Clothing (more venting)

[Penny Lane]

I know that we're all dealing with more important issues, but today I'd like to talk about sending clothing back and forth. It is driving me crazy. The kids go back and forth a couple times a week so there's no good way to make sure clothes from BM's house and clothes from our house don't get mixed up.

With a reasonable coparent that would be fine - the kids' stuff belongs to them, and as long as they have something to wear each day, no big deal, right? Not in our case! I was folding laundry this weekend and it struck me how different the clothes that we buy for the kids vs what BM sends them over in. The clothes that come from her house are pretty universally too small or stained or otherwise totally unacceptable. AND she hoards the clothes that we buy so they have nice clothes to wear at her house. It's pretty striking - if we send the kids over in something that isn't really cute, per se, but the kids love it, it always come back. But anything that's brand name (we shop a lot at thrift stores a lot to try to keep up) or looks really nice, never makes it back. It's definitely not a coincidence, and it gets worse whenever she's in a really bad mood.

So we end up getting rid of a lot of the stuff that she buys for them, which means we have to buy something to replace it. So she's effectively pushing most of the costs of keeping the kids clothed onto her house. ALSO, it's kind of a double bind because theoretically you shouldn't be getting rid of clothes the other parent buys. But the only other option is to send the 7-year-old back in a 4T shirt, only to have it come right back to our house! And then eventually they're wearing ill-fitting clothes on every exchange day as we just send the same clothes back and forth, like a terrible game of chicken. It's so much easier to just take it out of rotation and replace it.

And there's not really a good solution, the kids go back and forth so much I don't really think it's fair to them to reserve all their nicer clothes for non-exchange days (although we do keep some stuff aside if we know they're going to need it, like for a trip or for picture day or an event). Shoes are especially a pain because each kid has their favorite pair of sneakers (that we buy), but occasionally BM will keep them at her house and send over old shoes that are basically unwearable - do we send them back? Send them in other shoes we bought which they don't like as much, and then she'll send them back in those and we'll never get their favorite shoes back? There's no winning.

It was even worse over the summer because she didn't even have to meet the minimum standard for what's acceptable to send the kids to school in. She regularly sent the kids over wearing old soccer shorts, t shirts from summer camps years ago, etc. (Joke's on her though because now we have all the soccer shorts and she had to buy new ones when we signed up the kids for soccer in the fall).

Now I'm really dreading this winter. She doesn't put them in jackets nearly as often as we do, and she often forgets things like hats and gloves, even when it's snowy. So all the cold weather stuff ends up at her house. This year we're making a big push to get the kids to remember it themselves, so we'll see how that goes.

We've made a conscious decision to not fight this battle, to just buy a ton of clothes at the thrift store and not get too invested in whether any particular thing comes back. But every so often it hits me, she is so petty about so many things and really it's the kids that are hurt - I know that wearing too-small clothes isn't a crisis but it's totally unnecessary!

The good news is, we just picked up a ton of new clothes lately and I think the kids' drawers are so stuffed with warm things that BM can take every single thing the kids wear to her house, send back something unwearable, and they'll still have enough to last them through the winter or their next growth spurt. Hopefully feeling good about that will get me through the frustration next time I learn that the 11 year old came back in 6-7 undies once again.

[Whiteheron]

Not to the extreme of an 11 yo wearing 6/7 undies, but I can sure relate. I get DS14 returning to me in shorts that are too small (on cold days) long sleeve shirts that are too tight (on hot days). It's ridiculous. Apparently that's all that's clean at his dad's house. DD11 is slim, so it's not as noticeable on her except when her shirts are a bit too short.

He used to demand I send over clothing (I guess since it's in their best interest??), he also used to demand I send over certain items for his vacations. I ignored every request, except to let him know I left the kids' bathing suits at his place, and I only did that because he was demanding I send their bathing suits over.

I have a new routine. Wash things as they come and throw them into the donate pile. I've also told the kids that if they want a favorite shirt to wear when they're at my place, to not wear it over to his. DD won't wear a lot of her favorite clothing over to his house anyways because he draws attention to anything nice she wears and it embarrasses her. DS doesn't care as much, to the point he was running out of t-shirts here and I had to tell him to stop wearing long sleeve shirts back to my house.

Now we're dealing with school clothes- stbx took them to the local sporting goods store to buy new clothes. A great place for a young preteen girl to find suitable clothing  Apparently stbx refused to take her to any of the stores I buy her clothes at.

