Stepchild problems. Are all kids reared this way in UK?

Stepchild problems. Are all kids reared this way in UK?

Yes they are. All houses have seperate rather than mixer taps, all british people are anti-american, all bathrooms in the uk have carpet rather than tiles and no-one, absolutely no-one rinses their dishes after they have washed them.

 

i knew that might sound as though i was keeping you all in one basket. but my hubby actually told me that in UK kids dont leave at 18 (well they are not forced too) and that you do everything for them until the day you die. i dont buy it, but just wanted to make sure. i apologize to anyone i may have offended.

What do you mean by 'let go'.  This kid will eventually get his act together and move on with his life.  He's bratty, needs to grow up, and learn to keep his mouth shut but there's probably a lot going on with everybody-sounds like you're all a bit too involved in each other's lives.  I would never read my kids' MSN conversations -because I probably wouldn't like what I found there.  Plus, that's a pretty big invasion of privacy whether he was talking about you or not.
And he's not just going to disappear, he's always going to be a part of your husbands life, even after your children move over.
If it was me, I'd work on helping the kid figure out what he wants to do in life, get him on and using public transportation, set down some strict ground rules for late night pickups and money borrowing and realize that what he's doing isn't all that out of the ordinary.

clarification: the MSN message was sent to me in an email and my name was right at the top so I felt it was in my best interest to read it. apparently sent by someone else he pissed off, never did find out who did it.
we have tried the public transport thing, bought him a month pass. he sold it and even told his dad he did. its not that i want him to "let go" as in, piss off dont write us we wont call you! I mean in the way of letting the boy fall and pick himself up. not come behind him and pay for his errors.

It sounds like to me that she's saying 'your Dad lets you get away with that crap but I won't.'

yes exactly. this is one of those because im so close to the sittuation and i know she is a bit of a b*tch, that i just assumed she was being one then too.
thanks for showing me my error.

i knew that might sound as though i was keeping you all in one basket. but my hubby actually told me that in UK kids dont leave at 18 (well they are not forced too) and that you do everything for them until the day you die. i dont buy it, but just wanted to make sure. i apologize to anyone i may have offended.

No way - my parents (I'm British) would not put up with that kind of behaviour from any of their kids! All three of us left home at 18 to go to university (well, the youngest will be doing so next month) and we've all been working/earning money for ourselves since the age of 13. We don't rely on our parents for much at all anymore (except maybe for food when we come home to visit, lol) and even when we were teenagers, we knew we couldn't ask to borrow extra money because my parents barely had any disposable income - if we wanted something, we saved up and paid for it ourselves.

We all went on a family holiday earlier this month (we're aged 18, 24 and 26 now) and we ended up having an argument because my youngest brother (18 years old) was not being helpful - he was being annoying with stupid comebacks to everything you said to him (typical teenager) and not doing things like the washing up unless he was asked about 5 times  . We had a big discussion about what we should all be doing to help out and not annoy each other and that was it - everyone basically sucked it up and did what they needed to to make things run smoothly for the rest of the trip .

It sounds like to me that she's saying 'your Dad lets you get away with that crap but I won't.'

yes quite.

Do you think it's more to do with your husband than your stepson? My DH is the sweetest guy alive and he can be taken advantage of, mostly by his mother and sister. They know how to manipulate him to get what they want (manipulate sounds so harsh but that is in essence what happens).

No way - my parents (I'm British) would not put up with that kind of behaviour from any of their kids! All three of us left home at 18 to go to university (well, the youngest will be doing so next month) and we've all been working/earning money for ourselves since the age of 13. We don't rely on our parents for much at all anymore (except maybe for food when we come home to visit, lol) and even when we were teenagers, we knew we couldn't ask to borrow extra money because my parents barely had any disposable income - if we wanted something, we saved up and paid for it ourselves.

We all went on a family holiday earlier this month (we're aged 18, 24 and 26 now) and we ended up having an argument because my youngest brother (18 years old) was not being helpful - he was being annoying with stupid comebacks to everything you said to him (typical teenager) and not doing things like the washing up unless he was asked about 5 times  . We had a big discussion about what we should all be doing to help out and not annoy each other and that was it - everyone basically sucked it up and did what they needed to to make things run smoothly for the rest of the trip .

see i think thats how family should be and from what i know of my IL (unfortunately passed before my time), they were all like that. My hubby quit school on friday was working for camel lairds by monday. has worked ever since and at the same job for 20 plus years now. i see from these threads that :
1. i look like a massive whiny cow and i dont mean to be, but needed to vent somewhere.
2. that even though the boy is taking the absolute piss, its not going to change if the hubby wont.
3. dont know what to do from this point.....................

His butt and his belongings would SO be out the door!

To be honest as well, I brought my 2 daughters over when they were 6 & 9..the 6yr old in now 18...sounds alot like your step son...doesn't want to work, likes to go up to her brother's and sit and jam with all his cronies...any money she gets she buys ciggies with it..and then complains to me she doesn't have any personnel items and such...

