Hello!
I’m looking to sense check the way that things in work in other shared care situations to see if I’m being a bit judgemental of my stepson’s birth mum.
My husband and I do have the majority shared care of my stepson, he goes to his mum every other weekend (Fri to Mon), every other Weds, and for half the holidays.
For as long as I can remember (nearly 4 years) my husband has always packed a set of spare uniform, underwear and football kit/boots for my stepson to take to his mum’s. He has no spare uniform or PE kit there, no coat or rain jacket, no spare shoes (or trainers, wellies, flip flops), hat, gloves, swimming gear etc. at his mum’s.
If he stayed there less I’d understand this more, but he goes to school from his mum’s many days per month, and to not have his own coat or other warm weather or other clothing there I find really odd. She also takes him to football matches the same amount of times we do - twice per month - yet doesn’t have extra kit there.
It means my stepson frequently has a very heavy, full bag on his back to transport multiple sets of clothing and kit around.
Is this usual? What’s it like in other 35:65ish shared care scenarios out there?
We are on a 50/50 shared care basis. As my partner doesn't receive child benefit the courts ruled that the mum is therefore the primary carer and he should pay maintenance for the three kids which is a substantial amount.
The birth mum won't allow the kids to bring any of the belongings she brought to our house. They therefore have two sets of everything so two pack lunch boxes, two school uniforms, two sets of school shoes, two blazers the list goes on.. it just seems ridiculous. My step daughter didnt want to have a different coat at both houses so we had to buy the same coat here which means she has two of the same coat!!
I don't get the logic. She gave us grief the other day as she thinks we have a couple pairs of 'her sons' socks which belong at her house
Just seems crazy that my partner pays for this stuff out of the maintenance money which he gives her and then he has to buy them again for us to have at our house!
Hi, we have my stepdaughter every other weekend Friday-Sunday and we have spare clothes including coat, hat, scarf, shoes etc. Although we don’t have her for school drop offs we do always make sure her uniform is clean and ironed ready to use if needed. If she was with us for school/clubs then we would definitely have spare clothes here! I guess everyone is different though we just like to be organised because you know what kids are like they forever get things dirty 😂🙈