Step Talk

We keep enough clothes for sd to have about a week's worth of everything. Since I have younger daughters, I don't mind buying sd clothes 'cause I figure my other girls will get use of them at some point. I see nothing wrong with her bringing clothes along. Besides, as she gets older, she is going to want more control over what she wears. I buy a lot of my kids clothes at yard sales and on ebay. Also, wal-mart sells separates for pretty cheap and so does target.

nope, not wrong at all. That's what CS is for!

We're lucky - my SD8 has an older cousin that gives her bags and bags of new & almost new clothes every season. BM only ever buys Old Navy clothes - which are okay but sometimes they fall apart very easily...so we supply some clothes.

If I was in your situation I would ask for clothes for sure. It's not your responsibility to supply never-to-be-worn clothes, let the responsibility fall on BM, otherwise she should be paying you for the never-to-be-worn clothing $$. Not to mention you have a new baby, who WILL be needing to wear some clothes

that is also were i buy her clothes but like i said she only wears the same pair of jeans and shirt EOW only because they are the ones on top. i just gave my younger niece a bunch of clothes almost new because SD does not wear them and she grew out of them already.

i don't know how my H is gonna take but the heck with it im going for it cause im tired of having to hold back on stuff that i need for both me and my baby...

We have 50% custody of SD9. The clothes go back and forth between each house. We live minutes from BM. SD has a lot of clothes. The only issue is the hoarding. I don't know why BM does this but she hoards SDs clothes. On the day that SD comes to our home, BM is suppose to pack SDs bag and vise versa, we pack the bag for when she returns to BMs. Sometimes BM will only put in one or two pairs of pants for seven days. It drives us mental. We need to do something about it. I think the solution is to have SD pack her own bag. The funny thing is I've given SD lots of clothes and some of my hand-me-downs and they end up living at BMs and I never get to see SD wear them. I asked H to say something, and he did, BM got very indignant and asked H what else is Stepping upset about. Oh brother! I think it reasonable that I see her in the things I gave her. Those clothes don't have to live at our house 365 days a year, as I see it, their SDs clothes, so they go where she goes.

From reading previous blogs this is an on going problem with many BMs.

same happened to us... we used to send SD back with clothes that we bought for her and never had them returned so stupid us had to buy more because BM never sent them back...

BD7 goes to her dad's EOW. She almost always comes home filthy and her clothes and stained and/or ruined. When we got divorced, we agreed that BF would provide all her clothing at his house. He has, in the past, had financial troubles and I have offered to supply his house with clothes. I bought everything I thought our daughter would need at her dad's including new socks and undies, but I bought all the clothes at the thrift store. BF got all pissed and asked why she only wears "used" clothing. It's totally not true, she has lots of new clothes at home, but I refuse to spend lots of cash on clothes that will be ruined before she gets to wear them more than once. His mother used to do his laundry and would not pre-treat clothes and I would have to spend a lot of time getting the stains out so BD could wear them again.

My BF and his ex have the same agreement but BM takes forever to return clothes that belong at BF's house. BF only has BS 5 months on Sunday for 4 hours so if he gets messy, we send him home with clothes we bought and we had to email BM to get them back and she returned them unlaundered. Nasty! I would never leave clothes unwashed for 2 weeks.

I would ask your BM to send clothes or get her some stuff at thrift stores or garage sales. All 3 of my kids and FSS get alot of stuff from thrift stores and garage sales, especially when they were young. I could dress a kid for the whole season for like 20 bucks plus shoes and underclothes. Not bad!

i call it "the black hole" nothing ever comes back. If i DO have to buy clothes for the skids they are DEFINITELY coming from yard sales and the VOA!!!

If it was good enough for MY bio kids, it's definitely good enough for these unappreciative and spoiled brats!

And yes, our CS went up as well. BF's paycheck this week? BM gets $250, BF gets a whopping $140. NICE!

it's a DAMN GOOD THING i earn a decent wage! (but then again so does BM; almost as much as me and her live in boyfriend makes far more than i do)

i guess it boils down to life is NOT FAIR for divorced fathers!

A friend at work told me that it is actually easier and cheaper to KILL you ex-wife and plead insanity than to get divorced and go thru the hassle of visitation and CS. You actually spend MORE TIME IN COURT when you're divorced than if you are up the river for murder!!!!

SHOCKING!

BM will "borrow" SD's clothes that DH and I have purchased for SD. SD willingly loans things to BM. SD begged me for croc shoes for months ... I bought them for her, and the next weekend she wore them to BM's house. I've never seen them since (that was last summer). SD also comes back to us wearing BM's clothes (which are uber tight and belly shirts, things like that), rather than the clothes we sent her in.

It drives me insane.

When you have an unreasonable BM whether you are a CP or an NCP. I think there are way more problems with trying to share clothes between 2 households. BM's use that as a power game. In my case I was purchasing brand new clothes and shoes before each visitation just so Skids look nice but the clothes came back torn, ripped by her puppies, or not at all. So the last time I packed for the kids visitation I only provided 4 days worth of clothing and just purchased school clothes for the rest of the year when they came home. I couldn't allow the children to wear the torn up clothing that came back from BM's home.

