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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

How would they "compensate" Sally?   If you are Mary (Sally's mom) in this situation, how would you handle this?[/quote]

well to begin with, I would never give Sally the idea that she was being treated unfairly, or that money and things are everything, or that you should spend life fixated on what other people appear to have. By “compensate” I just mean the family would work to find opportunities for Sally to get physical activity and participate in sports (tons of free/cheap things to do), take inexpensive vacations, and develop a positive and fun family atmosphere and traditions.

I’ll say it again - this all has to do with the adults and their values, not the need for stepkids to be treated equally on paper. [/quote]

So you have no answer.[/quote]

they have an answer, sitting down a 9 year old and explaining that live isn't fair and that even though she like gymnastics and is better than her sister, she's going to have to spend weekends driving to far flung gyms to watch her sister because life isn't fair. She'll then understand perfectly, go sit down with her copy of Atlas Shrugged and be perfectly content while her sister does her routine. [/quote]

Exactly.  You can try to explain your insane coldhearted opinions to them, but they will hate you anyway.  It doesn't matter if you still think you are right.  Teenagers can make your life hell if they really feel aggrieved.[/quote]

In this case it would be REALLY hard for a little kid to swallow that their sister gets to do gymnastics or travel soccer or whatever activity they both love and you can’t. This would make every dinner, every activity event hell for everyone involved.

It is stuff like this that destroys families. This is the reason that second marriages with kids almost always end in divorce. 
 [/quote]

Ok you’re right. if you don’t have the brainpower to figure out how to manage a situation where kids play on different sports teams, then yes, you do not have the good sense to manage a blended family and you should never remarry.

The rest of us can come up with multiple ways to make it work. [/quote]

The example was not “kids being in different teams” which would be supper easy. Agreed. The example is both kids love the same sport and ONE gets to play in an expensive club involving travel and the other can’t. The child’s other bio parent is footing the bill. How do you deal with going to travel soccer games as a family when the children are the same age and only one gets to play?

Please explain your “good sense” approach that wouldn’t make the less affluent kid feel like crap — and rub it in her face every other week. So far, all you’ve said is that you have the “brainpower” to do it. No solutions.

I for one, used my good sense and brainpower to stay married instead of trying to explain to my kid why she has to be treated like Cinderella. You do you. 
  [/quote]

You're creating the most extreme "Cinderella" set-up and assuming that the parents have no ability to remedy it at all.  I'm not sure how that's supposed to be a helpful contribution. You're trying to prove your case (that all divorced people are terrible?) by creating a hypothetical situation with no possible exit.

But to reiterate - I think kids can very much understand that their step siblings have different resources. I think it's the grownup bean counters who think it is a total catastrophe that Larla "gets" to do travel gymnastics, and Susie does not, are the ones who create the set up for this to be a disaster.  There are all sorts of ways that parents can make sure that both kids get their needs meaningfully met.  A successful remarriage would have to be predicated on that, not that each child gets everything exactly equal, or it will be a disaster.  
[b]
Really, all this example does is prove your own values are almost exclusively material, and you can't imagine a world where Susie is perfectly happy and secure even while Larla gets to do "travel gymnastics."[/b][/quote]

not at all, you're forgetting the second part- namely that Susie knows her sister is able to do things that she can't [b]even though they are ostensibly sisters.[/b] The cinderella trope exists because there is some underlying truth to the relationship between step parents, their step children and their bio children [/quote]

here's the thing - they are not sisters.  they are STEP sisters.  and kids realize that.  you create issues precisely when you set up a framework that "you two are sistersss!!!"  in the blended families that succeed, there is no such pressure and all the separate family structures are respected and allowed to evolve.  the trouble comes when the grownups believe that things have to appear perfect and be perfectly equal on paper.  [/quote]

as someone who grew up in a family like they, nope 7 year old me thought I had a new sister. 18 year old me pretended that I was fine with everything and that I loved my sister and father. 25 year old me despised and resented her and all the advantages she had, mainly around schooling and then college. Now I just pretend she doesn't exist [/quote]

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