How irritating! Especially given the fact that your DH pays $500/month, I would be floored, too!

Our BM hasn't done anything like that. SS always has clean and properly fitted clothing...our issue with her is that her style of dressing him is so different from ours. (Honestly, she probably has the same complaint about us!)

She dresses him in sweatsuits, tracksuits, sweatpants, sweatshirts, etc. He wears those white tanktops (wifebeaters!) under every shirt and DH and I both cringe when we see them! (sorry if that offends anyone--just a personal preference.)

We (ok, it's me, because I do more of the shopping at our house, but DH has the same taste in clothes as I do) are a little more preppy. Gosh, now that I think about it, I wouldn't even call it preppy---just nice jeans, cargo pants, etc. and crewnecks, some polos, etc.

It is really annoying when we buy him clothes, send him home in them, and they are never to be seen again!

But I'm sure BM says the same thing about us and the clothes she buys!

As long as clothes are clean, etc., I don't think you can complain. Love, maybe as soon as he comes over, you should have him change into "your" clothes, wash the ones he came in, and change him back when he goes home.

if you don't like what kind of clothes mom buys, then dress a kid differently when he is in your house. it is pointless to complain about dress style. unless you deliberatelly marry a person who dresses in the same style it is to be expected that they would want kids to be dressed differently. But even then.. i and X have similar clothes style but the way DD dresses is very far from what either one of us likes.

Now ripped up socks are no good, but maybe he dressed himself. DD is 21 and certainly dresses herself lol But most of the time she looks like she was dressing up in a dark.

"it is pointless to complain about dress style. "

LIKE I SAID, I am sure BM thinks the same thing about us. And neither my DH or I complain about it to BM. Geez. I was just venting on here a bit. Sure, it annoys me....on a scale of 1 to 10, I would say it's a 2. Enough to occasionally bother me, not enough to ever say anything.

Wait till you have teens, and then is their choices that drive you nuts.

Oh, I'm sure! LOL.

My DD is 6 and she is already extremely opinionated about her clothing especially---no turtlenecks because they're not "cool" and nothing that makes her look "cute." She wants to be "cool," not cute! LOL. This is a new thing with her--she used to looooove dresses and tights. For the first time ever, she balked at the velvet/satin Christmas dress I bought her. She wore it because I insisted, but she wasn't all that pleased---and she changed as soon as the Christmas Eve service was over! :)

love, i didn't express myself right, i didn't mean that particularly YOUR complains are pointless, just overall pointless. i was just making general comment, sorry. I hear you, it must be annoying.

yeah like kkny said wait until they are teenagers...ha

i am telling you my DD is exterme case. actually when DD was a teenager it wasn't as bad. when she started college, it got pretty weird. she used to complain in high school how other girls wear tight jeans and now she herself wears jeans that I don't know how she can breath in them. and then she has this idea that matching clothes is vain and is a sign of control freaks. she deliberatelly does not match clothes. striped top with flowery skirt and don't forget boots that look like skinhead's boots. and it is never season appropriate. she'll wear tights in a summer and summer dress in cold winter. and then she got this idea that spending money on clothes is stupid so clothes has to be cheap, also nothing should be synthetic and everything has to be cotton. overall she got this notion that people shouldn't worry what others think, that's her new motto.

this Christmas break we went to theatre and a concert hall and couple of parties, she made an effort to dress up so to not embarass me but it was a huuuggee effort. hahaha.

I had to chuckle, because the first thing SD did when I took her to the mall after Christmas to use her gift money was spend $60 on a pair of 'distroyed' jeans with huge tears all over them! I couldn't decide what I disliked more - the jeans or the price tag. BUT, her money, her deal. I just told her there would be no wearing them out for nice dinners or on visits to our family/friends, etc. Teenagers!! Nuts is an understatement. :-)

mom2.5, I can totally understand your frustration. How old is SS though? My SD14 does her own laundry, so I don't see the conditions of socks/underwear each week. I've caught her with holey socks before and told her to toss them, but she wears them because she like that particular sock. Maybe they match her $60 jeans?!? Same with underwear - she was wearing some 3 sizes to small because they were her 'favorites' - never mind the fact I get her new socks and undies ever 6 months or so!! So perhaps BM didn't even know he was wearing these socks?

