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Did she throw out the clothes you sent the kids back in? Does she send them over in clothes that are of bizarre sizes or styles? Does she complain about how you dress them when they go back? I know they're out there. I got'em, too!

Everything is wrong! It is in Dh's divorce decree that he must supply 50 dollars of school clothes per child per year. 50 dollars is not a lot and we usually go above and beyond, but I am also the kind of person who hits the sales racks hard and can get 120 worth of next season's clothes for 20 bucks. This year SD tried some shoes on that fit. I tried them on her, used my mom rule of well.....trying shoes on a child. They got returned. She always wants the receipts for this annual outing. We never supply them. Stuff can be exchanged just fine without the receipts. We always leave the tags on. Wrong sizes, we are sucky parents. Hello? They grow ya know?

We have primary and the kids do not bring clothes back and forth. For 8 years they just wear what they have on and then use the clothes they have at the other house while they are there.

This year, after losing in court for the third time, she calls the kids and tells them to "Put all your pants in your backpack, but don't let "Evil Stepmom" see. Then call me back. Go do it and THEN I'll talk to you on the phone." Kids do it. I tell them that this is "silly" that if they take all their pants to Mom's they won't have any pants here. SS1 was actually standing in is underwear when I said this because he couldn't figure out where all his pants were even though he had just put them all in the backpack. She even had them take them out of the dirty laundry! I reminded them that they had clothes at each home and thaking an extra pair was fine, but not ALL of their pants.

She had a complete shit-fit. Because she is supposed to pay minimal CS to DH - but doesn't - she wanted him to buy clothes to send to her now. This has never been the case. If we send her clothes once - she thinks it's a new court ordered rule or something. But to shut her up DH mailed her a box of three outfits per child. She never said a word.

I had early troubles with clothing, too. At the time I was NCP, but my solution remains the same even until this day.

I noticed that my "supply" of clothing was slowly getting smaller over a short period of time and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how the hell I was losing them! So, I asked. PEW told me that she was "throwing them out" because they didn't fit and were "several sizes too small." This is something that is common among people in similar situations and it's just as bizarre as all the rest. Fact is - they absolutely were not.

Of course, we argued about it with me telling her that regardless of how ill-fitting any clothes she sends them over might be, I wouldn't dream of just arbitrarily throwing them out under any circumstances - I would send them back to her and I expected her to do the same.

So, what I started doing was whenever I get them for my custodial period, I would take the clothes that they wore from her house to mine from the hamper when they got ready for bed and immediately wash & fold them. That's what they would wear back home. It didn't matter if I got them on a Friday night and were going home on Sunday night. With finances being in disastrous condition during the proceedings, I could ill afford to have her throwing out my clothing. I still do this today under the 50/50 arrangement. Take their Sunday clothes - wash, fold, and "stage" them, and that's what they wear back the following Sunday.

No more clothing problems.

Another interesting story related to clothing (which I think was deliberate) was after the whole debate over the boys watching World Wrestling Entertainment obsessively - for MONTHS when it was exchange time, they would be wearing WWE-related clothing... character t-shirt, show t-shirts, what-have-you. Both boys. Every... single... week... they would arrive wearing WWE clothing. I said nothing. All I could do was laugh. That, and camouflage clothing, which I never liked going well back into the marriage.

It's bizarre the lengths they will go to just to try to upset the apple-cart.

I'm against sending clothing and accessories back-and-forth. Each parent can and should be responsible for having shoes, clothes, coats, etc. at their house. The only thing you should have to concern yourself with is making sure that they're appropriately dressed for exchange day, not packing bags for them to drag back-and-forth.

Oh, once we told the kids we were taking them snow tubing the next weekend and PEW sent ss1 back with no coat in February! SHe said he forgot to wear it and she didn't notice it until they got to school. She lives 45 minutes away. This was her passive aggressive way of spoiling our planned outing. FInally five days later she drove the coat down to us and had child come out to her car to get it. Strangley, this was the night before the child was to meet with the GAL. DH asked son why PEW had him go out to the car instead of bringing the coat to the door when she knocked. He said, "Oh, she had to tell me a secret." We asked what the secret was and he said that she told him to tell the GAL "the truth" about how he wanted to live with her.

