You are here

Do you guys omit certain info around your skids?

msg1986's picture

So today Dd has an appt for a check up and also to get some vaccines. Well yesterday in passing I asked Dh if we could take some time after the appt to take Dd out for some ice cream after the appt because she was getting shots. It's something my mom used to do with me and its a good memory so yeah, I wanna do that with my Dd. Well right when I said that Ss6 came up with a look of horror on his face and said "well what about me? I won't be be here tomorrow so why can't we go today for ice cream?" He also just so happened to be eating an ice cream sandwich as he asked this. I immediately felt guilty and kicked myself for saying anything but then I got a little annoyed because I felt like 'why should I have to watch what I say about what I decide to with my child?'. KWIM? still though, I still felt bad.

Dh of course talked to him and told him that Dd is getting shots and so we would be taking her on Monday not Sunday. Ss seemed like he got upset but got over it.

So do you guys omit info about what you guys have planned or what you guys do when skids are not with you? Ss seems to get his feelings hurt if we do things when he's with his mom or if he hears us say something about what we have to do during the week and I don't really know how to handle it... Should we be hiding what we do when he's not with us? I don't want him to think we don't care about him or anything but at the same time are we supposed to keep what have planned or what we do a secret?

Comments

Mercury's picture

Yep. Us too.

DH's son is finally getting better about running his mouth in front of his mom, but out of habit we still don't mention any plans until we tell him to get ready and get in the car.

The last time the skids knew plans in advance (DH was going to bring the kids somewhere to meet up with me for lunch after one of their ballgames), BM showed up the same place. It was a very public place so it *could* have been a coincidence. That's the day SD leaned that she had to watch what she said around her mother. She was mortified "ugh, there's mom!".

msg1986's picture

Oh that sucks. Sad I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I have a feeling we'll soon be dealing with that as well. Lately Bm has been texting Dh with things Ss says to her. Thankfully Dh shuts it down but Ss already shows signs of playing the victim.

Maybe I should follow suit. I had having to censor myself in my own home but I guess that comes with the territory yeah? I knew what I was getting into, right? Wink

msg1986's picture

wow lol... greedy much? At 14, you'd think that girl would have enough manners to not react that way. wtf. :O

msg1986's picture

yeeeaaah you're probably right. I think my annoyance stems from Ss being very entitled however DH is working on that so I can't complain. Besides what 6 years isn't entitled, right? lol. Smile

AllySkoo's picture

I think this is more an age thing than a skid thing. (At least for the 6 year old. Don't know what the 14 year old's problem is! *lol*) My SDs are a lot older (the youngest is 18) and we never really had to hide what we were doing with the bios from them. If they were here, they got to participate. If not, oh well. They WERE jealous that we took our then 3 year old to the Carribean and they didn't get to go, but... oh well! Lol

On the other hand, we have a BS5 and 2 year old twins. We DO sometimes "edit" ourselves if just the oldest or just the twins gets to do something. Not so much to avoid bad behavior (our kids are pretty good overall) - but why make the one "missing out" feel badly?

I think what you did in this scenario was fine, and no need to feel guilty at all. I would have done the exact same with my bios. "The twins have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning, I'm going to take them out for ice cream after." BS5: "I want to come!" Me: "Sorry hon, you have school tomorrow. Next time we go for ice cream you can come!" Done, over. He's disappointed, but hey, life happens and I'm not going to pretend the world revolves around him because that's not doing him any favors, you know?

Now, if you were waiting to go for ice cream SPECIFICALLY so you could exclude the skid (and making sure the skid knew it) that would be VERY different. But you knew that. Wink

sonja's picture

I try not to put it out there when we are doing events without SD7, but truthfully most fun stuff happens with her because our DS4 will have more fun doing events with her than alone.

DH is weird about this because he thinks its ok for DS to know about the fun stuff that SD does without us. Considering he is younger and doesn't fully understand why/how she has another life I think DH/SD need to be considerate of him as well.

In my experience its the skids who always get double, they aren't shorted because their parents aren't together.
She has always gotten 2-3x the gifts and fun stuff than my kids get, so really its ok in the end that she find out that we did fun things.

StepKat's picture

We don't tell the skids everything either. If DH and I have an "us" trip planned when they are not here then why bother telling them about it. We also keep other info from them like certain things going on with either DH's family or my family, finances, etc. It's all on a need to know biases. If they don't need to know then we don't tell them.

SMLIFESUCKS's picture

I dont keep things from them persay. It's hard to plan an activity when the skids are there because they don't come on their visitations like they should. BM has an excuse etc etc.

However, my kids (first 2) also miss out on some things I do with DD. They are little disappointed but that's kids. They also know they are doing stuff without DD.

This isn't a normal family, he has to learn that your life doesn't stop and neither does DD's because he isn't there.

My skids use to think that we weren't allowed to do any activities unless they were there. Well last year was a learning year for them. We were taking vacation, DH told BM, BM scheduled OSD11's foot surgery during our vacation. So the skids didn't go on vacation with us.

Oh well! We all went to the beach without them.

Sootica's picture

Yes and no.

If it comes to certain information / plans that we don't want to get back to BM then we definitely have to watch what we say as BM's spy will convey the info straight back to her.

If it comes to plans we've made when SS isn't here then tough if he knows about it. He sometimes whinges "but I'm not here that weekend" and DH has responded with " no you at your mother's" and carried on. Mind you this didn't come overnight before life use to stop when SS wasn't here or DH would bend over backwards trying to swap weekends with Golden Uterus so SS wouldn't miss out. That all stopped with time as DH realised negotiating with BM never works, screws up any plans, just leads to headaches and SS is an ungrateful brat that just expects to be entertained 24/7 when he is here (not anymore).