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Blended Families
J&A2008
member
making an effort / what's best for the kids
J&A2008
member
Has anyone else been on here long enough to remember the BM(s?) who posted about library cards and checking out library books?
One or two BMs posted with complaints about SMs over-stepping and signing their kids up for library cards. One BM was furious that a SM would think she could authorize a library card for HER kid, and one BM was annoyed with the inconvenience of having to return library books that were picked up during the child's time with the SM.
I'm kind of reminded of the library issue with the sports posts going on. In either case, what's best for the kid is being kind of pushed aside as secondary to whatever complaints the poster has about the other parent and their inconsideration in signing kids up for sports.
To the BMs complaining about the library cards/returning books, my question was, why weren't they taking thier kids to get library cards or check out books on their own?
To the SMs complaining about sports schedules, I'd ask if their DHs put any thought into signing kids up for activities or being pro-active with BM about making plans for sports, where/when/which they would do, and how it would work with visitation scheduling. If both sets of parents can be reasonable, it would make a much better conversation if DH can let BM know he is also interested in rounding out their child's develpment with sports/dance, etc. and also maintaining a reasonable visitation schedule. Opening up that dialogue might be a win/win rather than sitting back waiting for BM to take the reins then complaining about her choices.
The child has two parents. One is clearly making an effort to engage them in worthwhile activities. Where's the other parent in this? You can complain that BM made the decisions without calling DH, but why wasn't he calling her with ideas?
Stay at home mom to a house of boys: two amazing stepsons, 12 and 9, and our 4 year old.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: making an effort / what's best for the kids
Hey, I'm trying to understand your situation. There's no CO, right? So, why can't DH sign up SD for activities or coach her?
If the issue is making BM take her to the activities on her weekends, that might not happen. When BM in our situation had EOW, she was 4 hours away. The boys still played soccer here, but their coaches knew the schedule and that they would miss EOW.
But if I were your DH, you can be darn sure without a CO stopping me, I'd be coaching my kid in soccer. If you guys are pushing for more visitation or 50/50 custody or placement, that could be a huge plus on your DH's side, not to mention a great experience. It would be sad that he'd be coaching every week and SD would only be there EOW, but I think it would definitely be worth the effort.
If your DH is really up for coaching, I'd have him do it. It's probably too late for spring, but I'd consider it for the fall. Maybe he can still get on this season as a volunteer so he can get familiar with the organization and log a few hours in.
It's one thing to tell a judge that you'd like to coach your daughter's team, but it's a whole lot more to tell him you're already a youth soccer coach and you want her to play on your team but BM won't let her.
Secretly, I'd be hoping BM does do something stupid like deny visitation because she will NOT look good going into court when you can show documentation that she interfered with parenting time.
However, this swings both ways and if DH isn't taking her to soccer in BM's town and isn't taking her to soccer in your town, he looks like the bad guy. Which is why I would put her in a soccer program in your town EOW and see how BM handles it.
I did not read the other posts but if you are digging in your heels and saying no to prove your point you will look bad to a judge and to SD. How can you do 50/50 if you live 45 minutes away? It sucks but I would be surprised to see a judge agree to that.
And I think you have a lot of legit comments but please leave out the comment about having to do it with an 18mo, you chose to have another child, that should not affect BM or your commitments so it does not matter.
I'm the one who threw 50/50 out there. They should at least get 50/50 legal custody.
We want to do 50/50 because we are going to move down to the area SD lives in hopefully once my husband graduates in June or shortly thereafter.
No I won`t leave my comment out about my son because he deserves a consideration. Yes we chose to have a child but SD at that time lived 3 minutes from our home. Her mother chose to move her from our good school district to a crappy one to live with here boyfriend in the inner city. It is not our fault she is now 45 minutes away.
I`m just saying why should we be so willing to make the drive ( an hour drive each way because she chose to enroll her further from her home so SD could attend soccer with her sister`s kid) when BM is not willing to do the same so SD can play on a team her dad coaches. It gets old
When SD is with us, I just use my library card to sign out books for her. Neither her, nor DS are old enough for their own. I wouldn't send the books home with her because we are so far away, but if we did live in the same town, I would be fine with bringing her library books back if it was our weekend. We're most likely going to be there for story/craft time anyway... I really don't see what the big deal is.
I do understand some of the sport issues that people have, even though we don't have those issues ourselves.
