This is something I have not seen discussed here (feel free to put me right).
A lot of us are part of a step family. In my case, we’re non custodial and visitation was difficult due to the mother beeing “special”. Therefore our relationship with the custodial parent is not good. I don’t speak to her at all and I can’t remember the last time my husband spoke to her as the kids are now 19 and 15 and if they want something, they ask for it themselves. Visitation is no longer an issue as they are now old enough to come over when ever they want.
Trying to talk to the custodial parent about prepping is pointless. She lives in LaLa land and her biggest preocupation is where to go shopping on the weekend. The concept would not even begin to register it, besides, because it comes from me, it would just be desmissed as one of my “American” things.
WTSHTF the kids would want to Zip with their mother. The oldest one is at Uni at the other side of the country as she made it a point to be as far away as possible (her words), she may want to SIP with her boyfriend (whom we met yesterday and are VERY pleased with her choice!). The 15 year old with SIP, if at all with her mom and grandparents.
So, as usual, what will happen if they cant get food. They will end up on our doorstep, which is fine, as I have semi preped for them, but I have not prepped for their mother, her boyfriend and their grandparents whom they are very close to.
There are emotional issues involved as well, part of me thinks this woman was so evil to me that she deserves to get BF and/or starve to death, but of course, I soon come to my sences and think that this is my kids bio mom and they would be devestated if anything happened to her.
So, what are the other step families doing? I have prepped in a vary basic way for them, in other words, WTSHTF, they will have loads of rice and beans to eat.
Anyone else in my boat?
I’m in your boat to a degree, although not as complicated. My step daughter knows we are prepping for her, and she knows she is welcome here. She is 21. Her dad and I consider her to be adult enough to make hard decisions. We (and she) fully understand that SIP will be hard enough with people we love. My step daughter knows that we will not have preps on hand for her mother. It is agonizing to think that she will choose to SIP with her mother, who is not prepping and will not prep (despite an overflowing savings account, virtually no mortgage or car payment, etc.), but we realize she may opt for this and are forced to accept that reality.
I think you need to be realistic about what you can prep for and discuss it with your step children. First, though, I’d get on the same page as DH.
Our step daughter is the only person who, if she arrives after we have already begun SIP, will be allowed in—and only then after a quarantine to ensure she is infection free.
Crazy American Lady in the Village – at 09:01
Based on your comments about her, it doesn’t really surprise me that this mother is not a big fan of yours.
To Anonymous…..Well..Yeah…If step families were easy, I would not be posting this and if she saw life in the same way we do, she would still be married to my husband but she divorced him 3 years before I met him!
Still, the issue is here, we do not get along….she would not be someone I would choose as a friend even if there weren’t divorce issues. So I’m not willing to prep for her and her family. Despite the fact that I like her parents A LOT! I just dont feel they are my responsability.
Thoughts?
Did anyone ask you to prep for her or family? I would think that hell would freeze over before she would show up on your doorstep, so there’s no need to worry about her at all.
My husband left me a few years ago and I’m sure he’s not prepping a bit, but I am storing extra in case he needs anything simply because he is my kid’s dad.
No, I’m afraid that hell would not freeze over before she would come over, hense my worry.
Sorry that you’re bitter about your divorce and all the more “credit” for prepping for him. Which also leads me to believe that you put your children first in every way so in all likelyhood, you do your best so that your kids have a miningful relationship with their father (if he deserves the kids is another issue). Believe me, it will pay off in the long run. I know it feels like it’s all very unfair now but kids grow up. They see how their parents have acted and are able to reason for themselves. What you’re doing is very selfless (which makes you a better person than me) and the kids WILL remember, love you and respect you for it. I know, my mother was a very bitter divorced woman that used us as pawns in her game, just like the custodial parent did with my step kids. My relationship with my mother suffered as has my kids relationship with their bio mom for the same reason.
Good for you for not letting your emotions get the better of you! Sometimes, for your kids, you just need to look the other way. I just dont want to be prepping for an additional 4 people!
