How do you do it?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-07-2003
How do you do it?
1345
Fri, 12-12-2003 - 8:31pm
I hope I don't start a big controversy, but this is a debate board right?

I just have to ask those working moms....How do you do it?????

I am a Step-mom to two boys ages 6 and 9. I have a three year old that has been in minimal nursery school since he was one. He only goes three days a week for a couple of hours.

My step-sons BM (birth mother) just had a baby with her BF and this is her schedule:

She drops my step-sons at school to the morning-care program at 7:15AM (school starts at 8:45AM). She then drives her three month old baby to an in-home sitter that has five or six other kids at 7:45AM and then goes to work. She picks the baby up at 6:00PM and then she picks my SS up from after-care at 6:15PM (their school is over at 3:10PM). So my ss's are at school each day for 11 hours and the three month old baby is at a sitters for 10 hours each day!

Doesn't that seem like a lot! I just don't understand this. I offered to watch my SS's and she let me for two weeks and then got mad at my DH and put them back in the scholl child care program.

Why would you bother having children if someone else is going to raise them for you?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:23pm
"Were the children in daycare when mom there was with dad. Stepmom there isn't answering that question because they were and she knows that will defeat the whole argument."

She did answer the question. The kids were in daycare when Mom and Dad were still married, but not for as long. I think she said 7 hours a day.

"The thing is this mom there has 3 children and a husband and she is working contributing."

No husband. She has a live-in boyfriend, who is the father of the third child. And we still don't know if he's paying for anything.

"As far as the child hitting the mother on the field please. That child is first upset because mom and dad divorce. Dad remarries and has a wife and I would wager himself that is sending out vibes to the child about their true feelings."

And you don't think this child could be acting out over having a new baby in the house and a new "father-figure"? Why does it have to be the step-mom's fault?

You can view it any way you want to, but rather seeing an "evil stepmother" here, I'm seeing a person that is frustrated that her husbands children are spending so much time in daycare, when she could care for them. And I bet if you went to a step-family support board, you would find more people that consider steps as family, rather than intruders.

Shannon

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:32pm
"As with this case. I wish the children's mother could see what has been posted and respond."

Yeah, me too. Then maybe she would get a different job or SAH and spend more than an hour a day with her children. You can't really think that little amount of time is healthy?

Shannon

 

Avatar for laurenmom2boys
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:34pm
Oh, just use a ziplock bag!
Avatar for laurenmom2boys
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:39pm
I vote for "just plain nuts."
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:48pm
Good Lord! The reason you all get sick from colder than 60 degree weather is because of GERMS. Cold air does not make you sick, germs do. I'm in Northern Indiana, and here, when it hits 50 degrees, we take the tops off our convertibles. If we all stayed in just because it was under 60 degrees out, we'd all be sick fall, winter, and spring from all the musty old air.

Shannon

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:53pm
Nope, the stepparent has NO authority circumvent a bioparent's decision. her *offer* to care for the children *might* have been nice, but the bio mom is under ABSOLUTELY NO obligation to take her up on it, and stepmom has to simply accept that. She has no right to force her preferences on the biomom.

It's really as simple as that.

And given the invective this stepmom has used to describe the biomom, I find it difficult to understand who could fault the biomom from being reluctant to leave her children in the care of someone who hates and lacks any basic respect for their mother.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 1:56pm
She didn't say 50 below, she said 50 AND below...implying 49, 48, 47, 46...

Got it now? Where on earth does it get to 50 below anyway?

Shannon

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 2:05pm
But how much of that has to do with having stepparents who DON'T usurp parental authority in front of said parents, like the stepmom here did? How many of us have stepparents who make no effort to see things from the biomom's point of view, like the stepmom here? How many of us have stepparents who are awesome, compared to this stepmom who basically wants all the authority of a bioparent *and• the right to slam the biomom behind her back on an anonymous board?

My son's stepmom is an awesome wonderful woman, but I think that because she DOESN'T indulge the malicious behavior we've witnessed in this stepmom. I think she's wonderful because she ACTUALLY (and actively) supported my parenting AND my authority as the parent with the ability to make decisions she had no voice in, as opposed to the lip service this stepmom here claims to give but gives no evidence of.

It's probably not ALL the stepmom's fault in this instance. But similarly, none of us believe it is entirely the fault of the biomom, either, which is what the stepmom has been selling from the first post. More than one poster here has said they don't agree with everything the biomom has done; they simply don't believe that the biomom is the only person in this situation that bears fault, blame and responsibility for the fact that the situation is bad. And rather than acknowledge the possibility she might have contributed to the situation, even if unintentionally, the stepmom refuses to accept ANY responsibility and refuses to accept her dh might hold some as well. And that, more than all the rest combined are why so few here are sympathetic to the stepmom; situations like this simply don't go bad because of the total evilness of one player and the complete and utter innocence and sainthood of the other two players.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 2:10pm
You can't really beleive the poster is serious now can you?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 2:17pm
Since when does Kentucky border Michigan? Or even come anywhere close to it? Indiana (where I live) is a pretty long state north to south.

Shannon

 

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