Power control over small stuff?

[Rosie95]

Hello everybody. I feel totally hopeless.

Situation over a stupid dishwasher:

We made a rota between all the kids for a dishwasher duty, they have a day each. I obviously cook/bake most of the time, and really need  dishes to be sorted out of the dishwasher into the cupboards in the afternoon on occasions as I need them for cooking etc, or put into the dishwasher right after dinner if we had something that will dry out on the dishes easy. You know how kids are, they will do it the last thing before sleep in the night, even if! It happened by coincidence couple of times that I needed this done in the afternoon when the duty fell on his 2 kids (that are not mine) and I asked them to sort it out shortly after school. I got told off by my partner that with all the sarcasm that  I am the boss, I don't know how to be easygoing etc., that the kids will do it in their own time, that I just want to dominate and manage everybody.

I feel really sick, I'm just trying to run the household and be practical. So I can't even open my mouth up and just hope till the evening it will get done. Is this normal?  Or am I being too much?

[1footouttadefog]

It instead this correctly you set up a rotation for the kids to get the dishes into the machine before they go to bed but then occasionally need them done in the afternoon. You mention that this coincidentally fell on the days the step kids had a turn so I take it to mean these occasional changes have little warning in advanced.

My take of this is either move dishwashing empty duties to the earlier time or get better at warning them there is a change.  Kids will wait until the last minute and you are unlikely change this.

Perhaps you can add 10 minutes to you let occasional baking schedule to compensate for the fact you might have to hand wash a few things orbput some stuff up.

I am not saying you are wrong, just that you have to pick your battles.  You cannot expect the kids to consistently do something at a certain time then change the plans with little warning.

I had my kids on a rotating chores list  also.  Perhaps you can add a few more items to the rotation to that you gain back a little more time each week and a few extra minutes to adjust and be flexible will be in your day to day.  Vacuuming, dusting, folding and distributing laundry, sweeping, pet care, wiping dist from baseboards in a couple of rooms, resupplying bathroom materials, these are a few minutes each but if 4kids do a few mins a day it adds up to hours a week for you. 

This being said, I get that there is likely a high my kids your kids dynamic here that is being exploited by a pd.  Despite that kids are kids.  Just give everyone more work to do across the board and destress your daily routine.

[ICantThinkOfAName]

sounds like a tough situation.  IMO step kids are the responsibility of the bio parent.  It shouldn't be your duty to assign chores or deliver consequences without express consent of the bio parent.  This needs to be put into law and once there, explicit as to how and when it is to be done.  Without this it just puts you in a bad position, ie "you're not my mom", and "how dare you tell my kids what to do!"  In a perfect non-PD world, I would ask that the step parent take over responsibility of managing his kids and do so on your behalf.  Now having just read that, it makes me laugh, because no way in heck is a PD parent going to take up on your behalf.  In my situation, I told my uOCPDh hands off with my kids.  This keeps the onus on me, and my kids don't resent him for what they may think to be arbitrary rules.  It's hard enough for a step parent, you h should step up and make this easier for you.  If not, in all reality, I would let it just go.  But that's just me.  I hope things get better.

[notrightinthehead]

In addition to what the others have already said you might want to consider: What was the consequence of the dishes not being done? Maybe you did them yourself instead and nagged at the kids. Did you need the dishes to cook dinner? If so, how about next time there are different consequences - maybe you cannot cook dinner because you don't have the dishes to do so. Instead you have sliced bread, grab yourself something to read and relax. If asked where dinner is, you state calmly and serenely - I could not do it because I did not have the dishes. After that you are no longer availabe to argue or discuss. You are setting a boundary. No dishes. No dinner. You are no longer willing to pick up the slack for others.

[Rosie95]

Notrightinthehead, exactly you just summed it up.

I wouldn't fuss if I didn't necessarily need the clean dishes.

Prime example last night - we had a birthday cake party. 7pm, not a single clean small plate in the cupboard. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink. I ended up serving the cake on big dinner plates, where I felt pretty embarrassed in front of our guests. And guess what, the dishes haven't been washed still till this morning. The kids don't care and their father is so laid back and will do this on his terms anyway. I put it on there was nothing to eat from.

Now, if I say today to the kids - you do dishes today I did your turn, I will be called petty freak from my controlling partner.

And all was needed was to say yesterday to the kid - as a normal functional household would,  hey please put it on it's piling up.

But no, I would be the troublemaker once again. I hate this life I feel such a resentment and really feel sorry for all of you too.