Maybe they are his 'lucky socks'??

Mom2.5 ... you have 2 choices save the socks and send him back in them or let it go. This is one battle you will never win and drive yourself nutz over.

My SD10 refuses to wear socks each and every time she comes here she does not have socks on I know I have bought her atleast 3 packages of socks since october I used to make her put them on to go home .... I have since given up I do not care if she does not wear socks not my problem really not an issue I want to get into with the kid or her mom.... but her mother better not call here one time to complain about socks ... this is the same mom who did call and complain about socks and I sent the kids to her home with a trash bag (the big black ones 42 gal) full of socks.

I went with my SS's (11 & 13) on vacation to florida their mom packed their bags for them they went on the plane with her I took a different flight. And I noticed most of the clothes mom packed for them to go on their trip I had bought for them ... even the bathing suits are the ones I bought for them I should have packed bathing suits for them because the ones they had were their old ones they didn't fit right. So I must be doing something right if mom's keeping the clothes and thinks they are good enough for vacation clothes! They had 2 shirts I didn't buy and 1 pair of pants all the socks were ones I bought ... how do I know ... I put a mark on the boys socks so they can tell which ones are theirs not their dad's :)

I also buy my son a pack of socks just about every month he lives with his dad its worth the $5 just to not have to look at nasty socks on his feet. He comes here on the weekends he is 16.

Socks are a pet peeve of most posters :)

There are many threads titled "socks"... you are not alone in this battle but its one most of us have learned to live with :) its still a piss point but it won't change.

I find socks really annoying in general----because they get lost!

Both my DD and SS have so many mismatched socks, or socks missing the mate! It drives me crazy! We probably buy new socks every other month or so for that reason alone.

We've given up on the sock battle. SD got new socks in her Xmas stocking. She'll get new socks for her birthday and maybe even in her Easter Basket & trick or treat bag. But, our new 'sock' issue is BM sent her back in black canvas slip on shoes that turn all her socks grey or black. She loves wearing those shoes but DH won't have it. She can't wear those shoes until the day her mom picks her up again. Then he takes the socks she was wearing when she got here (he washes them but they're still stained) and sends her back in them. If she brings a different pair on Sunday, he does the same thing. She goes back in (her mom's) socks ruined by the shoes. Since they get stained, it's easy to tell which ones they are.

love, when I met my husband... I regularly had a collection of socks that were mismatched or missing the mate. I had an entire drawer devoted to them. But, he is so darn organized (and anal), I'm amazed that I never have more than one or two socks that come out of the wash without the mate anymore. Usually, he finds the other one for me. His motto is, there's a place for everything so nothing should EVER get lost. We are polar opposites! (ok, maybe not but I just don't care that much about some things)

I had to laugh when I saw your post. My son is notorious for losing socks. He takes them off and they end up under his bed, in his closet, under the couch, and everywhere they should not be! Some days I am giving him mismatched clean socks to wear because it is better than no socks! (all white..but the bottoms may be different). Thinking about it my ex might even get a little ticked about the socks! But I just can not constantly buy socks!

Just be lucky your dealing with a boy. I think the #1 thing that drove me crazy was when the kids would sleepover at bm's home and the girls bras would disappear at night and they would come home without them! That can really add up! Got to the point where I started having them wear t-shirts under their clothing instead of bras. When the girls asked why they could not wear bras I told them because they seem to grow legs and disappear at bm's house!

Then bm complained to dh that I would not allow the girls to wear bras over there! LOL.

I forgot about the "bras" ... They were not "real ones" but the sports bra type little girls wear.

She had quite a few and they disappeared all the time ... would wear them to mom's and not come home in them... something else I stopped doing for SD. :(

The list is getting bigger by the day.

Okay, I am well aware the sock thing is petty, and I wouldn't mind buying him new socks and underwear everytime he's here if I weren't already paying her close to $500mo. I'm pretty sure I could cope with mismatched socks better than big holes!