He also bought her some shirts made out of a scratchy material and when she said something to him about it, he told her the fabric was of superior quality and that was what he was going to buy for her to wear. I guess because I buy her the other kind?

[Rose1]

Anything good came back with stains etc. I learned early that nothing good went with them except maybe one outfit. I got them back but damaged. On a good day he would wash some but send dirty, wet all together in the suitcase. Everything for maximum difficulty. Knowing on a Sunday evening I had toit gI to work the next day.

I refused to play. Kids got second hand clothes. And learned to bring them home. Fortunately it was only every few months. Would have driven me nuts every week

[athene1399]

I am sorry, Penny. Probably buying some clothes from a thrift store would be your best option. I'm sure BM is purposely doing it just to get under your skin, or she's trying to make you do the work of buying an update wardrobe for the kids to have at BM's house. I'm sure it's super annoying. BM probably knows you guys won't put the kids back in tiny clothing. It's like she's taking advantage of your decency. If you boil it down, she's using the kids as pawns to aggravate you guys. It's totally unfair since the kids have no idea. I just couldn't imagine that train of thought because it would sound so ridiculous: "I don't want Dad having any of your nice clothes, so wear something two-sizes too small. Oh, and I don't want him having any of your coats either, so no coat for you today."  WTH

I totally feel your pain. SO and I buy buy 90% of SD's clothes, but she takes everything to BM's to keep there and packs when she comes to our place. But I think she wants everything in one place so she can find it easier, but still. It feels like a slap in the face even if it's not her intention.  But if she kept everything we bought at our place, she'd have almost nothing at BM's, so it's like a catch 22.

[Stepping lightly]

I think clothing is an easy manipulation point for PDs.  Our clothing issues is currently a little bit different.  BM consistently plays the "I'm so poor" card with everyone so she makes it a big deal when buying clothes for the kids.  Now, I know how much money DH sends BM and I know how much BM makes...she can buy some clothes for the kids.  Regardless, DSD told me recently that she "doesn't have any jeans" at BMs house.  "They can't find jeans that fit right".  Which is funny because we have a non-expensive brand of jeans we buy her that fit just fine (that are easily purchased online...and you can almost always get on sale).  We just want poor DSD to have clothes she feels good about wearing, so we told her she is welcome to take some of the jeans from our house to BMs.  We only have them EOW right now, she might as well get the wear out of them.  But- BM will flip out if she knows- nothing that has been purchased by DH can reside in her home at all (this includes backpacks, lunchboxes, clothes etc).  DSD is old enough to decide on her own....we made the offer...

[Penny Lane]

Thanks everyone! It's nice to know I'm not alone though sorry you're all in a similar boat.

SL I think you're totally right, it's just about control. Controlling what the kids have with them, controlling what we have at our house and how much money we have to spend. Etc. Our BM, too, plays the "I'm so poor" card which, as I've said here, is so far from true it's ridiculous. She just chooses to spend her money on herself rather than on the stuff the kids need.

It's interesting, I always wonder if she actually does buy clothes for the kids and she just keeps them at her house until they're way too small. Or if she really doesn't have all that many clothes for the kids and so she needs the stuff we buy to keep them clothed. I think it's kind of both - she doesn't really have enough clothes but the nice stuff she does buy stays at her house (and so does the nice stuff we buy). Like I said before, the problems are exacerbated when she's in a bad mood. So that tells me that at least some of it is malicious. I also think she doesn't regularly do laundry so a lot of times the clothes don't get clean for several weeks after they wear it, so that causes some problems too.

Whiteheron, I like the solution of putting some of the responsibility on the kids. And we do warn the kids sometimes, hey, if you take that over to your mom's and it doesn't come back, you're not getting another one. With clothes I think it bothers me and SO a lot more than it bothers them. (They're with their mom half the time, so if we get them something nice that she keeps, they still get to wear it half the time!) But we're trying to take the attitude of, we buy the kids stuff for the kids, it's fine if they want to enjoy it at their mom's house instead of here. It's HARD though when we know she's being so petty about it.

athene, I don't think she's telling them anything, I think she just picks out clothes for them and it happens to always be crappy clothes when they're coming back to our house. And she's not withholding coats from them, but things get lost all the time there and the kids forget to put them on and then they don't have them. I have noticed that the 11 year old is wearing a lot nicer stuff this year and I'm wondering if he's been picking out his own clothes lately. We let the kids wear what they want (within reason ...not like, shorts in the middle of winter) and so that's part of the problem too, of course they want to wear their nice clothes no matter if they're coming back after school or going to their mom's house.