My DEH used to assume that I was Baby Gap and would provide all the kids clothes for him.
It took years to get that one through to him.

PEGF has tried many tactics to annoy with clothes. Early days, she would throw clothes out.

One time, an article of clothing that was hers was returned to her. She refused to believe it was hers and kept
returning it, all the time asking for "her" item. She wouldn't believe us when we said that WAS hers.
We don't buy ones like that. It got to the point were we sent the only similar article we had (it was not hers),
just to keep the peace. Still didn't work. She graciously decided to stop fighting over OUR issue with clothing.

Some weeks later, the child turned up in a larger size of exactly the same thing. We still had the old one she refused,
so we photographed the darn things. This is how crazy dealing with a crazy person makes you.

We suspect she'd gone out and bought the same thing in 2 sizes and put the bigger size away.
We also think someone else dressed SS for that handover and the other person could remember what they'd
dressed the child in properly, but because NPD sufferers see certain people as experts (except for you),
this person's word was gospel and we were obviously lying because we have issues.

When she was doing the starving single mom bit, she would dress him in threadbare stuff for day visits.
but send us pictures with him in designer wear. What does a toddler need with a $20 t-shirt?

When DP finally got some overnight time with his son, she would insist on providing clothes for him to wear
for every day and tell him he couldn't wear Dad's clothes. He hated the "baby" clothes she sent us, so it wasn't
too hard to get him to wear our clothes. He would cry when he had to put mom's clothes on, because he knew it
was time to go back.

When PEGF had to collect SS from kindergarten, and he was wearing our crummy clothes, she'd strip him on the spot!
Her frou frou outfit was packed in his bag to be returned to her but she couldn't even leave the clothes on the little guy long enough to get back to her home.

I agree with Mister-M accessories need to be supplied by each parent. It's a bit more expensive, but saves a lot of potential for argument, and that's all

So far we haven't had *too* much of a problem with this. We're custodial and SS wears a uniform to school so, with her weekends being from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, she just sends him in the uniform we sent him in, no big deal. However, for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks we sent him in uniform and she sent in back in regular clothes since it wasn't a school day. The clothes we sent him in were in his backpack and when he went back to her we either sent him in the same clothes or put the clothes she sent in his bag. No big deal.

The issue is that when she does send him in something other than what we sent him in, the clothes don't fit:

There was a weekend we sent him in shorts and it was cold Monday morning so she sent him in pants that were too big and not uniform appropriate. She also sent him in boxers that day without a belt so the too big pants would fall, he would pull them up and the boxers would come up as well resulting in an awful rash by the end of the day. She claimed she was sick the week before so she was unable to buy him proper pants (ignoring the fact that she was at work on Wednesday and took SS to the fair on Saturday, so if she was sick it apparently wasn't TOO bad) so, of course, it wasn't her fault, but whatever. He survived.

She also sent him in shoes that were the same size as the ones we sent him in... the problem being that the ones we sent him in were wide and about a month old so he was almost too big for them and the ones she sent him in were cheap and not only not wide enough, but they had a large hard rubber sole that came up the sides so there was no way they could stretch wide enough. She sent the shoes we bought him in his bag so we kept him in those and sent hers back the next time. Of course, she complained about this claiming that they were just fine and we just didn't want him in them because they "weren't ugly enough" (what?!), however, I'm pretty sure she hasn't put him back in them since.

The last time she sent him home with "new" shoes, they were wide enough... but only because they were two sizes bigger than what he wears, so they were too long... and used. She'll never get it and will always think we're just trying to make her look bad. Oh well.

OH! And two weeks before Christmas we sent him in a jacket that she didn't send home. She claimed she didn't notice it in her back seat for two days (she has another young child, so I wonder where he's been sitting) and when she was reminded a week later that she still hadn't returned it, she claimed the Christmas season was just so crazy that she completely forgot. Glad to know his warmth is such a high priority.

It can be a slight waste of money. I buy them winter and summer coats, shoes, stuff like that. But they really don't need them because they obviously always come from her with those things on. So, I just treat those items as things that they can wear if they choose to. It's a small price to pay to avoid the escalation.

