I don't think so.....we do it to. In my other posts about BM and skids, you can see why. It's for the exact same reasons you have posted here."~waiting on the world to change~"

Never saw a point in discussing family finances with us three girls. I am assuming that they were the adults and it was not the childrens place to worry or be concerned over..

My Dh and I are more open with our kids when it comes to money, only because we are clearly trying to explain and teach them that money just doesn't come out of our pockets. I only learned about finances after Dh and I were married. That wasn't very good in my opinion, but whatever. I can't tell you steppy if you are wrong or not, just can tell you that I wished that my parents were more open with us.

Now I don't think that they need to know what yall are book worth, but maybe teaching them how much money comes in a week and out a week. If you think it is none of their business, then its not. Just all up to you.......

Stepwitch
Thank you Disney for portraying a positive image on all stepmothers!!!!

I don't think it's wrong. If you are using lying hurt someone then no that isn't acceptable. I think the lying you are talking about is more - lying to protect your privacy. We have to tell SS white lies sometimes, we don't like to but hey, if it saves us a scrap fight with BM, so be it If the older kids are throwing the information around to places it has no business, do what you have to. Good luck

Catch xx
*Mean People Suck*

We have an funny, old, Irish, Catholic priest who often tells in his homilies that children are OBLIGATED at all times to tell their parents the truth.

However...parents do not have that same obligation to their children!

DH and I do not lie to our children about our money situation. However, we will just come out and tell them that certain areas of our finances are "none of their business and not open for discussion as children".

This is mostly because we know that this sensitive information will be passed on directly to BM, who will then directly throw it back in SDs faces with nasty comments. Also because we feel that, as children, they are not privy to knowing about the specific details of our finaces (such as areas like 401Ks, IRAs, savings & so on). It's not THEIR money, so it's not THEIR business!

We are still able to teach all the kids about money and responsible spending & saving habits without disclosing our own personal finacnes, by using their own allowances as a model budget.

"If you have never been hated by a child, you have never been a parent."
-Bette Davis

Hi, SL....I think the main reason for problems that we (DH and I) had
with HIS KIDS and my OWN adult son (24) is that we were TOO OPEN with
them about our lives. In an attempt to not make them feel "alienated" from us, we let them in on way too many things.

Fortunately, over time that has CHANGED and is changing (oh, it's ruffled MANY feathers). And, yes, we have learned not to tell them
too much anymore. My son (who is a spoiled brat) has been told by ME that he will have to begin to start paying his own bills. (car,
insurance, cell phone, etc.)..of course, he is no longer talking to me (it bothered me at first...GUILT...but I know NOW that I am not
doing him a favor by enabling him when he is capable of paying his
OWN bills).

THE ONLY person that my DH and I are responsible for (other than my
own 16 year daughter at his point) is EACH OTHER. Period. I wish we
would have learned this earlier. It would have saved us a lot of
stress. What I am saying is that you are doing the RIGHT thing.
You owe NO ONE, including your kids, an explanation for what you and
your husband are doing financially. When they marry, they have the
same obligation with their own spouse.

I was talking to my F about this the other day. My parents raised me in the idea that kids shouldn't have to worry about adult issues. I think to some degree, they did me a disservice. I was HORRIBLE to my mom as a teenager, and one of the things I always was sooo nasty to her about was her clothes, which I felt were the antithesis of cool. Some of my friends STILL rag on my mom about her clothes, b/c I was MORTIFIED by her appearance and complained about it and our "brady bunch" style house to all who would listen.

I also thought my mom was a horrible human being for giving my dad a hard time whenever he bought me something. I assumed it was b/c she was jealous, and that she hated me, and that she begrudged me anything.

It wasn't until my mom retired and said "thank god I can throw away all those clothes now!" I began to realize how wrong I was. I always had at least some new clothes for school each year, my mom did without. My mom was very careful with money, trying to save for their retirement, so they could afford to still live in a house, their cars, and live, not to mention sending me to college and paying for my wedding, and when my dad spent money haphazardly, she got concerned!

I feel guilty about how I treated my mom, and how I didn't ever appreciate the sacrifices she and my dad made so I could have what I had. They were protecting me and trying to make me feel secure, but the reality of it is they allowed me to act like an unappreciative brat way longer than I would ever tolerate from my own child, so I guess what I'm saying is at least in this regard, I wish they hadn't lied to me as much as they did, it would have made me a better person sooner to know the truth...

from my SD, the reason we're going through it all....:
o, btw, my dad and *northernsiren* are the best family a girl(and boy) could ever hope for. Thank you for helpping me through these hard times.

...we give calcualted disinformation. With 5 adult skids and a bipolar BM--all who want to see our marriage fail--any information about DH and me is "hot" information. They spend hours gossiping, and the stories that come back to DH are twisted and laughable.

We know that a bit of information or disinformation to one of them is the fastest way to inform the whole family, so we use that medium with great success.

We lie about what we are doing. We lie about where we are. We lie about vacations and vacation dates. We lie that we are "too busy." We lie that we are "not home." And when the situation is truly ridiculous--such as them demanding to know how much money we make or how much life insurance we have or what they get in our wills--we give the adult skids deliberate disinformation.

The best way we can manage our marriage is to keep these bloodsuckers as far away from us as possible.

We lie as well. Not about financial information, as that has not yet come up, but rather lies by omission of the truth. We have taken vacations or weekend getaways, we dont tell the skids, that would get back to bm and all hell would break loose, not to mention entitled children wondering WHY they didnt get to go.. I also refrain from talking about money in front of the skids, so that they dont feel they are entitled to more stuff or what have you...

I think in SOME cases lying is acceptable. In the case of blended families, lying or omission of truth lying is acceptable.

So many good and interesting points of view and ways of doing things. Almost every bit of it hits home in some fashion - it wasn't even my question and one of the more informative / thought provoking posts... thanks StepLightly!