No your spouse is being an ass. The two of you as a family unit singling out one kid to treat as better is a totally shitty thing to do.

You can't control what your ex or his family does for His kids. Trying to tell you not to "allow" that is frigging crazy, control freak talk. Your ex would likely laugh in your face about it.

The fact is that your spouse chose this person to breed with. Chose them to the other parent. If he wanted better for his son, he should have been more discerning about where he chose to plant his seed. But Your children should not have to pay for HIS bad choices. He gave his kid a crappy mom. Sucks for the kid but it's no one else's fault.

Your kids dad is not going to leave them a smaller inheritance because your SS has a deadbeat mother. Your SS is not going to get extra coddling in the workplace because he has a lousy mom. He won't get promoted or get a bigger bonus or a bigger paycheck period just to make it "fair". His boss won't care. Your idiot spouse thinking you need to make SS into a little prince at your house is thoroughly amazingly Stupid.

It will make your kids resent SS, your spouse and You. It will give SS a sense of entitlement that will Not benefit him as an adult.

The best thing your spouse can do if SS gets upset about extended family inequality is to sit him down and talk to him about life choices. His mother makes a choice not to work, to be on welfare and the consequences are that he has less. Your kids dad works and is able to provide in a much better manner. Teach the frigging kid to be better than his mom, not to play the victim card and expect a hand out.

Your spouse is basically asking to handicap his son. And I get that it's out of guilt but it's Terrible, neglectful parenting.

And no, it is not normal to feel guilty for be a Good parent. If he's that unhappy about the way his kid is taken care of or treated, maybe he needs to think about perusing more custody (and you should consider if you can handle that). But on no planet would I ever treat my kid worse to make someone else's kid feel better.

It's the same thing as a niece or nephew or even a neighbors kid. My neighbor slaps her kid - my kid and I don't go over there after seeing that the one time. I imagine she would take offense if I ever explained to her why I don't visit anymore but that's too bad. It's not something I'm going to expose my kid to to make her feel better. My brother doesn't think education is as important as my DH and I do, I'm not going to hold my kid back and play it down so that his kid doesn't get upset some day that DD knows more.... You be the best parent you can be to your kid. If your spouse has a problem with you doing that, you might want to seek therapy together and consider your relationship.

Please don't feel bad about doing what a mother SHOULD do for her children because your man made a terrible mistake in selecting a mother for his children. It will never be fair because you will always be a better mother than he picked for his children... don't dim your light for another person's dumb ass choices.

I am coming at this from the other end- my SS's BM's family has money. SS had his own laptop, ipod, gaming system and kindle since he was maybe 8 or nine. They eat out all the time, go on trips and his siblings there have things like skiing and tennis lessons. My husband works, I no longer work for medical reasons, we have not had a vacation in three years and 90% of what the kids own in secondhand. The only activities the kids here are in are religious school and scouts. They would love dance or gymnastics but the money goes to medical bills. We still have a good life with a nice house, etc... but the extras are few and far between and that is ok. SS gets gifts from BM/SF/DH's family and a token from my sister. My kids have DH's family and my sister so they get less in general but they appreciate what they have. SS mentioned to BM's parents that he would like to upgrade his laptop for better gaming- guess what he is getting.
All you can do is what you can do for your house and YOUR children. If SK's BM is a piece of shit that is not your problem. Keeping things fair in your home is a nice goal and that is as far as you can go. Extended family will do what they do.
Give to your kids without guilt
If your husband thinks that two sets of rules for the kids is going to fly, he is high. That is a great way for your kids to resent SK, DH and YOU. Never mind what it will do to your marriage. It doesn't matter if he only there a few days a month, there are family rules and every member of the family has to follow them. Perhaps you could shove that down his throat reminding DH that everything must be equal

Since SS lives in horrible conditions, would it be possible for DH to get custody of him? It sounds as though SS needs the better living situation that you and DH could provide for him. SS needs people who love him and can provide for him. It would be great for you to provide him with this. Good luck.

I think you're right for doing things equally in your house. You can't control how much or what kind of presents your skid is getting elsewhere. I think it's silly of your DH to ask that your SS gets more at your house as explaining this to your bios would be complicated and confusing. Keep it equal.

I just wanted to say that I think it's too much to make things "equal" even for full siblings. I have no idea how much I spent on my kids this Christmas, but I know my daughter got something really expensive that she needs. I also know that my son's "needs" are generally higher ticket items than my daughter's. They tell me what they want/need and I decide if I want them to have it. On Christmas morning they are thrilled they got (mostly) what they wanted and not terribly concerned with what the other got. I think the problem might be exacerbated when kids already have everything they could possibly want before Christmas even hits, so they spend their energy making sure they "got what's coming to them" rather than appreciating the gifts.