Should you look after your girlfriend's daughter.

Guest101

quidsy wrote: »

I have a 7 year old son & I wouldn't leave him overnight alone with a new partner no matter how long we had been together. My sister divorced when her ds was 6 & ds is now 16 & she has never been left with anyone overnight except her real father, grandparents or me.

I find the whole concept of leaving your children, your most precious thing, with someone you know in a limited capacity very telling on the type of parent they are. I would be very loath to continue a relationship with someone so willing to palm her kid off to someone she has dated for a year but has never lived with or had a more committed relationship with. Proceed with caution, esp if you plan on having kids with her, in the future she might be palming YOUR child off on a new bf whilst she goes to work.

I think there's got to be a certain amount of common sense. I have friends i've known for 10 years. I'd be happy for them to babysit.

I got with my partner (many years ago now), it moved pretty quickly, and as there was no 3rd party involvement with the kids, and i was there quite often. I naturally took to them. It was still probably 5- 6 months before i looked after them when she went for a night out.

I do think it's abit extreme if a child doesnt have a sleep over or something like that in 16 years. It's part of giving independance in a controlled way. The eldest, who's 8, has had 2 sleep overs, and more to follow. He also does beavers (in fact 4 clubs in total) which has camps etc.

It could be very easy to know a new partner, after 12 months, better than your prev partner, who you havent seen in 12 months.

pearl123

amersall wrote: »

Why she would want to work until 4am is beyond me!, she could work in a pub or club that closes at 11 30pm if that is the work she wants to do.

There are lots of jobs that fit around children now, as other posters have said.

Stand your ground.

I find it bizarre that a "caring" mother would find it acceptable to work such times.

Guest101

pearl123 wrote: »

I find it bizarre that a "caring" mother would find it acceptable to work such times.

Not sure that's fair.

4am finish, she could comfortably be up by 10am. So she realistically missed 2 - 2.5 hours of the following day with the child.

She could work day hours in a shop where she misses 8 hours of the day with the child.

Ideally a job would work around school hours, so there's no time lost. I'm not saying the job is appropriate, I just don't think the job has any basis on whether he's a caring person or not.

StuC75

Are those finding the work hours unacceptable judging upon the line of work involved; would they think the same if she was working as a nurse on night shifts (say on a 4 on 4 off basis?).

Some quite judgemental posts here regarding the OP's Girlfriend; remember only one side of the events are being presented here.

On one hand be pleased that your girlfriend places enough trust in you to look after her child, enabling her to return to some line of work - remember as Job is a Job in this day!

Without knowing the age of the child and the extent of looking after required.

How does the bar wage compare to other work that she could do? is it just a weekend thing or 7days a week?

It could be that with some support for her doing those hours, that working over the weekend allows her to have a better quality of time with her child and the OP the rest of the week (say if the child hasn't started school yet?).. rather than working 9-5, paying for childminder and not having the time to spend with the OP - by working that time would be financially better off and a better time spent..

afterall if its only a few nights over the weekend, then she may not need to be spending all day in bed catching up after..

fivetide

Just an observation, the OP has been in this relationship for almost a year (they said) so this isn't a 5 minute thing.


I would have thought this is heading into long term territory. That presumably means you living together OP and taking on this step-parent role at some point.


While you aren't living together, you don't want to be a babysitter, not every weekend, but I do think you need to consider where you want this relationship to go.

quidsy

Guest101 wrote: »

I think there's got to be a certain amount of common sense. I have friends i've known for 10 years. I'd be happy for them to babysit.

I got with my partner (many years ago now), it moved pretty quickly, and as there was no 3rd party involvement with the kids, and i was there quite often. I naturally took to them. It was still probably 5- 6 months before i looked after them when she went for a night out.

I do think it's abit extreme if a child doesnt have a sleep over or something like that in 16 years. It's part of giving independance in a controlled way. The eldest, who's 8, has had 2 sleep overs, and more to follow. He also does beavers (in fact 4 clubs in total) which has camps etc.

It could be very easy to know a new partner, after 12 months, better than your prev partner, who you havent seen in 12 months.

Sorry I'm not sure it was clear that I was talking about partners/bf's etc looking after our children overnight.

Of course she sleeps over at friends or for school trips & my son does beaver camping trips & sleep overs but none of us would ever leave our children alone with a bf overnight every weekend. Nor would we expect any new bf to do so.

JimmyTheWig

I think it depends entirely on your relationship with your GF and her daughter.
A year together is quite a long time for some people. Many, by that stage, would be starting to take on a step-father role - in which case caring for the child when their mum is at work would be perfectly natural.
But other relationships move more slowly and you could be years off being a step-father. In which case taking on regular childcare wouldn't be right.

I wonder if the GF is trying to move the relationship forward and is hurt that you have refused from that angle.
Or maybe she sees this as you not wanting to spend time with her daughter, which again would be hurtful.
I think it is probably a time to sit down and discuss where the relationship is going.


And what is wrong with a mother wanting to take a job until 4am if childcare is sorted?

Guest101

quidsy wrote: »

Sorry I'm not sure it was clear that I was talking about partners/bf's etc looking after our children overnight.

Of course she sleeps over at friends or for school trips & my son does beaver camping trips & sleep overs but none of us would ever leave our children alone with a bf overnight every weekend. Nor would we expect any new bf to do so.

I'm confused, and perhaps it's just me, but a couple of questions:

(I completely agree with a 'new' partner, but after 6 months / 12 months depending how often you see eachother, it's not 'new' at that stage)

Why do you (or your sister if we use her example) trust parents who you see 10 minutes in the playground most days. Or club organisers who you see 5 minutes at drop off once a week. Or who ever.

More than you trust the person you're with/ sleeping with/ looking for long term life with/ sharing life with/ etc. ?

I dont see how it works?

StuC75

The most obvious observation is in terms of what time would start at and number of hours that could work in total.

11:30 allows maybe 4hours work? (7:30 to 11:30), 4am gives another 4/5 hours time on top..

The OP's Girlfriend may want something that's say 9/10pm til 4am so that can head to work after her daughter is in bed and returns home before she wakes up - but still worked a 7 hour shift, and no childcare costs coming out of that..

Assuming the daughter is a good sleeper, she wouldn't even know..

Trouble with jobs fitting round children is that theres a lot of people wanting those jobs, and what jobs fit around a child that maybe isn't in school yet?

amersall wrote: »

Why she would want to work until 4am is beyond me!, she could work in a pub or club that closes at 11 30pm if that is the work she wants to do.

There are lots of jobs that fit around children now, as other posters have said.

Stand your ground.

quidsy

OP I am not suggesting you fall into this catagory in any way but using it as a way to explain my own personal position on who looks after my kid over night

Here is a classic child abuse scenario. Mummys bf is a person of trust, someone the child sees mummy being happy with, an abuser finds it very easy to coerce a child into doing something wrong or hurting the child with the threat of "upsetting mummy if you told"

This is how people that way inclined work, they involve themselves with the mum to get to the child, many can act & present a "normal" front. Normal relationship with the mother, normal sex life yet still will groom a child for along time in order to create a relationship of abuse.

The odd sleep over at beavers or with a mate from school carry much lower risks. At a beaver sleepover he is with 15 other kids & several adults. And he doesn't sleep over at kids house who don't know, he has been at his school for 5 years & the kids he has sleep over with, I make a point of getting to know the parents well. But again, this is one in a blue moon so the chance of grooming is much lowered, if the risk was even there.

To put it into my perspective, it took me 5 years to decide to have a child with my oh, 5 years of learning all about him, what type of husband & parent he would be.