Yes since BM is providing CS (when she felt like it) then technically that includes clothing. But that doesn't give her the entitlement of destroying clothes that went to her. Legally (according to my Attorney) for visitation all that is required to send is one overnight change of clothing, PJS, underwear, etc and the kids of course. That is it. I think it is a stupid power game because I really feel these clothes are the children's and they need to be returned to the children but that doesn't happen in our case. BM was paying such a joke of a low CS payment (because she lied about her income) that no way did that measly check even came close to providing for her children's needs. I personally purchase the clothing out of my paycheck and she knew it. She was just trying to break DH and I financially.

"GO BACK TO YOUR BRIDGE YOU EVIL TROLL. YOU HAVE NO POWERS HERE"

last night i brought it up to my H and quickly he said yes! i was not expecting this reaction but i guess he is now feeling the pain of having to work extra hours just so that we can make it.

now when the time comes to ask BM for clothes we will see how she takes it...how do they usually take it in ur cases?

Can you just tell BM you need SD to pack enough clothing for the time she's with you guys?

i dont see why she couldnt send clothes. ours used to until we said no, u dont need to pack her a bag we provide for her while shes here. we dont send her home in any of our clothes either bc we have to fight to get them back, so usually what she comes over in on fri gets washed and sent back on her sunday.
i dont see any reason why ur BM would mind sending clothes. how old is SD? old enough to pack her own overnite bag?

SD is 8 going on 9 but acts like a 4 year old and she is with us EOW and BM has a case of mental problems were she can't act like a normal educated respectful and understanding person...

well in that case, screw her anyway and ask her to supply clothes...u pay plenty in cs im sure and yr baby shouldnt go wo so sd can have 2 separate closets of clothes.

look out for fireworks!
im pretty sure there will be fireworks coming out of BMs mouth when the time comes to ask her for clothes...but oh well i do enjoy 4th of July a lot..

why should u be spending extra money on a kid that u have what, 4 days a month and let your baby go w/o, especially bc u know u provide her w plenty of money to buy tons of clothes.
if she starts w u, just start rite back...im sure u can shoot off some nice fireworks yourself!!

yeah im pretty good at that

you can point out to her (or rather DH can) that the law is for children that are w/the NCP less than 30% of the year are NOT required to provide said children w/toys, clothes or a bedroom. YEP!! that is correct.

CS is supposed to clothes that child. Too bad for her if she doesnt like it.

Our BM provides the clothes for our EOW skids. Those clothes are nasty, ripped, stained you name it. We get them clothes when we go away on vacations w/them (so they have something nice and appropriate to wear, and then we allow them to take them home) we also get the clothes for the holidays.. nice outfits and a jacket as well. Since that too is filthy.

before my baby was born i had that bedroom problem. we recently bought a house with only two bedrooms and my baby was about to be born when we moved in and i wanted to make it a nursery. but of course SD was in the picture and had to be taken into consideration (not that i wanted to). so i tried to make it work but i just didnt feel like doing so. "i really wanted a nursery for my first baby". my other reason to not incorporate SD in that room other than just a bed was that she is never in that room playing or reading she is just after dad and watching tv in the tv room or on the computer.. so i decided by myself and told my H that i was making that room into a nursery and i did and all there is for SD is a bed.

since my H does not get into this CS deal im left to figure it out by myself... where can i find out what his rights are?

Sign up for ebay or craigslist and sell them then use the money for either baby clothes or new sd clothes. We have drastically cut back on buying skids clothes as they only wear what's at the top of the drawer. Knowing they will grow out of them burns me, so we only buy as things are outgrown now. Their grandmother and mother buy so much extra stuff that they never want for clothes. No sense in us buying stuff that won't ever get worn.

yeah it burns me to that she only wears what is on top and that tags are still on and that she messes them up with markers and then stashes them so that i don't find them ..then they are ruined..

the way that i get rid of the clothes that she outgrows is by passing them to my niece who does wear them ...

you know, i just take stuff out of their rooms
if they don't wear it and don't ask for the article that i take out, we put it in the sell box so it doesn't get ruined.

at least my skids aren't deliberately ruining stuff - sheesh!

if i take something from SD like clothes,toys or hair stuff she doenst notice at all even if we just bought it for her and she will forget about it... i bought her a hair band last time she was here and in an instance she left it at my sisters and did not remember to take it with her she also forgot sweater and money in the backyard...if it wasnt for my niece that found them they would still be there...

This is another thing that really buggs DH and I. BM used to get my DH to buy all the clothes, shoes, whatever before I came along, and this is on top of a hefty child support agreement ( she filed for alimony, but had no right to it esp since she was the cheating **nt that left for her lover) My DH is just a pushover, and would do anything she asked. I started putting my foot down after we got engaged, and helped him wisen up. I said, " what are you paying child support for.. her rent??" and she has a man supporting her lazy grubbing butt anyways. So, he stopped buying piles of clothes for ss. The only stupid game we deal with now, is that we can not send him home in anything nice, or we will never see it again. My DH has seen his sons room on occasion, and rest assured he has more then a closet full of clothes, but the BM will only send him to our house in the oldest most worn out set of clothes she can find, that he doesnt hardly fit in anymore.
I actualy feel embarrassed for the kid that he has to go to dayschool in them! He's only 4, so it's only time before he notices what she is doing. She wont send any clothes for the weekend either, so we have to still have clothes on hand for him. Mind you , we only have him two weekends of a month! So, come sunday night, we change him back into the old yucky clothes, and send him home. YOu would think she would get the message after like two years of doing this, but noooo, we are dull as can be! sorry for the novel again.