You are absolutely right, ImperfectlyPerfect! My DH, although a loving and hands-on father, refused to tolerate disrespect from his children. When his daughter, at 14, began to treat me cruelly and unjustly, she was exiled to her BM, rather than continuing with the 50/50 custody that had previously been in place. Because she truly loved her 'daddy', her attitude improved and she soon returned to the fold.

I believe that my SS, whose personality and character are much like that of his father (apple/tree), is genetically incapable of being a jerk whereas my SD is much like her mom, in both looks and personality. We are now good friends but I'll never have the attachment to her that I enjoy with my SS.

AgedOut, literally days after DH and I reconnected, we were matched on Match dot com!

It will be 15 years next year that SS/we aged out from under the CO and the line was drawn for full exclusion/disengagement from the shallow and toxic side of his gene pool.  It took a few more years for him to figure it out as an independent adult decision.  

I stay here to listen, participate, and provide my experience as a point of reference for those still fighting through the smog of SParenting.  Though our son is long launched and doing well in his life, I am still married to a BP and I am an SP.  That has some variables that do upon occasion arise that are somewhat unique at all phases of a blended family marriage and life.  So, I also get support for my journey from all of the STalkers.

Even great relationships have occasional hiccoughs and having access to the wisdom of this community is and has been a huge help for me any number of times over the years.

@Morning Mia...what kind of rational person actually thinks about let alone makes a stink about something so trivial as toilet paper. Thats as bad as the sourdough bread thing ( if i recall correctly that was you with the SD)  What is wrong with these so called adults?  I think most of them are like this, like they are mass produced. Who is SS or anyone to dictate your personal finances, when his are obviously in the shitter as it seems? Its like it doesnt compeltely dawn on them that they need to get their own houses in order before putting in their cheap two cents about anything. 

My Niece, an incredibly brilliant, driven, and successful young woman, went through this phase in her late teens and early 20s.  My extremely successful C-Suite baby bro bought himself a very nice high end vehicle.  This was during my niece's save the planet phase.

"My dad does not need that car. Think of all of the good that money could do!"  So my brother gave her the executive come to Jesus white board and powerpoint presentation on all of the good his car had done.  All of the jobs created by his car from the miners who mined the Iron ore, the people at the ore processing facilies, the smelters, forges, parts manufacturers, automotive assembly plants, the electronics component manufacturers, farmers who raised the cows for the leather, the meat processors, the leather processers, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.........  He closed with a slide showing the money he paid for his car and how little it was if just donated to charity Vs the countless thousands of jobs and industries that his car supported who because of the jobs did not need charity.  My poor niece came out of that couple of hours  of just the two of them locked in her dad's home office with giant eyeballs and a stunned and overwhelmed look on her face.

She had a period of about half a dozen years of growing up challenges between being from an affluent family that was at the rock bottom end of her vulgarly wealthy friends group, partying a little too much at university getting a couple of MIP citations for underage drinking, not getting into the B school at her name brand university, then having to move in with the GPs (my parents) for a year and a half at a JC, then finally to a small Catholic university where she stepped up and knocked it out of the park.  Her graduation gift was a puppy.  The dog got her her first job when she met a man at a dog park whose BIL was the CEO of a pre-IPO start up who was looking for a finance generalist for his company.  DW and I took our niece out for lunch when she got the call with the job offer atter interviewing that AM.  Meanwhile 8-ish years later and back at the ranch she is a Sr. finance manager, married to a gem of a young man and had their first baby earlier this year.

She is such a hard corps business pro now that the idealistic "dad doesn't need that car" judgy young woman is long gone and buried.  She is on several management boards for professional associations and charities focused on the health and stability of the organizations and not the causey side of things.  She makes the tuff choices so the causey types can do what they do.

When he tells the stories about my nieces growing up and university journey my brother just gets a knowing smirkey grin on his face as his throat ripping no bullshit beautiful brilliant business shark daughter does her thing.  Meanwhile back at the ranch and hours later loaded down with high end shopping treasures, her vulgarly wealthy trust fund baby friends are crying to daddy for an increase in their allowances and their fathers are less than accomodating now that all of them are in their 30s.  She has several of those friends who get the "go visit (my niece)", do what she is doing and grow up lecture from their daddies.  Some of them are adopting the breed their way back into daddy's good graces model.  That has some interesting variations happening for some of them. The room mates she lived with while at her final University are all far more down to earth than her international Expat nauseatingly rich friends.  My brother does very well but is nowhere near the income levels of the families his kids were raised with.

His kids are all doing well. In many cases much better than the far more affluent friends they grew up with are doing.

I think that zero tolerance for the money grubbing newly cognizant of a budget types is the way to go. Reminding them of their idiot decisions and that they are not yet worthy fo being listened to is an ongoing learning moment that parents/SParents need to keep front a center.