Venting
Though this happened months ago, I just found out that SS12 ran up over $500 worth of online games on BM's credit card. DH was trying to keep the drama from me because I already have a low opinion of SS and BM and he didn't want me disliking them even more, but SD mentioned it, so now I know. Apparently back when BM discovered SS's shenanigans, she repeated asked DH to transfer SS's allowance account to her to pay her part of the money back. DH has an allowance account for SS because if he actually gave SS all his allowance money he would blow it in a hour, so this forces him to save some. DH did the right thing and said no to BM. It's not our fault that SS was slowly stealing from his mom for months and she didn't notice. We shouldn't be paying for her laziness and his bad behavior in her household. It may be SS's money, but imo, it's what we give him and has nothing to do with her. If she asked that we just not give him an allowance for a while because he shouldn't be rewarded when he did something so bad, I would totally be onboard, but asking us to pay her back is ridiculous. Am I wrong?
The other thing that bugs me is that, although this happened months ago, I never saw any real punishment for what SS did. I guess, I don't know what goes on in BM's household, so maybe he was being punished there. I think the more likely case is that BM is somehow blaming this and her other parenting failures on DH because she has been trying to extort money from us in the past few months. I had been wondering why she was suddenly threatening to sue DH and trying to get him to change the agreement.
But, there were no changes in our household. DH never stopped giving SS his allowance and he's been able to spend freely at our house these past months. Also, SS hasn't asked/cried to stay with us, so I imagine that there has been no punishment at BM's house. I'm just baffled at how anyone expects him to grow into a decent adult if they aren't holding him accountable. To me, he committed credit card fraud. I wouldn't take it lightly.
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He used to get the entire
He used to get the entire allowance, but he was blowing it within a day or two and then upset when he couldn't get a video game because he had no money saved up. We tried letting him handle it for a year or more but he just wasn't saving for big things, and was upset. So, we moved to a system where he gets some and some is saved for him for those bigger items. It's our allowance that we give him for chores, homework, showers, etc. that they do in our household. If BM gives them an allowance then it's for her household, imo. But, she doesn't, so she assumed his allowance from our household should be deducted. I don't think that is right, imo.
Dad pays his son to do school
Dad pays his son to do school homework? Really?
Yes, really...and showers! I
Yes, really...and showers! I know. But, we need him to do these things and having an allowance means we can take a privilege away when he doesn't do basic stuff. He's a handful, so I support DH on this.
The two acceptable responses
The two acceptable responses would have been to
1. give BM the "allowance" directly instead of SS and tell him that is where his allowance is going.
2. Stop paying his allowance until he has paid BM back in full. (I am assuming that there would be some way that his dad/mom could come up with a way for him to work off the debt. Also birthday money etc.. could be confiscated and earmarked for that purpose.
I don't think the kid should still be getting his allowance which is a reward when he should be punished. your DH should have backed his EX up more on this and made the kid suffer consequences.
That's what I think too - her
That's what I think too - her household is seperate. She never gave an allowance, so she should just have him do chores and such to pay her back. She could also not give a birthday or Christmas present. She could ask us not to give him an allowance for a while, but she shouldn't be asking us to pay her credit card bill. DH and I would have noticed as soon as SS was stealing from us. She didn't know for many months. According to SD it had been going on for almost a year.
As a mother, I would make my
As a mother, I would make my kid pay me back for the theft, via chores and selling items (iPad etc). In addition to house arrest otherwise known as grounding.
What the SS did is a crime, and should be punished by the parents. Your dh should not reward the kid. He needs to take away the allowance.
I agree. I think as soon as
I agree. I think as soon as DH found out, he should have put in place no allowance for at least two months even though it didn't have to do with our household. I don't think SS should have been rewarded by either parent after he was caught. The selling of items is also a good idea. If he does this to DH and I, I will use that suggestion. Thanks.
I see what you are saying but
I see what you are saying but you can't have it both ways. You said DH would not give BM the allowance money for SS to pay off the credit card charges because the money is earned in your house and stays in your house. But you want DH to suspend allowance for an incident that did NOT happen in your house. I don't know.. it's kind of a catch 22.
In my opinion it's really up to BM to pass down consequences.. what if so your DH could be on board with showing SS that what he did was unacceptable, by making SS do EXTRA chores etc. over and above his normal allowance to help pay BM back?
That's a good idea too - the
That's a good idea too - the extra chores.
I get that it's a complex situation and that I do feel hypocritical in some ways. I've always thought that BM should give an allowance for their doing chores and such in her house, but she doesn't. We've done it and we are able to take the allowance away when the kids do something wrong. I'd be fine with issuing some punishment to SS for solidarity, but I still don't think we should be giving BM the money.
Yeah, but it is his kid. If
Yeah, but it is his kid.