ETA: cole2144, your BM sounds like a real biatch. I feel for you. Ours is now happily on meds, so has mellowed A LOT. Yay
I'm sorry but this argument burns me to no end. When you are in a blended family, EVERYONE in it (BM,SM,DH, XH,SC, BC) is affected in some way or another. We all make sacrifices or get put out at some level, period. No one is exempt.
Second, just because you marry a person with children doesn't mean you give up all rights to having children of your own or if you do have children, they are automatically second class. When bio families have more than one child, they dont say, well Timmy you were born 2nd or 3rd so you take a back seat the oldest cause they came first. That's a bunch of bull. When you have more than one child, at some point all the children will make sacrifices here and there in their life for their siblings.
At the end of the day, we (our blended family) are family and no one outside of it(BM, extended family, friends) will ever dictate our schedule, our house rules, how many children DH & I decide to have or what we do during our time with the kids. We do make sacrifices for all the kids to do activities, etc..but if we find that anything conflicts with said above, we have no problem saying no and no problem reminding BM she doesn't run our schedule. All the kids have been yanked from activities, parties for one of their siblings at some point and they SURVIVED!
On a side note. I have 4 yr old twins, a 2 yr old and pregnant and going to SS's soccer games (he's on a traveling team) is sometimes a nightmare! Sometimes we just dont make it cause it's so hard entertaining all of them and actually pay attention to the game. I feel you on that one!
I think in general you're right J&A but none of the little issues are just surface issues. If my MIL was thirty minutes late dropping SS off from a weekend visit I would have no problem with it. When Bm does it because of past history I wonder: did she flee the state, is SS in danger, does she have no respect for our schedules, why can't she ever ever ever be on a schedule for the sake of SS
I totally get the sports issues. For some bms its NOT about what's best for the child or they would sit down with Bf and work out a plan in which both parties could be sure to have the convenience and time to get the child to as many practices as possible. That would be what's best for the children.
Instead the Bm's are sticking a proverbially boot up the NCP's @ss and saying "this is what works for me, make it work for you." as long as I live Bm will NEVER dictate my schedule in such a way. No I would not be cool with spending 4 hours at a soccer practice an hour away. Not happening.
In our case we just sign SS up for activities that only fall on our day. We ALWAYS have SS on Tuesday and Thursday nights so he only gets to play whatever rec sports are being offered Tuesday nights. Bm can come if she wants- she never does. But we know he will always get there on time and in uniform when we are responsible for him. The week she had him for school break he obviously didn't make it at all, but that's all we expect out of Bm these days
This, if BM have come to my husband and said SD really wants to play soccer or go to dance camp, how can we make this work? My husband would have been more than willing to come up with suggestions but that would never happen. All I`m saying is it should be a 2 sided conversation.
since this post is clearly off of my sports related post (sorry, I went to bed, I'm exhausted and felt like I was running around in circles with you ladies)
I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate all your opinions and I'm trying to look at the other side of the coin and do whats best for SD.
We did SD's soccer in the fall, we did not consent to it or agree to it but we carted here there every weekend we had her. Afterwards DH told BM that he needed to seriously think about doing it again in the spring, it took a toll on us all, and we already have limited time with SD. We had no idea that sign ups for spring soccer were in feb. BM never brought it up to us again except to tell us in feb that she already signed SD up.
Then she gave us 3 days notice that the first practice is this weekend which is our weekend with SD. yes DH already had plans. Yes he works nights, when he brings SD to soccer straight from work he's up from 10pm-atleast noon the next day straight out, thats alot. When SD doesn't have soccer he naps as soon as he gets home (which half the time SD is still sleeping, he naps when DS naps, so it gives me and SD time together (which we need) and he goes to bed when SD goes to bed so he can sleep before work. he makes sleeping sacrifices so he can spend as much time as possible with SD.
At this point I'm done defending myself and SD. I think what BM did was wrong. I'm extremely frustrated with the entire situation, and if I was BM would have approached things much differently, but thats because I'm on the other side of the fence. We will be bringing SD to soccer as much as we can with things we already have planned (as I said in one post last night, my parents live 3 hours away, on a lake with a beach jet skis and a boat, we don't get to go up there when SD has soccer because of the travel time, SD has told us before she would rather miss soccer and go up to the lake)
My post was merely biitching (yep) about the frustrations I'm going through. BM has made the past 6 months HELL for us. I'm stressing out far more than I should for being pregnant and needed to vent to someone. Thankfully a few of you understood where I was coming from and I thank you for your kind words and support, and again, those that didn't thank you for trying to help me see both sides of things.
