BM: Bring your money to my house and I'll spend it for you / I'll open an account for you so you can save up for something big
First off, we give the kids allowance every other week so that they have spending money and are not always asking us for a dollar here and there or to buy them something everywhere we go. Our answer, "use your allowance".
That being said, if the kids want to use the money we give them at their other parent's house, that's fine. I think it's their choice and part of learning about money, choices and priorities, etc. (Even though it irks me when SS tells us he brings his money to BM's when the non-support baying Bit!! is taking him somewhere fun).
Anyway, SS13 is a bit of a miser and does not spend his money. He had about $250 from Christmas and Bday money. BM has taken money from his room in the past, back when DH would allow her into his home (long before I was on the scene).
Anyway, BM - who works 5 hours a week, has a POS 20 year old vehicle, mooches off of her girlfriend where she lives in a house with her and her parent's asks SS to bring all his money to her house and she'll teach him about money and open a savings account for him so he can buy something special. GRRRRRRR.
When the fact of the matter is she did NOT open any account for SS and she just pocketed the money.
Who does that?
Our intention in giving him money is for him to budget, make choices, use it on OUR family outings, etc. Sure, it's not my favorite thing if he takes some spending money over there, but it's his choice. (DH REALLY hates it). BUt I think it is WAY out of line for her to ask him to bring his $250 to her house (money that we or our family gave him) under the farce of "helping" him save.
Of course, when we informed him that he'd need the money for a school trip and he asked her for the money - there's only $120 left now apparently, so great job saving - she fumbled around and then asked when he needed it by.
Who does this to her child?
Oh wait... the same woman that convinced her child that DH would no longer love him or have any time for him once the new baby arrived and that SHE would never do such a thing to poor SS. Oh, but when we brought him to her house so SS could live out his life long fantasy of living with BM, BM told him to go back home with DH. Oh ya, THAT woman!
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Comments
Is it really so wrong to tell
Is it really so wrong to tell him he cant take it there?
Separate houses, separate things right?
Why cant you and your DH tell him that the allowance you give him is for the time is with you guys?
Im honestly asking, because i dont see the big deal of keeping the allowance at your home if its you guys that give it to him.
I think that's the next step
I think that's the next step here after this set of shenanigans BM just pulled.
My exH and I do about a 60/40 and things go back and forth between houses quite often. Bios have brought money between houses when they know one of us have plans to go somewhere "special" like the flea market, lol.
My exH and I had discussed this type of thing previously in theory stating that things belong "to the children" not to us or our homes. However, we do draw the line with electronics. They Mostly stay at the purchaser's home. However, we will allow movement between houses for special occasions - ex: one wants to bring a video game to the house for a sleepover with a friend or they bring the ipod with them for a long car trip. But my ex and I have a rare relationship.
BM is a thief, a criminal, a drug user, etc, etc. We originally wanted to have the same rules for all the kids, but... that just doesn't work. Different kids need different rules based on circumstances. I've always beleived this to be true.
DH and I will probably discuss this over the weekend. He was really angry that BM pulled this. This is just another one of the reasons why DH always feels sorry for SS - because his mom is such a low life.
At what point is he old
At what point is he old enough to tell him that if he takes his money to his mom's she'll just steal it from him?!
I know, the answer is never. They have to learn on their own that their parent sucks. DH's grandparents give the skids $100 each birthday and Christmas. We could never send the money home with them because BM would treat herself to a nice meal and a carton of smokes with it. Now we don't even speak to DH's family so I'm sure she loves those holidays since we don't dictate what happens with the cash anymore.
Even if we shouted to SS that
Even if we shouted to SS that his mom will steal his money, he will just make an excuse for her. He's asked if he could give her money for gas money to come pick him up before so that he could spend time with her on a school holiday.
We told him no on that one.
On one particular day, after he told me he hated me, and that his mom USED to have a good job (um 3 years ago, before she got fired), I let him know that if I needed $10 for gas to go see my kids, you're damned right that I'd go get a job at McDonalds' or cleaning houses, or whatever, if I needed to and that that was just ONE of the differences between me and his mother.
i don't usually say much
i don't usually say much about bm, because i've not had to deal with her much, but when sd20 was younger, fdh had to tell her she was not allowed to take any gift cards or money from our house home with her anymore, she had to leave it here or spend it here. she could take what she bought home if she wanted to. that happened because fil gave sd a $50 walmart card for Christmas one year and bm took it to buy groceries saying "i can't keep living like this."
she got $90 a week cs. she spent that on cigarettes, gas to go where she wanted, and things for herself. she never works. has had one job that i know of in the 8 years i've been with fdh and she got fired for falling asleep hungover on the job after only a few months. she has always lived off cs and a man. so to her, it made a lot more sense to steal her kid's Christmas gift than to get a damn job and buy the f'g groceries herself!
my mom would have been the
my mom would have been the same way, too. i didn't have a sm and my father was never in the picture, so there was no one for her to harass or try to suck dry, but she was a career welfare rat with no motivation at all. when i was in 9th grade, i went to the elementary school across the street every day to help with serving the kids lunch. i got a credit for it, as well as a small check every month, $25-40, depending on how many school days there were.
i had to use that money to buy my necessities. paper for school, money for eating out after away games (i was a cheerleader), deodorant, pads, etc. my mom did not buy ANY of that stuff for me, and i honestly don't know what i would have done without that money. so i asked her one day to take me to the bank to cash my check and she got her fake smile and voice going and said "well....how much do you love me?????" i knew where that was going. she wanted my entire check to go play bingo on. yeah, the woman who was allergic to work was very much addicted to bingo. i was instantly pissed. i said "mom, i need this money to buy paper and deodorant and everything else i need!" fake smile and voice gone in an instant and replaced with "FINE! don't ever ask me to do anything for you again!" :jawdrop: i responded with "you don't do anything for me anyway, so what kind of a threat is that?" and i went to my room.
