Is this a fake letter? I hope this is a fake letter! It almost has to be - right?

[conuly]

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m a stepmom in a blended family. My husband has a 5-year-old son, “Corey,” from his first marriage, and together we have a 5-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. We used to have Corey on Sunday afternoons, but his mom took a new job when he started kindergarten and pushed for custody changes. Parenting two kids all week is exhausting, and now we have Corey Friday through Sunday every week too. Corey has a lot of trouble every time he switches over from his mom’s house to ours, and tattles that his stepsister “isn’t following the rules”—but it’s because his mom is a helicopter parent, while our house is about independence-building. He’s clingy and needs help with everything, and the weekend is miserable for everyone.

Corey’s aunt takes him after school four days a week, but not on Fridays. This means we have to arrange once-a-week afterschool care for him, which is expensive and inconvenient, and I usually end up having to be the one who leaves work early for pickup because that care ends at 4:45 p.m. I’m exhausted by this and the full weekend of managing our two kids plus Corey that comes afterward, including driving him to activities, like soccer games, that his mom is happy to sign him up for and then leave to us to deal with. I need Corey’s aunt, at the very least, to take him on Fridays to make it fair, but she refuses because she blames me for her sister’s divorce. When I asked my husband to talk to his ex and her sister about making the childcare arrangement fairer, he said he’d do it but then made excuses and never did. I know the divorce was unfriendly, but it’s been nearly five years and I’m tired of dealing with this. Corey would benefit from more predictability with his aunt, I know. I also think if he wasn’t scheduled for weekend activities he’d become more independent. I can’t get any support for any of this! How do I get my calm weekends back?

—Overworked Stepmom

Dear Stepmom,

I am trying, really trying, to be sympathetic. But it’s hard for me to cheer you on, particularly since that cheerleading would come at Corey’s expense.

This is a 5-year-old whose father left him and his mother. For Corey’s entire life, his dad has had another family, including children he seems to be more devoted to; Corey “gets to” spend limited time with his dad—one afternoon a week, for years!—and his dad’s second wife makes it very clear that having him around more than those few hours once a week is a burden. Why wouldn’t he act out?

When you married your husband, you became a stepmother, however reluctantly. Your having two kids with Corey’s dad doesn’t negate his—or your—responsibility for his other child. What did you think or hope would happen to Corey?

A change in custody arrangements because Corey’s mom has a new job could have been a boon for this child: whole weekends with his other parent, whom he saw so little of before. And this could have been an opportunity for you to step up and be a real stepmom—to really get to know him, to love him, to include him in the full life of the family you’ve made with his dad. Instead, you’re focused on the inconvenience and expense of finding childcare for him on the one weekday afternoon his aunt can’t (or maybe even just won’t—but it isn’t her responsibility, it’s his parents’—as in all three of his parents) and the misery of having to look after all three kids on weekends. You even begrudge the poor kid any scheduled weekend activities, because getting him to them is another inconvenience to you.

Of course Corey is “clingy.” Of course these transitions are hard for him. I’m relieved your husband didn’t do as you asked. (Though he is not at all blameless in this situation.) He should have said no when you proposed he tell his ex-wife and ex-sister-in-law they weren’t being “fair” about parenting duties, instead of pretending to agree with you, making excuses, and then not doing as you instructed.

If you can’t get it together to care for this child in the way he deserves—the way every child deserves—you’re not only harming Corey, you’re showing your two biological children how to be unloving, withholding, and cruel. As to your calm weekends: You’ll get them back someday, but now is not that someday.

Link

Comments

[conuly]

A single weekend activity shouldn’t be a problem. The real problem is that LW is blaming Exwife for her misery when the problem is her useless husband. What is he doing during soccer and the Friday pickup, sleeping with his new girlfriend?

[melannen]

She doesn't specify just one, just gives an example -- and soccer games can end up eating a lot of a weekend all by themselves. I absolutely agree that LW and Husband don't come off well at all, but that was the only part of the letter that I thought was possibly valid, and I was surprised the answer didn't address it at all. (And it's entirely possible that Husband is taking the other kids to their scheduled activities they were already signed up for, that Corey's don't line up well with.)

It does seem to me that the custodial parent should have veto power over activities that effect the time they have custody - if Corey had been doing soccer for five years and it was super important to him, of course they should keep it up, but that doesn't seem like what's going on here. But I was wondering if it was standard practice with shared custody that nobody had veto power over activities and I just didn't realize it, or if everybody was just distracted by how terrible LW and Husband are!

[conuly]

(And it's entirely possible that Husband is taking the other kids to their scheduled activities they were already signed up for, that Corey's don't line up well with.)

I kinda feel, as always, that if something this mitigating were true LW would have to say it.

But sometimes people are just terrible writers.

[melannen]

She does use "we" and "us" more often than the average mom complaining about childcare, and grudgingly implies that Dad sometimes does the Friday pickup! She objects that he's not conveying her complaints to Corey's mom but given the complaints I probably wouldn't either if I were married to her.

You're probably right, and he's almost certainly not doing his fair share, but it also seems very likely that she's so self-absorbed she wouldn't think to mention anything he does.

[ethelmay]

He's only five now. He can't possibly have been doing soccer very long. Me, I would suggest the parents think up an activity he and his sister would both enjoy, given that they're both five and all, but maybe they're different enough that that won't work.

[melannen]

The problem there would be that LW would have to walk into the activity and say "here is my daughter and here is her half-brother who is almost the same age" which would possibly reveal things she doesn't want to...

[conuly]

Or she could make her husband do it, and have him just call them "brother and sister".

[ethelmay]

But then people would assume they're twins, and the kids themselves would probably hugely object to that. Yeah, I guess separate activities make a lot of sense.

[conuly]

Or don’t say anything, then. It’s nobody’s business.

[castiron]

And it's entirely possible that Husband is taking the other kids to their scheduled activities they were already signed up for, that Corey's don't line up well with.

In which case it'd make sense for LW and husband to switch who's driving who, because the point of Husband having custody over the weekend is to spend time with his son, not to dump him on his second wife.

[likeaduck]

THIS THIS THIS.