I am a BM, and I discuss extracurricular activities in advance with exh. He will never agree to take dc to any of them during his parenting time, no exceptions (he moved 45 min away). It hurts my heart that dc can never join a team with classmates because of what I see as exh's selfishness. I get that it would be an inconvenience to exh, but IMO dc should be allowed to take extracurriculars with friends!
So I am just saying that the other perspective is that these BMs may be signing up their kids because they kids want to do these things with the classmates and friends they see in school every day. They want them to have as normal a childhood as possible. I know that clearing it with their BFs in advance would have been the right thing to do (and it is what I do), but maybe they knew that BF would say no, so they just went ahead and did it because they felt it was in the best interest of their child. Not the right thing to do, but I see their perspective for sure.
I don't know the details of each of your situations, but just wanted you to see the other side of the coin. To the poster with that beautiful wedding photo in your sig, your BM does sound vindictive. If I were you I would not bring your sc to soccer and if the BM withholds visitation, go after her for contempt, or else she will just keep on playing this power game.
Sorry, I did not remember the backstory. The only reason is for SD, it sucks her Mom did that. And in the CO you need to make sure there is a clause over BM not moving more than X distance or you get primary custody.
This!
wow! issues over library cards? huh. i signed our girls up for theirs, never thought about it otherwise... however, we live in a totally different county and needed a seperate card to check out and use the computers. we also live 45 minutes away from where BM lives, it's frustrating to be signed up for their cities sports and not our cities --- since the girls go to school in BM's city and not ours, i wanted SDs to make friends here in our town (we have every thurs-sund) through activities and sports... instead we're in the car all weekend AND we didn't have the funds to place girls in sports here...
but, we got over it. it's about the kids. and i agree - my DH (god bless him, but honestly speaking) doesn't think about things like that for his girls. BM does have to push him to get the girls into activities and sports... otherwise he'd have them at home intheir pj's all day just chillin'. i think she's right. but dialogue is the best possible conclusion between parents... talk it out.
J&A I totally agree with you.
I recall several years ago when my SS was being bullied at school, I took it upon myself to put him in boxing. (This is when we had SS living with us - BM was overseas and couldn't have cared less.) It did wonders for his self esteem and he was no longer afraid of defending himself.
I posted it on here and a lot of women told me I was overbearing. I did it because both DH and BM didn't think to round out their kids development.
SD has taken dance class all year long. My husband does want her involved in activities but feels it should be a joint decision and if he wants her to do something up here that should be ok too.
Thanks for the comment about my picture! Yeah BM is really vindicative and it sucks because she hurts SD, my husband in the process. I have always told my husband that I realize SD has a mother and I would never disrespect her role and I don`t see why as adults we can not all get along or at the very least put our differences aside to do what is best for SD. My husband has tried but BM is not willing, she goes so far as to tell my husband "I wish I never told you I was pregnant." Since we do not have a CO I don`t really think we have much choice other than to take SD to soccer or BM will withold visitation with no consequences (not that we would not do our best to get her there anyway). It really meant alot to my husband to do the soccer thing with SD but BM won`t allow it, it`s more important that SD be involved with her cousin`s activites, she even went so far as to say we could not take SD for Halloween to trick or treat with our son because she wanted her to go with SD`s cousin. Yeah so that`s a little peek into our life. When we go to court we will address this situation.
I responded (a lot) to Holly's post and just wanted her to see all angles, or at least attempt to see different sides. I'm the BM and was a SM and I would put money on my XH telling his current g/f that I'm a money hungry, selfish, crazy woman who is making his life hell. This is far from the truth...but I actually believed him when he said it about his first ex-wife. I felt like you did about the BM of my SKids but the truth is, I was going off of his version of events, which, as it turns out, was not the whole truth.
And FWIW, I do make some decisions for my DS without consulting XH, but the major decisions we talk about....via email.
I can`t wait to have a CO so my DH`s rights are protected and so BM can`t just do whatever she wants.
On a side note I don`t judge BM off of what I have heard about her (ok not just off of what I have heard) I judge her off of her behavior since I have met her.
this EXACTLY. I have read the text messages/ e-mails between BM and DH, When she throws her temper tantrums I can hear her on the phone from across the room. She has even called me up and flipped a nutty on me. THESE are the things I judge, not some askew picture of her that DH has painted.
My SS is in baseball spring, summer,and fall. My DH brings him to all of his games when he's with us and goes to all of his games when he isn't with us. It's a 45 minute drive each way. My SS loves baseball. My H has never complained about any of it.
