Mother objects to ex-husband's new wife homeschooling her 9-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter, along with the new wife's own 11, 10, 8, and 6-year-old children: ‘Nicole said it is unfair for her children to see mine go to school while hers do not’

It's only natural to be a little resistant to other people trying to help with your children, even if they mean well. In fact, it's quite literally biological. Still, accepting help in the appropriate circumstances is important, and a problem shared can be a problem halved. But when someone comes along and challenges your methodology and world view, it can be a little hard to come to terms with that.

Certainly, that's how both mothers must have been feeling in this blended family. This mother and her ex-husband's wife found themselves at odds over their differing preferences for how to educate their children. The ex-husband's wife homeschooled her own children, but when her children saw that their new stepsiblings, the children the mother and ex-husband shared, got to go off to a public school, they were jealous and wanted to too.

In an effort to curb this desire, the ex-husband's wife's solution was to ask that she homeschool all of the children together.  So, in this way, she became the instigator of the conflict, effectively sticking her nose where it had no business and trying to force the issue by getting her husband to side with her in an effort to get the mother to cave to her expectations.

If anything, this is not a reflection of the fact that the husband's wife's kids probably want to go to public school too. If congruence is to be reached, then it should be by all kids going to public school as they wish.