Have told her she has 1 month to straighten up or she can move out..I know I being a cow but I am not going to have her sleeping till 4 in the afternoon, crawl out of bed and eat something on go on her merry way. Told her this wasn't a hotel....and she was going to earn her way......

yes quite.

Do you think it's more to do with your husband than your stepson? My DH is the sweetest guy alive and he can be taken advantage of, mostly by his mother and sister. They know how to manipulate him to get what they want (manipulate sounds so harsh but that is in essence what happens).

i came to this realization just as you must have been typing your response. lol  

His butt and his belongings would SO be out the door!

To be honest as well, I brought my 2 daughters over when they were 6 & 9..the 6yr old in now 18...sounds alot like your step son...doesn't want to work, likes to go up to her brother's and sit and jam with all his cronies...any money she gets she buys ciggies with it..and then complains to me she doesn't have any personnel items and such...

Have told her she has 1 month to straighten up or she can move out..I know I being a cow but I am not going to have her sleeping till 4 in the afternoon, crawl out of bed and eat something on go on her merry way. Told her this wasn't a hotel....and she was going to earn her way......

i sooooooooo wish i could do that. sometimes i imagine being able to just step into my husband and lay the ground rules for the boy. he sleeps anywhere from 11am til 2pm, stays up all night watching tv and on the puter. he eats when he gets up, he eats when i make dinner (about 5 or 6) and then he eats more during the night. we can only afford iceland at the moment and a bag of chips lasts only 2 days here if lucky and thats if my husband and i have not had any either.
oh i sound so miserable and whiny!!!!! AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

i came to this realization just as you must have been typing your response. lol  

  the problem I find is I can't do much about it. I come off as a nag if I complain (even though it's because it hurts to see him being taken advantage of ).
 

i feel the need as my venting is going down, that i would like to point out that every so often the boy will be pleasent.  and when he is like this, i just love him to death. but unfortunately it is so far a few between. I know he can do things for himself. He has had to when we went away to wales for a belated honeymoon for the night. but his complete lack of drive does my head in.

the problem I find is I can't do much about it. I come off as a nag if I complain (even though it's because it hurts to see him being taken advantage of ).
 

thats how i feel too! and i dont want to be a nag. my hubby said one of the best things about me was that i didnt bother with all the hen pecking and girly B.S. that some do. but this one thing just keeps popping up and i cant very well tell my sons, "go clean your room" when they know that the older child doesnt have to. how do you set two different rules in the same house? i think that would be disturbing and confusing.

thats how i feel too! and i dont want to be a nag. my hubby said one of the best things about me was that i didnt bother with all the hen pecking and girly B.S. that some do. but this one thing just keeps popping up and i cant very well tell my sons, "go clean your room" when they know that the older child doesnt have to. how do you set two different rules in the same house? i think that would be disturbing and confusing.

Because there is such a big age gap you have to have different rules for different people.  Big teenagers get to go out at night, stay up and watch TV, watch R movies and live in their own messy rooms.
Young teenagers have to go to bed, go to school, aren't allowed to watch The Inbetweeners and get told to clean their rooms. 
Life sucks and then it gets better.

Because there is such a big age gap you have to have different rules for different people.  Big teenagers get to go out at night, stay up and watch TV, watch R movies and live in their own messy rooms.
Young teenagers have to go to bed, go to school, aren't allowed to watch The Inbetweeners and get told to clean their rooms. 
Life sucks and then it gets better.

thats more than likely what i will have to do. i sometimes think that because it was only one child, maybe my husband doesnt understand the ramifications of raising 4 children who are dependent on you for every solitude thing..... wont happen with my three, i guarantee that one.

see i think thats how family should be and from what i know of my IL (unfortunately passed before my time), they were all like that. My hubby quit school on friday was working for camel lairds by monday. has worked ever since and at the same job for 20 plus years now. i see from these threads that :
1. i look like a massive whiny cow and i dont mean to be, but needed to vent somewhere.
2. that even though the boy is taking the absolute piss, its not going to change if the hubby wont.
3. dont know what to do from this point.....................

I just want to add that I'm sorry that you're in this situation, but also that my brothers and I were fairly tame as teenagers - my parents admitted the other week that we were much easier teenagers to raise than they were expecting... which is pretty unusual, I think  . None of us have ever smoked, or tried drugs (that I know of), or got in with the wrong crowd, or been particularly lazy in life at all - which I think was due to us having so many extra curricular activities to attend... unlike quite a few teenagers who seem to just hang around on the streets these days.

I was the more academic one (there was never a question of not going to university - I just knew I would go, even at the age of 11), but I also took dance classes up to 4 nights a week until I was 18 and had a part-time weekend job; my middle brother was less academic, but more sporty (he had gymnastics training 4 hours a day after school/on Saturday mornings - he was a British champion at 15!) - although he also went to university and got a degree; and my youngest brother is less academic, but more sporty too - just finished his A-levels, has a part-time job and is going to university to study Outdoor Leadership next month. He also spent a month in Malawi last year with the World Challenge scheme (long hikes, camping out, building schools for African children etc.) and competes in badminton tournaments across the country.

We never had any time to be lazy in our house .