and it was true. she didn't do anything for me. what kind of a parent doesn't make sure their child has pads for their period and paper for school? MY MOM, that's who. she did the same thing when i got my first job at 14 years old, washing dishes in a cafe. every damn week, she wanted my money and would pay me back on welfare check or my sf's SS check day, which could be anywhere up to a month away. i got that job so i could buy school clothes i actually wanted instead of whatever crap was on sale at whatever cheap store there was, and shoes that would actually last longer than 3 months. (she was the queen of thinking $10 shoes were way too expensive). i had that job to make sure i had things i wanted and needed. simple shit that was unheard of in my house, like fucking orange juice.
yet somehow i was always an asshole, ungrateful f'g brat for not wanting to work all week to give her my pay to go play bingo. i can only imagine the hell she would make the lives of a real father and a sm if i had had those things. she would have been horrible. she would have been one of those that wants us gone all the damn time but is always trying to get more cs to spend on herself.
sorry for the rant. people like my mom need to be shot.
That's sad. Sorry you had
That's sad.
Sorry you had that experience growing up.
thank you. for the most part,
thank you. for the most part, i think i'm over it. i do talk to her and have a relationship with her, although i'm not very close to her because she's never been a respectable person. it just galls me when i hear about people like her, and it brings back all of those infuriting memories. i could write a book on the insane shit she has done.
what really pisses me off is when she tries to tell me, and especially my brother, how to raise our kids. as if she has a clue. she really rips my brother to pieces, and yeah, he is a sucky parent who thinks he's FOTY. he does everything wrong. but it's hard for me to listen to her being critical of him when she did all of the same exact things. funny how she doesn't remember any of that....
she was majorly dependant on
she was majorly dependant on my sf. not financially because he was as much of work allergied loser as she was, he was a drunk and was abusive, but for some reason, she couldn't bear the thought of being without him. he came first all the time. if it made him happy to punish us (physically or otherwise) for absolutely no reason at all, then that was fine, as long as he didn't leave. she was up his ass like i've never seen before. he cheated on him all the time and she would cry about it and take him back oh so happily as soon as he was ready to come back. our needs meant nothing. who cares if there is no food in the fridge? he wants beer and cigarettes and to go play bingo, so that's where the money is going.
when i say we never came first, i don't mean in a normal way. i mean him getting his kicks out of abusing us was more important to her than us having a normal life. she's got something wrong with her for sure, and the older she gets, the more apparent it is. i've always known she was f'd in the head. here we are 30 years later and finally everyone else is seeing it, too.
Horrible! And I anticipate
Horrible! And I anticipate that this will be part of the discussion as well.
SS also got a ton of $20+ gift cards from his friends during his bday party that we threw for him. I'm hoping he still has them.
She tries to convince him that we are so mean to him and treat him poorly, so I can just imagine her telling him that he should bring them to her house so that he can buy a video game that he wants and she'll let him play it as much as he wants. Unlike at our house, where we are always taking his things away from him for not doing his work.
"They're so mean. I'll let you do whatever you want. I'm the best mom ever".
Well, that's been part of our
Well, that's been part of our strategy. It's his choice to make and learn from. Problem is, he doesn't seem to learn. He feels sorry for her and wants nothing more than mommy's love and attention - even though she'll never go out of her way an inch for him.
Everyone keeps saying, "he'll figure it out" and I'm waiting for that day.
DH really feels sorry for him - again which is why DH always tries to do extra for him, in order to make up for POS BM. But that's just created an entitled little brat.
Up until this point, we've
Up until this point, we've let him do what he wants. We even encouraged him to take some Xbox points card that we got him for his bday over to his mom's house because it had some code to unlock some thing for a game he only had over there. He said he'd rather use it here.
Then DH told him, well, bring the game over here next time you go to your mom's and he said, "oh, mom won't let me." So clearly there's a rule in place, but she's more than happy to have things WE pay for or extra cash show up at her house.
Well, being that his birthday
Well, being that his birthday was less than two weeks ago and his birthday party was exactly two weeks ago and he went to his mother's that night for an Easter visit and the following weekend was his regular EOWE visit with BM.
We were actually going to discuss bank accounts with ALL the kids - mine already have one that their Dad's mom set up for them when they were babies, but I wanted to work on saving vs spending over here too.
Anyway, this is actually, the first money discussion we've had with him after he had received all the gifts from his bday. It really didn't take BM long to zero in her son's cash though.
"Who does that?" I'll tell
"Who does that?" I'll tell you...OUR BM would SOOOOO do that! If we did this with the skids (my skids, my DH's bio), we'd open up a bank account at OUR banks. NO WAY would it go back home to their money-grubbing POS mother! She'd spend it the minute she gets it! She gets plenty in CS that she doesn't/shouldn't have to dip into the kids' savings.
Do NOT let them take it home. It's YOUR money that you gave to them to use at YOUR house. If they want to save it, get them piggy banks or put them in labeled envelopes that you keep in a safe place. Then it will be available to them if they want to buy something.
Well, SS13 actually lives
Well, SS13 actually lives with us full time and visits BM EOWe. She pays NO child support as the poor thing only works 5 hours a week and just can't seem to get a better job ever since DH "quit her job for her" 7 years ago.