Rose, that sounds very frustrating. We've seen a little bit of the dirty clothes stuff - a soccer uniform came back with dried blood on it once, for example. Yuck! The kid was not happy to realize that so we put him in a different shirt for the game.

[Stepping lightly]

BM in our situation chooses to spend her money on alcohol and tattoos....but makes her kids fear they will starve because they are so poor.

So- when you see the kids during BMs time, not during exchanges....do they have clothes on that fit?  I am wondering if she just sends them back in small clothes but has other clothes that fit?  That would be the MO we deal with, her saying "I know I'll never get them back, so I will send them in clothes that don't matter".   BM actually sent DSD back one time in one of our outfits....that DSD had torn a HUGE hole in the leg the week before when she was going to BMs...and BM put her back in the ripped pants and sent her to school to "return our clothes".

[elly87]

i agree with the poster who stated that clothing is an easy area for PDs to exert their need for control and Ive had to swallow many frustrations associated with that. I, too, have sent clothing that never came back, especially nice stuff. many pairs of shoes and clothes have 'gotten lost' while I was forced to pay for doubles and triples of the items. It can not be a perfect system , of course, but Ive found it helpful to isolate just a few outfits and 1 pair of shoes for the kids on days they will be going to their BF house so that if something doesnt come back, its ok, as the outfits that are just for our house are still safe and sound at home. the rest, I just have to swallow. yesterday my son came home with too-short pants, his white socks clearly visible, a look that drives me insane (especially after i just purchased 5 pairs of brand new beautiful uniform pants for him). of course, BF kept the 6T pants i just bought, and sent him to my house dressed in pants a size smaller. so what do i do? I will clean the too-small pants and return them to him, on my son, the next visitation day. He has to send him in a different pair the next day because these will be dirty so i hope he sends the pants that i bought. obviously for clothing that is uncomfortably small or stained or hole-y, it must be thrown out ASAP. luckily for me, their narcissist dad draws the line there because he wouldnt want anyone thinking less of him if the kids were dressed too poorly. try as best you can to 'force' her in a position of having to buy new clothing for them by keeping as much of what you buy as you can and sending the same few outfits to her house. He once had them for 1 week's vacation and took all my clothes with him (all the way in the beginning. ive come a long way). he didnt return them for 3 weeks and I couldnt afford to replace them. i was literally begging him to bring me the clothing back that i had purchased. It was horrible and I never went through that again because it was the last time i gave him more than 1 outfit. you want to take your kids on vacation? youll need to provide them with clothes for that. period. good luck, it aint easy...

[Penny Lane]

SL, wow, alcohol and tattoos! Although now that you mention it I do know that our BM has spent plenty of money on both. I shouldn't be that surprised.

The kids definitely have some nicer clothes that they wear only at BM's house though I'm not quite sure whether it's a full wardrobe or she just buys a few super expensive items each year and takes the rest from us. I would not mind at all if she just kept all the stuff she buys at her house and sent them back and forth in the stuff from here. I do think you're right that in her mind we lose/don't send back the stuff she buys for them (projection) and it just kind of spirals from there into this ridiculous setup. The kids do sometimes wear suitable clothes that she bought and we try to send it back as quickly as possible, though the kids don't usually want to wear the exact same outfit multiple times a week, so there's usually a delay of a week or two. So yeah, I think that is probably her excuse for all the pettiness, that SO and I are the ones who lose or take the stuff she buys the kids. I also think it's not all malicious, she does lose her own stuff a lot too as far as I can tell and she'll go weeks without doing laundry (according to the kids).

I have in the past wondered if this is just a normal thing and I'm blowing out of proportion something that all divorced parents of little kids deal with. It's not crazy to think that you don't send the kids' best stuff over to the other house, you know? And obviously things are going to get forgotten sometimes. What really clarified in my mind how ridiculous and possessive she's being is when she went through a really good spell for about four months. Out of the blue she started being about a million times more reasonable in basically every aspect of coparenting. During that time all of these clothes problems magically disappeared. The stuff we bought for them came back, maybe not right away but eventually. And the stuff she bought for them that came to our house - it wasn't like it was a bunch of brand new stuff, but it was definitely reasonable things for the kids to wear. Basically, it wasn't perfect but it was livable, the difference was night and day. And then all of a sudden at the end it was like a flip had switched and she was back to her normal terrible stuff and the 2-3 sizes too small stained ripped items reappeared.