I am much luckier than most as I am on good terms with my ex and he is fully prepared to SIP with his second wife and their two kids. Our son (age 22) will SIP with my husband and I. We are stocking up with extra food, meds, etc and will be happy to help them out if necessary and depending on who else we will be supporting.
Crazy American Lady I really sympathize with your dilemma. It’s agonizing to think of turning folks away even if they should not be your responsibility. Our plan is just to stock up as much as we can and then deal with each situation as it arises.
The step-parent issue is hard. Do you stock up for the entire other family and it’s extended members, because your kid loves them?
Wait a minute, that’s the issue of anyone with in-laws, too. Or anyone who wants to help a friend. Everyone is attached to more people, who are attached to more people than you can prep for.
You want to prep for your immediate family and of course for your Mom. He wants to prep for his Mom, but you can’t do that without also providing for her second husband. Your and his parents would naturally share the food you give them with their other children and their grandkids. That brings in your siblings, their spouses, the spouses’ parents, etc.
We each need to decide exactly who we are willing to prep for.
If you give food to a relative, you do not control whether they give that food to their parent or girlfriend or neighbor, but you do not increase that one’s share of your preps just because they chose to give it away.
One or two hungry days and the recipient will figure out that they eat what you give them or they give it away and starve. Their choice whether to love someone else more than their own life. That’s a beautiful love, and it’s their free choice; but it’s not your place to try to change their choice or “make up for it.”
The people you are telling that you are prepping for them, make clear that you won’t have enough for their other family members or friends. (The people you aren’t telling who aren’t living in your household or regularly dependent on you have no reason to expect anything from you.) In an emergency if you have extra, you can help additional people. But don’t make promises or lead people to believe in help you might not be able to fulfil at the time.
But also worth noting, most people have lots of resources other than us, resources we may be unaware of.
Like the neighbor I worried about because they regularly run put of groceries at end of month, should I buy enough preps to take care of their whole large family, those sweet children? During the past year I have learned that they earn far more than I do, enjoy claiming to be victims of poverty, don’t actually run out of food, have thousands in the stock market, own a second house (fully paid) and dozens of head of cattle. They have a herd of cattle to eat, and I was worried if I didn’t prep for them they’d starve!
Or the little old lady down the block who lives alone - turns out she has lots of family nearby who help take care of her, she just never mentioned it because she likes to be thought of as independent.
Unless someone is your dependent, they may not actually need your help. Took me a long time to learn I am not Atlas, it *is* my job to be helpful within reason; it *is not* my job to hold up the world for endless lists of other people.
Another issue related to this is the concern I have over my child’s every other weekend visits to his dad’s house. Of course, if I know soon enough to stop the visits, my son will not travel there when TSHTF, but will I know soon enough? I can control what happens at my home in terms of exposure, sanitation, etc., but I have no control over what goes on at the other house. (Nor do I trust in my ex having good sense about this, because he won’t even acknowledge a possible problem). My husband and I are preparing to SIP with my son if needed. I just worry about my son being exposed to something before I really know of an imminent danger. (One reason I check fluwiki is to keep tabs on things due to this!) We will have to think long and hard about travel, vacations, etc. with the other family if things get more problematic with this possible pandemic situation. It won’t be easy, because my ex is likely to accuse us of using this situation to keep him away from my son — not our agenda, but I know that will be the “line” I will get. I know I will have to be very firm about this if necessary. It could get ugly, but taking care of my son is more important, even if I have to get legal help to do so.
Thanks everyone for sharing.
Nimbus, you are very lucky indeed. It’s very difficult to keep “sane” with step families and sometimes, when one parent is using the children it’s impossible. Co parenting is the way to go. Why should the kids suffer from our mistakes?