I remember when I first started dating my now husband. His kids were coming to him in some really ratty clothes. I wasn't compeletly aware of his exwife's bad financial habits and wondered if she so poor that the kids weren't being taken care of. Then I got to know her better and wondered if she was trying to send the kids in the most horrible clothes she could find to guilt him into feeling bad for leaving her so distraught and with "no money." Playing the "wo is me" single mom card. I wasn't sure WHAT she was doing!

The clothes were awful. Not a single item fit the kids properly. The pants had holes in the crotch area, the shirts were stained and either humongous or too small, the pants were always highwater, the shoes rarely fit and were SOOO dirty! Their shoes were so small. My stepson had a coat that looked warm but the insulation was awful, never mind the holes in the lining and the broken zipper. My stepdaughter was wearing a coat that was suede (in winter) with sleeves that were too long on me when I tried it on. She was 8 at the time and wore a size Medium for children. The coat was an adult size Medium and was too big on me!

We were suspicious of her actions and why the kids were sent in crap clothes. So we started showing up to school on random days to have lunch with the kids. She had no idea we were going to see the kids so she couldn't alter what they would normally look like for school. It was then that we realized those were the clothes they wore all the time. But what pissed us off even more? The fact that their mom always has a fresh haircut, good clothes, and her nails done. And constantly talked about lunching with her friends from work. What?!

We knew any clothes we sent home with the expectation to come back to us would be out of the question. We don't buy clothes for them specifically for their house in their state. Once we but my stepdaughter a new winter coat and sent I told her it was her home in her state. She whipped her face up to look at us and shook her head while her eyes were huge! "No!" She said, "It will get ruined there!" I was sick. At the age of 8 this little girl knew that her clothes were not taken care of. Here and there we mail them shirts as presents in a care package. And sure enough by the next time we see them (about 6 weeks later) the kids come to us in the shirt we sent them and it is TRASHED! Ugh.

Now at the end of every season when the kids are close to growing out of their clothes but could still get about 6 more weeks out of them or so we send them home with them. We know they won't be taken very good care of but we know they'll get good use out of them. And they are excited because they get to take their "cool" clothes home....

BM doesn't have any problems with our clothes, as DH and I take proper care of his daughter. BMs mother, BMM, does complain about our rule to keep their clothes at their house (DHs parents have the same rule). BM and family - yes she has two more kids and still lives with her parents - only have 15 to 21 days/yr and we understand WHY they want to send stuff, but our rule stands and makes perfect sense; D has a bursting closet and dresser as is. We also have this because they buy age-INappropriate clothing. They've trained her to be a "princess" and purchase tube tops, halter tops, mini skirts, bikinis, high heels. All covered in sparkles. I know this is the fashion for some, but for a four, five, six year old? As a law-enforcement officer faced with sex-offenders on a daily basis, I find it irresponsible to parade children in such a manner. So, rather than bother the issue, we keep it civil and fall back on "you have one way at your house, we have another at ours." It's the best we can do. (*Note* Little princesses are wonderful. Our situation is different as they've already GLORIFIED getting pregnant at 15 like mommy; this is where the concern lies).

We don't send clothes with her, save for the ones on her back, because all four adults in the house smoke... IN THE HOUSE. It's hard enough getting the smell out of what we send her with (I also have to wash her hair and body at least twice to rid of the smoke).

The only thing that has truely upset DH and I, in the past year BM has regained visitation, is that this past winter they (usually BM speaking for BMM - the only one with an interest in the child) asked that we send D with a winter coat. This hit a chord because they are ALWAYS asking if they can buy her clothes. It makes me wonder if they ask ONLY because they know we'll say no (DH explained the rule after new visitation. Without prompting. They've only asked AFTER the fact). But what topped it was when D came home thrilled about the "beautiful dress" they bought her! They have a million princess dresses for her. For every possible occasion that could arise in the small amount of time they have with her. They spend $50 on yet another dress to strike Ds fancy in the middle of the worst winter storm we've had in 20 years.
AMAZING.