I see so many people complain on this board about things that should be such non issues. I think sometimes some of teh posters here forget it's about the kids and not about them.
I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the family is priority, however, when the family spills over into multiple houses, it's unrealistic to think that everyone will always agree on what is "in the best interest". What I might feel is in the best interest of my family (me, DS, DD) might not be the same thing XH feels is in the best interest of his (XH, g/f, his kids, her kids and DS). In a perfect world communication is free flowing and decisions are made as a unified front, but I would argue that even in "intact" families, one parent can make decisions for the whole, without any consultation of the other parent.
I think this is a good point. I think since we are in blended families, we are often oversensitive to perceived slights by the other parent, where we definitely might not be if we were in an intact family.
On a similar note, I know that in my situation, with a dc 8 and a new baby on the way, I often get troubled by thoughts of the two children I will have and how I will keep things 'fair' between them. I fluctuate between worry that dc 8 will have a better situation, and that the new baby will have a better situation. I have to remind myself that if we were all in the same, 'non-blended' family, that I would not have these thoughts at all... that each child will have a different life experience and that does not mean it is more or less fair to either child, it's just the facts. For example, what if a SD was actually a birth daughter and had these early soccer games... I have a feeling that the younger children would be at the games without a second thought. But now since we are in blended families we put so much extra thought into what is 'fair' and what is 'right'- whereas if we were in 'normal' families we would do a lot of this stuff without a second thought!
I know I am guilty of this too, for sure.
Ummm, who said that? I mean agree among YOUR family. Those that live under your roof. I dont expect BM to agree with 100% of what we do in our home or the decisions we make but you can bet DH & I and ALL our kids will be in agreement. That's where the sacrifice comes in. We cant control what the kids do at her house and their decisions and vice versa.
I do get that, but I guess I think of my family as having extensions into my XH's family, if you will. Blending families makes for fuzzier lines of what family is, in my opinion. My DS's family is all of us - our house and XH's.
I also totally get having no control over what happens in the other house and have had more than my share of biting my tongue moments in co-parenting, but in the end as long as DS is healthy and safe, I'm okay with it.
This sports/activities debate goes both ways for me.
1) BM in our situation moved 1 hr away from us, we used to live 1/2 a mile away.
2) Gas is nearly $4/gallon right now and it takes $60+ to fill up my tank.
3) We financially cannot AFFORD to go pick the kids up on a friday night, drive back to our place, turn around on saturday to drive them back out there for an activity and then drive back to our place and then turn around on Sunday to drive them back home. That's just insane. 2 hours per day of driving, 3 days in a row. Not happening, we have the kids every weekend, so that's6 hours of driving EVERY weekend if they have an activity on a weekend day. We're talking a tank of gas JUST for the weekend (so $60 every weekend, which adds up to $240/month just driving the kids to their activities, not including our actual gas to and from work.)
On the other hand: When there ARE special things going on (like, SD had a "Daddy Daughter Dance" going on for Valentine's day, on a Saturday evening), we do make special arrangements to do those things and we suck it up and do all that driving.
all that being said, drive them BM Signs the kids up for stuff and let's the coaches/activity leaders know that SD and SS may miss some weekend events, and that we will try to get them to those events if we can.
We also have signed the kids up for stuff (though I usually look for activities that are more in the "middle" locations and BM and i coordinate each of us driving half way).
And now the kids are older and can decide which things they want to do and they have actually picked the activities that are in the "middle" (SD picked a dance class at a studio that is 30 minutes from my house and 30 mins from BM's house. SS is going to do Karate at a gym in that same town). Our arrangement is that BM will drive 1/2 way and we will drive 1/2 way (whoever has the kids will obviously bring them) and we will all be there to support the kids.
Bunnyfungo- your post is what makes me scratch my head about this board. The Bms in these situations are clearly adults capable of adult decisions to make children. Yet in a lot of cases they do not act like adults when it comes to having a civil, positive relationship for the sake of their children.
On any other board people would agree adults need to be accountable for negative behavior. On this board people play devils advocate to death and defend actions which are irresponsible at the least (I agree there are two sides)
We are not talking about ALL birthmoms. There are many people who do not come to this board because they have civil, rational people they are coparenting with. I'm guessing the people who post the most do not and they come here for support not lectures and devils advocacy
This is not just my gripe with this board but I guess society in general sees a single mom an evil Birthfather who "moved on to a new family" and suddenly we are making all these weird excuses for the bmoms to completely alienate the fathers and put the kids in the middle of power struggles.