Elly, I hear you about just having to swallow frustration! The very worst is the occasional day when SO has to pick up the kids and immediately take them somewhere (that she knows about). It doesn't happen often, maybe a few times a year since exchanges usually happen at school. But when it does the kids will invariably be wearing something so ridiculous that it's kind of embarrassing, like, I don't want people to think that we care so little about the kids that we dress them like this! That's part of what makes me think she is doing it on purpose. That goes back to your point about how the other parent doesn't want to be embarrassed about having the kids wear something so bad ... but it's fine if it only comes back on us not her.

Vacations are also some of the worst. We have to start planning weeks in advance to hold back the stuff that the kids need. If she can sabotage the vacation by withholding the one thing the kids really need, she definitely will. Finally one time she was being so ridiculous and I was so worried about it that SO said "you know what, if she truly just refuses to send something back, we'll just buy another." That really lifted a lot of the stress on me. We obviously can't afford to do that with everything though, so we still chase stuff down to some degree. Back before I was in the picture she would send the kids outside barefoot and acted like it was insane for him to want them to be wearing shoes (WHICH OF COURSE HE HAD BOUGHT). She still tries to send them in way too small pjs or other totally ridiculous clothes whenever she can. I treasure the vacations where we pick the kids up from school rather than her house.

Recently the 11 year old wanted to take a special outfit to BM's house for an event. We reluctantly went with it, at the end of the day it's his clothes after all, and reminded him that if he doesn't bring them back he won't have them here. She did send them back, which really surprised me ... but he was wearing it, so she got an extra outfit out of us there, too.

[Magnolia34]

Ugh. This is a constant issue with us as well.

The kids would wear our nice clothes to her house and then come back to us in sweats or pajamas. So when it came time for school they didn't have any jeans or pants to wear! The older kids do alright... DSD keeps a little backpack she takes her favorite things back and forth in. But the youngest two are harder.

I've honestly started using her pride against her a little bit. Every so often I'll go through their closets and round up the ratty, ill-fitting clothing she sends them in and I load it into one of their backpacks to take back to her house. I'm hoping this sends the message "We see that you're hoarding our nice clothing, and I'm kindly sending your things back to you." Either that, or I just throw it away/donate it.

One time the youngest was wearing one of his nicest outfits on a transition day. I found some clothing in his closet that belonged to her and asked him if he would change (I made something up about needing his outfit for the laundry). I found him in his room trying to put her clothes on over ours and he immediately teared up and said "I have to wear your clothes to my mom's or I'll get in trouble!" The poor little guy was going to try to change really quickly so she wouldn't get mad, I guess.

The way everything stands now, I think she has a few things of ours at her house but the kids have gotten better about wearing something from our house whenever they come back. I guess that makes her feel like she has control but I don't care. As long as they have what they need for school she can think whatever she wants!

[Penny Lane]

Every so often I'll go through their closets and round up the ratty, ill-fitting clothing she sends them in and I load it into one of their backpacks to take back to her house. I'm hoping this sends the message "We see that you're hoarding our nice clothing, and I'm kindly sending your things back to you."

This is genius. In our case I think that would maybe spur BM into realizing that we're not trying to steal the kids' clothes from her and make her be more reasonable about returning stuff. I'm going to keep that in mind.

[Magnolia34]

Penny Lane,

I think that's EXACTLY what it says! To the kids, I think it says "here, I'm trying to be cooperative by sending the clothing your mom purchased back to her." I don't know whether BM is shamed into being more agreeable or, like you said, it kind of takes away the power of the conflict.

[athene1399]

I'm honestly torn on sending them back in the small clothes. I think if they're ripped a bit then it's fine, but I would feel bad sending them back in something two sizes too small. I'd be afraid she wouldn't change them into fitting clothes once they arrived. Maybe I'm over thinking it.

However, it is a frustrating situation! It would get me all sorts of fired up, but I don't know if sending the kids back in tiny clothes in the answer. IDK. It's a tricky one.