I'm sure it fried my butt extra toasty this weekend because I'm completely stressed out about this vacation. I'll be really honest I wish he weren't going. The other kids I can look at and feel excitecd to be giving them this experience. Darling SS, on the other hand, I feel differently about. I worry about what he will do to ruin this trip. I worry how disruptive he'll be on a long flight, how he'll drive a wedge between DH and myself. I, very selfishly want to enjoy my vacation with my husband, and experience all this excitement without the behavioral issues.

Only time will tell how this will all work out, and I need to be more optimistic.

The socks thing really was surprising, BM usually keeps him pretty well, not to my taaste, but decent for his taste.

When my SKs were little, DH would pick them up and they always looked like little urchins. Clothes that they had clearly outgrown, nasty socks....the whole nine yards. And since he usually picked them up from school, she was sending them to school this way. It was frustrating. Not only did she have a very good job/income, DH was also paying through the nose in CS, so there was no reason they needed to look homeless!

As they got older, it S-L-O-W-L-Y got better. Mostly because they started picking out some of their own stuff. But even now, SD will dig something out of the dirty clothes "because it's my favorite". If I happen to see her digging in the dirty laundry, I send her on her way, empty handed. But who knows how many days she's wearing dirty clothes??? And her socks? Usually mismatched. She doesn't care. As a matter of fact, I bought her 10 new pair yesterday, becuase I'm tired of looking at mismatched ones on her feet!

She still can't put an outfit together that matches (IMO), but if she's happy in it, I don't worry about it.

I used to buy socks for DD that were all the same, you know like a pack of white socks from Wallmart or somehting. she hated those socks but at least I didn't have to look for matching pairs. It seems like everyone has the same issue.

When DD goes back to college after breaks, i find missing socks in her room, so i assume she takes only one pair of each sock. The of course she'll need to go buy socks again. she also forgets other stuff. X says he finds stuff all over when she leaves his house too.

Yeah, went through the clothes thing as well with my SKids. My DH got on the phone a few years ago to complain and one christmas she said she wont pack their bags anymore. He said fine, we'll go back to court to lower CS. SHe fought saying he can't do it, and he said yup, its the law, its calculated to the detail in Cs and if she wont dress the kids then he cuts some of the money off , period. The following week they came with bags packed AND the clothes were new! no holes, no hand me downs....
The kids would complain once in a while that they want new clothes and my dh said ask mom, i give her money and she chooses to dress you the way she wants , i can't do anything about it.
We keep some clothes here for good occassions to make sure they look decent and not rag dolls. That's the best we can do.
We did get his son last week with REALLY BAD torn gloves, i mean, the holes the stuffing inside was coming out, my dh took a fit, i said, why? she wants him to catch a cold, he's going back home to her house she'll have to deal with it. She's just punishing him not you...so dont sweat it. We've got tons of new gloves here...but he told me he threw them out just a minute ago and he threw out his jeans that had holes as well.
My DH said, he'll throw everythign that is torn and unwearable and she'll be forced eventually to pack good clothes. He told his SD he will throw any shredded clothes out period....He gives money for clothes.
As for your vacation, do not focus on him, let your dh handle his son and you concentrate on having fun. The minute he starts up, you drop him like a rock at the hotel with dad and leave with the other kids. I know its not a perfect solution cause you want your dh there too but he can put his son in his place and then join you guys when ss has button his lip.
You know what, i would get your DH to even sit him down before you guys leave and tell him point blank that if he starts any trouble on the trip, that it will be the last and make it a point not to take him next time.
We did this with ours, we took off one weekend and they acted up and the following time we rearranged out scheduals then when they left camping with their mom , we took off for our vacation without them.
ITs simple for any child whether its biochild or stepkids, you dont behave, no rewards.
My own brother dropped his kids to GM and left for Aruba with his wife. He was so ill behaved that he didn't want the trip ruined and since his son acted up , he told him, your going to GM because you dont deserve it from the last time....too bad.