LizB - I’m SECRETLY prepping for the kids. They don’t know I am, nor does my husband. Because I have been married for so long I know what would happen. The kids will show up at the door, give us “the face”, you know the one, the one you can’t say no to and we would have give up part of our supplies. So instead, I’m getting supplies for them for this eventuality that way my kids wont be affected. You’re right that one has to draw the line, it’s just difficult to know where to draw it.
anonthispost - I have been on the other side of the fence with the custodial parent denying visitation. We live in a country where a court order is paper to use when you run out of toilet paper as the courts REFUSE to enforse them when the custodial parent is female. I have HUGE and VERY emotional issues about this because my mother did it to me and it’s the most heartbreaking thing to see it done to children you love and not be able to do anything about it! Specially when I knew, first hand what they were going through. My suggestion, please take the bits you like and leave the rest, is to write a letter to the non custodial parent and send it certified. Spell out, in black and white and in terms that he can understand, your concerns with BF. Also, make sure he understands your “triger point” of when you will SIP. So, for instance, mine is the first H2H case in London. Tell him that if your son is with him you ask that he takes precausions (spell these out) and that you will be up to get him ASAP. Tell him that you hope that this will never happen but if it does, you want him to understand that you will be better prepared to take care of your son and that when the time comes, you ask that he cooporates as you know that he wants to keep the boy safe as well.
Communication in these cases is very difficult. Don’t go through the courts because it just burdens the child. If he knows, in black and white and has it in written form that he can re-read, well, then, he can’t acuse you of denying visitation for no reason.
Hope this helps and thanks for your words
CAMLinthe Village,
You don’t have to have divorced parents for them to use the children as missiles at each other. Been there, done that, did the therapy. They were “happily married” for 30 years and every one of them was a war of spite.
Oh my GOODNESS Melanie, I never thought of that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That must be even worse because it’s CONSTANT for the child. No “time off”.
Funny how people interpret things differently. I just asumed that because I managed to break the cycle of abuse and I’m married to my husband because I want to be, that everyone was the same. I mean, if you’re with someone it’s because you’re in love right? How naive of me!!!!!!!!!!!!! just goes to show you never stop learning….
My step children see the huge amount of preps that are stockpiling in my basement. My concern is that, if TSHTF, they will question why I won’t feed their mother and stepfather who live about 20 minutes away. The problem is that I just don’t have the preps to take care of my kids, my step kids and their mother. We have spoken to their mother about prepping, and she has chosen to laugh it off by saying it is another Y2K.
This will be a major family crisis should a pandemic hit, but there is no way I can prep for everyone. I think we will all be faced with drawing some very hard lines in the sand.
Crazy American Lady in the Village – at 10:06
For some people marriage vows mean something. Not everyone gets divorced at the drop of a hat.
Janet – at 10:21
What in the world?! Why do some folks on here think that other people are going to expect you to feed them? Exes? My ex won’t be expecting me to be so kind as to give him a dirty bucket of water, but I will share my stuff with him if he needs something and he’ll be surprised and grateful for whatever I decide to share. I don’t understand this being worried that exes are gonna be showing up on your doorstep so you can tell them “I told you so”. Granted I don’t know these people of which you speak, but I think you’re worrying about something that you don’t need to worry about here.
bump
Janet,
If the exes have moved on, it is time for you to do likewise.
Janet – at 10:21 --- How old are the kids? Are they, and you, on speaking terms with their mother and step-dad? If the kids are old enough, maybe they could talk to their mother.
Bronco Bill,
It’s so difficult to put this much responsability on a child, I think it would be very unfair. Children blame themselves for their parent’s break ups so to ask a child to talk to a parent about prepping would be like giving them this huge responsability for the potential lives of their parent!
The problem in this is that in the UK people are not taking this seriously mainly because this is a country that is sheltered from many natural disasters and we have not had a war in this generation. The thought of stock piling is an “American” thing. Speaking to anyone is difficult more over someone you have been at odds with.
The funny thing with our situation is that the only person we are not in speaking terms with and really don’t like is the kids’ mother. Her parents and her boyfriend are lovely people but she will still not prep because it comes from us. Just like she hit the roof when my step child decided to learn Spanish at school because it’s my native language. There is a problem with mentality here….I just wish I knew how to overcome it….
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