[Penny Lane]

I know. I'm always so torn because on one hand I think every piece of clothing that we don't send back is more evidence in her mind that we take stuff she bought. But on the other hand if she keeps sending the kids back in clothes that are way too small, it seems clear to me that she's trying to get us to get rid of it. So what do you do?

Weirdly, after we let the kid take the outfit to her house she sent a bunch of stuff back. So I guess that's good to know. If we go way out of our way to be generous with the kids on her time, she'll do the minimum of decency in return.

[athene1399]

Sounds like a small win (the minimum of decency), but it's still a win!  I just don't understand why she doesn't just throw it out herself if she's trying to get rid of it. I still think she's just trying to annoy you guys.

[Nonenabler16]

Has anyone ever taken pictures of the clothes they don't want to lose, if you HAVE to send them in them and it's something of yours?

[Stepping lightly]

Hi Nonenabler- not sure if that would help.  I imagine the response to requesting clothes based on a picture would be something like, "don't blame me for you losing the kids clothes", "maybe the kids hated that shirt and threw it away so you couldn't make them wear it"...the deflections are endless.  The most I've considered is putting a sharpie initial on the tag so we knew if it was ours/hers (it gets hard to keep up since my DSD gets hand me downs from my niece and I don't always see what comes through).

[Penny Lane]

Yeah I would say, at least in our situation, the problem isn't that she doesn't know what SO is talking about, she just loses it or refuses to send it back. Sending her a picture of it wouldn't help much because she already knows what it looks like - it's at her house! I suppose if there's some dispute over who bought the clothing that could help. We've had much better luck telling the kids "it's very important you bring this back, you are going to need it" or even "I bought that outfit especially for you, I hope you wear it back over here so we can enjoy it together!" than trying to get BM to cooperate. I suppose it can't hurt, if nothing else it'll help you remember what gets sent over there.

[findjoy81]

Wow, so glad I'm not the only one!!! My boys (5 and 7) come back in clothes way too small for them (like 24 month-3T clothes for the 5 year old), or ripped/stained.... I let go of most of it, but I do lose my mind over new shoes and coats.  Last year it was the coats, I asked for it to be returned and he responded something about knowing I have MANY coats at my house (??? uh, what?) so why don't I just put them in another.  Why would I buy many coats for a kid that will grow out of it in a year? 

Anyway, I hate putting the kids in the middle of it, but there have been a few times I've said "since this is new, I'd like you to just wear it while you're here" ... or "remember if you wear this to daddy's to be sure it comes back" especially for new shoes. 

If we are heading straight out of town for a trip, I have to plan for the kids to arrive with basically nothing - I can't even count on them having shoes.

Oh, once he sent our then 6 year old back in just underwear..... imagine my surprise opening the door to my 6 year old on the front step in his undies.  WOW.  They had gone to an amusement park, so I thought for sure it was due to getting them dirty or wet.... but no he said he forgot MY clothes at his house when he changed earlier in the day.... so he sent him back to me in underwear.

[Penny Lane]

You are definitely not alone!! This is the topic that keeps on giving. It feels like every week we have some kind of stress about clothes. I can't believe your ex sent him in undies though!!! That is next level. Hopefully as the kids get older they'll refuse (I know my stepkids would).

Coats and other winter stuff really get under my skin too. Kids need to wear coats, they can't play outside at recess if they don't have warm clothes and BM acts like they're somehow optional. And coats are expensive! A couple times this year she's kept the new coats we bought for them and sent them back last year's coats (which we also bought). Just like ... why do that? This year at least she bought them each a sweatshirt so we know they do have some warm clothes at her house.

We've tried really hard to only make a big deal out of it when it's something they NEED at our house. So if it's a brand new T shirt ... oh well, they have backups, even if we're annoyed that we'll probably never see it again. But they NEED snow stuff, bathing suits, stuff like that. I'll try to explain it to the kids that way ... "No, you need to leave that here because you use it every day and if you leave it at your mom's you won't have another one." They usually accept that. It helped one time when I pointed out that they forget her stuff over here too and maybe they shouldn't bring anything that they need at her house either. That made it seem less like it was us vs. their mom and more like, logistics planning. (Although we try to help them remember to bring stuff back to her house whereas I really think she's actively keeping nice stuff. I didn't say that to him).

Sorry you're dealing with this too! I can't get over the underwear thing, that sounds awful for everyone.