If my kid stole from the neighbors then I would still make my kid pay back the neighbor. My kid would have consequences no matter who he stole from.
My brother once stole a ninja turtle once from a store. My mom marched him right back in there and told the manager that he had stolen a toy, and that the police needed to be called. Of course they didn't call the police on a 5 year old, but he never stole anything again!
when things like this happen,
when things like this happen, it's frustrating all around. We had the reverse... SS was on my cell phone account (HUGE mistake) I made the critical error of not setting parental controls to limit minutes data etc. and one month I get a $700.00 cell phone bill because SS who was about 11 at the time ran up $500.00 in overages! I was furious, since SS was rarely with us, it was all on BM1's time, but she didn't offer to pay a dime of it. DH told him he was going to have to work it off.. but then the kid just quit coming over. BM gave him zero consequences, because what did she care? No money out of her pocket.
But what do you do?? Can't force the kid to come over (at least my DH can't.. no C.O) and can't force BM to hand down consequences at her house.. so as usual SS got away with nothing. Which probably explains why he is a loser 17 year old who smokes dope and plays video games all day and has had to go to summer school for the past 5 years.
I understand. I am trying to
I understand. I am trying to be disengaged, but I think DH should have handled it differently. I appreciate that he was trying to keep me from the drama, but I would have suggested taking away his allowance and electronics for a period of time if I had known earlier.
My OSD got in trouble with
My OSD got in trouble with her mother due to overage charges for data. Now in her case, it wasn't completely her fault because she had an Iphone.
Apparently on Iphones, there is a feature that automatically switches to the "best quality signal" (my technical words). But what that meant is that when she was upstairs in her cinderella attic room at her mom's, the WIFI signal that she THOUGHT she was using (which would have been FREE data) was actually weaker than the TOWER. So, the phone was automatically switching her to use the tower when she thought she was doing the right thing by only streaming music/video etc.. at her mom's wifi in reality it was using the plan data up.
The bill was hundreds of dollars more than it should have been but the girl really didn't realize that the phone was doing this. She changed the setting and never had the problem again.
That happened to lots of
That happened to lots of people when the new IPhone came out!
I made sure my kids and the skids went in and turned it off.
I told her she should have
I told her she should have her mom complain to Verizon since I think it was awfully sneaky to not let people know what that option was doing.
Wifi is funny. In older houses it seems like the signal doesn't generate very strong on wifi. At least that is what I found when we go to the bay, our signal there is really bad upstairs and we even got a router extra.
It was probably in app
It was probably in app purchases. I'm not really into the video game stuff, so I can't say for sure. But, he probably had access to his mom's account and instead of asking her when he wanted a game, which he knows he's supposed to do, he just went ahead and purchased it. She must not have had controls set up. DH always gets notifications when SS wants to buy something and SS needs to get permission from us first. He was doing this intentionally and for a long time and he knew it was wrong. He also tried to buy stuff without asking DH on DH's account and was shot down. We explained to him a few times that it is essentially stealing, so although he wasn't physically taking credit cards, he still knew what he was doing was wrong.
I've actually been there with
I've actually been there with my own child. They ran up a very large bill on their cell phone account which was paid by their dad.
All of the kids in my household (mine, my husbands and ours) had been doing chores and extra jobs for moms to save up for a trip we were going on. It was supposed to be there spending money.
When I found out about the cell phone over it, I immediately pulled the money for my child's account and gave it to their dad. Then, while we were on the vacation my child had to go without while their siblings and step-siblings got to buy and do extra fun things.
To me, this is not about bailing out the other parent. This is about making the child own up to their responsibilities and pay for what they spent.
Exactly.. It's not DAD paying
Exactly.. It's not DAD paying BM, it's the kid's money (given by dad) that is going to BM.
I don't see it as dad paying the mom anything, it's the kid having to give up the benefit of his allowance to repay a debt he owes.
It's starting to sink
It's starting to sink in...what some of you are saying about giving BM his allowance. I'm going to have to think about this some more.
If the allowance is for services, then we should have lowered the amount they get because we used to have the kids full-time and now we have them only part-time, but we didn't. So, really the allowance is not for services. We implemented it long ago when I was really pissed that they constantly asked us for stuff. it worked well - they stopped asking and we had a device to get them to do chores and such. We have it for our benefit and the kids benefit when they are with us.
I'm not sure if I want to bring it up to DH since it happened so long ago, but maybe for a future time that SS gets in trouble for "stealing", which is bound to happen again.
The money in the "allowance
The money in the "allowance account" belongs to SS. He owes BM money. He has money in the account. That money should go to pay off what he owes BM. Your DH isn't paying BM, SS is.
And precautions should be taken to ensure this doesn't happen again. But if it does...it's still SS owing the money.