the family, and could contribute to costs too.

Also think about whether DH and younger sibling can come to some activities and have fun or whether there are things that they could do together. A fun family man v horse race perhaps? Or just make coming to spectate at shows a fun family event so taking a great picnic, buying cheesy chips at the burger van, going through the drive thru with the horsebox on the way home etc. Maybe hooking up with another family with a similar age child for extra fun.

OP you are looking for a magic option where your get to continue doing what you are doing and your ds just gets over it and everyone is happy.

That doesn't exist.

For the most part, the fact that the hobby you share with your dd is horses is not relevant. Plenty of parents overcomit to various hobbies for their children that demand ridiculous amounts of time.

You've taken on an activity with your dd that takes up more time than you actually have. You're using up time that should be spent with your ds to make up the shortfall.

The fact you suggest you would spend more time with him if he had some serious hobbies is just your way of legitimising the fact that you know he is getting the short end of the stick.

He doesn't need to fit into your idea of 'worthwhile hobbies' to be worthy of attention.

Pp have made suggestions on how you could cut back time or involvement. Maybe your dh could take your dd sometimes but as someone who isn't overly keen on horses and is allergic, I wouldn't be best pleased to have to use up my time to balance out the fact that you'd over extended yourself.

Another idea, move pony to be a livery at a riding school where there is supervision and other kids so you can drop DD off and leave her (they often have paid helpers from 14 too). Check the rules before you move though they do vary.

You could also negotiate a day or two of working livery to reduce the cost and give you a day off.

This is posted in the Tack Room, not AIBU.

And is 'move to a livery yard where they allow lots of young teens unsupervised' the new 'cancel the cheque'?!

Sometimes I genuinely wonder if being on mumsnet a lot rewires people's brain chemistry.

At the moment, the DS resents the amount of time being spent on the pony. However, selling the pony will only cause massive resentment on the part of the dd…! So that’s really not a solution if you actually want to preserve a sibling relationship here.

Thus - yard move to one either where the dd can be left a bit more to her own devices, or one with livery options so someone else picks up some of the care, possibly a sharer, and fewer competitions seems like a good compromise. The op must have transport for competitions so maybe rather than another competitions, they could all go on some family trips to country parks or the beach as well, where there’s hacking but also things like biking trails or a coffee shop so everyone gets to do something fun (if the DS would like this). As well as some time doing what he likes, such as watching a film together or getting a big Lego set to build as a family.

This is seriously boiling my piss. The answer for so many PP seems to be to dump DD to be the responsibility of a riding school owner/livery yard owner!
As I have previously posted, most riding schools/livery yards don't allow under 16s to be left without adult supervision due to their insurance. Quite frankly any yard that does allow under 16s to be unsupervised, I personally wouldn't touch with a bargepole!!!!
Just because 30 years ago we were allowed to run wild at yards at 13, doesn't mean that it is allowed nowadays.

Well there obviously are yards where unaccompanied teens are allowed as there are posters on here that use them .

Can't be approved yards or yards with proper insurance in place then because either of those require under 16s to be supervised

The rage is certainly reminding me of why I no longer work in the horse world, anyway - so many furious people (who all wanted to spend their time on the phone yelling at me…!). But I digress.

The other thing you could consider op is your routines with the pony. Are you over-complicating matters? You can do basic checks and care fairly quickly and have a perfectly happy pony so long as you’re at the right yard (enough turnout space etc) but it is easy to get sucked into lots of complicated feeding, rugging routines etc and the like which actually many ponies just don’t need. Can you slim things down so you can be done and home more quickly and have more time as a family?

@XelaM do you stay with your daughter all the time or is your yard not properly insured

Tbh if I had a resentful dh and a son that only wanted to do lego I'd be at the yard every spare minute.

Can you hire someone to supervise her at the yard? Maybe one of the older teens/ young adults there? A babysitter essentially, though don't call it that obviously. I know you say it's an older crowd but maybe some of the regulars there will have grown-up/student children who want to earn some extra money.

In your situation, I would be aiming for a 4 way split of your non-working time between your DD, your DS, family time and then time to do something for you or with your DH apart from the kids. If your DD is taking three quarters of your non-working time, then that's a problem and you need to think about how you can reorganise things to improve the balance. If you can throw money at the problem, getting someone else to supervise DD might help.

No wonder horsey people have such a bad reputation!

I quite agree a yard allowing under 16s unaccompanied is a major red flag.

The only yards likely to allow under sixteens without a parent are likely to be riding schools with their own supervision via helper schemes or pony club centres.

I was on a yard where there was a riding school and pony club centre which enabled children to be there all day without a parent but they were supervised by the staff. This was an ABRS approved school.

Where I am now children are required to be accompanied but we had one family very similar to the OP and the daughter would sometimes come with non-horsey Dad while Mum did stuff with the non-horsey younger sibling. Dad would walk the dog up the track to the field while she caught in and would then sit in the car or outside depending on the weather while she did the jobs. If they were in a rush he might fill water buckets/haynets or sweep but he never handled the horse. No reason OP couldn't do the same occasionally.

Do they? Not in my world. Luckily we are a big happy family that all compromise where we can but everyone understands that horses are living beings that need time and effort to look after and that animals needs come first. I've managed to raise four very happy, stable dcs and have a pretty happy non horsey dh also. It can be done without drama and hand wringing.

Do they? Not in my world.

When it comes to horses taking precedence above all else, yes.

Horses are living beings but not everyone is interested in them - comments like "well if my son was resentful of them and into Lego I'd spend all my time at the yard" are awful imo.

We have some similar issues in that the DC are very different and have completely different likes and interests.
My interests are more closely intertwined with DDs whilst DWs are more so with DSs so we do have more time with the corresponding child. However, we also set time for us both to spend one to one time with the other child. We also both spend a weekend away a year with each child separately doing what they want to do.
In terms of family time - there are few things that can work for both. So this week, half term, we have one family day out and then the rest is more 1:1 or chill time. This weekend, DW is taking DS to London; DD’s idea of hell. But she’ll go a a country show or horse show. So we are flexible and make sure we both prioritise 1:1 with both.

Incidentally, both children are ND and can’t manage team sports, or too much instruction. Bouldering (climbing ) works well (DD and I do this together), plus cycling, beach scrambling, woodland walks and so on. Drop and run activities - well they’ve never lasted for either child! Good luck.

Well I was partly joking. And animals do need to come first if you own them. They rely on humans to look after them, probably even more so than an 8 year old child.

Do you really feel like that? If your child wasn’t into horses and liked something different you’d not want to spend any time at all with them? That’s horrible.

It sounds like you’re very into horses to the exclusion of any form of compromise. It’s lucky that your family are all supportive of that and enjoy it too.

But I guess I just disagree because I would not think that a pony comes first over my own autistic 8 year old child just because they like something I find boring.

Unless you have someone else to feed and water your pony, pick out its feet and bring it in and out if necessary then yes, I'm afraid looking after any animal comes first.

While you’ve been opting out of spending time with your son, have you at least put the same money you’ve spent on your daughters hobby into savings for him?

Oh fgs

I've heard it all now.

Eh? OP doesn’t spend time with her other kid, throwing all her time and money at the daughter. Explain what’s ‘FGS’ about what I asked? I don’t get it.