OMG whats with these men, Do your kids get to partake in the fun that your skids have when their with their other parents. Are the skids lives suspended on hold until they get back in your care? NO and why should your kids have to wait for skids to be around or have to include skids in every activity. Oh if I were you I'd be mad too

Ah, DH and I have this arguement frequently. Less so now than when our son was younger but still more than we should. What kind of message do they think it gives the kids if life is put on hold and only fun activities can occur when the steps are there? I know that I personally would feel a lot less important if my parents didn't do anything with me unless the other kids were there to entertain. They spend so much time and energy worried about the "first family" that they don't consider what they are doing to the other children.

Further - Is it possible that they actually think these kids just sit around on their hands waiting to see them, that they don't go out and have fun when they are away??

We don't have "our" kids but FH refuses to go to movies by ourselves just in case the skids will want to go see them. And most of the time they have already seen them by the time they get to us. Ugh!

We felt guilty goinng to Disneyland with just our kids but my mother was paying for the trip and Buttercookie said it best, about the skids living with BM and it's up to BM to provide them with fun and memories we pay enough. She makes and breaks promises to them all the time so in one month we went to a Kangaroo Farm with them, Wild Waves, toured an ice cream factory, My mom took them to see Smurfs because they never get to go to the movies, (but they then complained she didn't pay for 3D) we took them to Pump It Up (a bouncy house place) they complained we didn't stay long enough in the lazor room part (I have two littler kids I kept losing in the dark and we stayed til close) We let them both do gymnastics with my oldest daughter,..so I am no longer feeling guilty about anything, I never heard thank you once.

I used to get this. Put a stop to it very quickly. I don't deal with any of it anymore...it's been over 6yrs now...thankfully. But it is ridiculous. They truly expect OUR kids and US to put our lives on hold and do NOTHING unless the skids are there...while the skids do their thing at TWO different homes...they normally have 4 adults contributing to their darn entertainment...while our kids have 2 and STILL have to wait and do nothing until skids come? Be real.

I still get this. I have my kids involved in sports and school activities, DSO does not much participate. Granted he works a lot. But do we go to the park, or to mini-golf, movies, amusement park, or anything of the sort when it's just us and my kids? No way! But when his kids are over...busy busy busy.

Ahhh...So typical. I've been through this with my DH over and over (in the past) No camping without SD, no chuck e cheeses w/out SD, no vacations w/out SD. Ahhhhh..it's irritating.

Finally, DH realized that SD is starting to get the idea that DH waits for her to be here before he does anything fun with our kids, so SD has used that to her benefit(With BM backing and encouraging SD) So, for awhile SD would skip visits if she knew that DH didn't have a "disneyland" visit planned. So, DH stopped waiting for SD. Back in April, we took our BD 5 and BS 2 on a train ride to a lake to meet the Easter bunny. When SD found out, she acted like she didn't care, and almost acted like BD was lying about it. SD seems to be in disbelief that we do anything without her LOL.

Just explain to your DH that it's not fair to your children to make them wait to have fun with their family until skids are around. Your children are not invited to do fun things with skids while they are with BM, so why put your lives on hold for skids?

Agreed agreed agreed! Since our BS is only 9 months, I do wait for fun stuff for SD. BUT its also helps that I work on the weekends that shes here so I can use that as my excuse when I dont think she needs to participate in every single thing that we do.

Dads CANNOT grasp the fact that they have another household and do fun things there.. if they dont.. sorry not my problem!

My dh always used the excuse that he did not care what ss did at bm's house-he felt that our household should offer just as much to ss as it did to my bios who lived here full time. He was not concerned it ss got a total of 100 presents for xmas-it only mattered that he had exactly the same amount at my bios.

My dh always thought that ss was getting the short end of the stick. Always. Not a big surprise that ss13 now has huge problems with jealousy and also always feels like he is getting that end of the stick.

If it didn't mess up our schedule otherwise, sometimes we would wait for skids for movies and a few other things. It was not a requirement, and even though sometimes I wished we'd just go without them, I never made much of a deal about it. I understood why DH wanted to include them, because he really enjoyed their company and that mattered to me. It was not a guilty daddy thing. I did not suffer much for it and sometimes it was more fun with them, sometimes not. My DD always preferred to have them along, because we are just soooo boooring