I promise if the stepmoms in these situations just appeased the bmoms their whole lives they would feel nothing but resentment and their relationships with the children involved would suffer. For my and my fanily's mental health when Bm does something manipulative I call her out on it and make her accountable. It's NOT ok to put children and the middle and it's NOT ok to act like you're the only parent whose opinion matters. End of story.
ALL of this!
sure, we notice the slightest flaws with BM that we might not if it wasn't a blended family. but when it comes down to it, she signed SD up for something that took place on weekends. We have SD EOWE. She did not ask for our consent in doing this, and then told us we HAVE to bring her. BM is not a single mom, she is remarried and flaunts that her new hubby has enough money for her to be a SAHM, she is doing fine on her own. (and FWIW, SHE initiated the divorce with DH, then immediately moved out of their house and into an apt with her BF, while he stayed single for almost 2 yrs) SHE made a decision that affected every single member of BOTH of our families when signing SD up for her sport, without even bothering to address it with DH. is BM wrong in this case? abso-freaking-lutely. So now what do we do? bend over and take it up the tailpipe from BM and bring SD to soccer because its the "right" thing to do. that just FURTHER shows BM that she can do whatever the eff she wants and we will go along with it, because WE are the bigger people and care more about SD than about making a point.
All of this!
absolutely there are great BM's out there. In general I think the BM's on this board are awesome, just the fact that they are on this board asking for opinions shows that they are looking at the whole picture and the well being for their child.
the SM's that are on this board, in general, have issues with BM's and are trying to figure out how to cope with them. That makes them great step moms for going that additional step to actively problem solve and do whats best in the situations.
there is definitely 2 sides to every story, and I DO try to put myself in BM's position to try to figure out what she was thinking, and half the time I have no idea what she was thinking or the only thing I can think that she could possibly have been thinking was *how can I piss off XH today* (wow that was a mouthful)
thats my 2 cents on why BM's are bashed so much on this board, the ones that are here are doing a great job, the SM's are here because they have huge issues and are looking for help.
The reason that people play devils advocate on this board is that a lot of posters (bio and step alike) either completely lack perspective or are making no effort to see things from the other parents point of view.
Once XH and I separated, we weren't on the same side anymore. Sure, theoretically, we're all on DS's side, but that's just not the reality. If we agreed on the intricacies of parenting, we might still be married. So we're not on the same side, and we both have to advocate for what we think is best for DS and for our nuclear families.
So, yes, I will bend over backwards working with XH to support his relationship with DS unless and until it interferes with DS's happiness, my relationship with him, and my family life.
This isn't really applicable to us since XH is so long distance, but if I wanted to enroll DS in sports, I would. And if he wanted to play with his friends, and that caused XH some inconvenience, I wouldn't really care. I think that his enjoyment and learning to work as a team with his friend trumps XH having to drive an hour or whatever. As far as I'm concerned, it's up to him to decide what he's going to do. He can decide whether he'll suck it up and be inconvenienced, or whether he'll refuse to take DS, or whether he'll enroll him in something closer to him on his weekends. He has to do what he thinks is best, too, whether it upsets me or not.
And if XH got upset because I was dictating how he spends his time, then he's wrong. Because I can't dictate anything about it. Even if I tell him he "has" to take him to a sport, he doesn't. Unless it's court ordered (in which case, the courts would make him pay--not me!), he doesn't have to do anything.
So that's why I preach devil's advocacy and looking at something from another perspective. There are crazy vindictive people out there, and some of us deal with them in our BFs. But I know that I have never once done anything for the sole purpose of being a pain in the azz. It may have appeared that way to XH, and he's accused me of being unreasonable in the past. But that's just not the case.
ITA! I can say the simplest things to my exh and he flies off the handle and calls me vindictive, mean, horrible, evil, trying to alienate him from dc, etc. So he sees me as badly as I am sure some of the SMs on this board see their BMs. So I think the addition of our perspective is good, because I believe that most people truly do act in the best interest of their child. And it's a balancing act of everyone else's needs from there.
Because we can not agree on many things, I do make decisions in my child's best interest. I always attempt to come to an agreement, and then when we do not, I have to make a decision. He hates and reviles me me for that. I don't care. Let him hate me- the decisions are in dc's best interest, and they do not violate the court order. If he disagrees that strongly, he can take me to court and let the courts decide. To me, my child's well being comes above his desires.
I have really been enjoying the dialogue on this thread so thanks to everyone.
All of this. Do you think your ex & mine are related?