I have 4 kids. One with my ex fiancè and 4 with my current husband. My oldest is 13. Me and my husband both work so during the school year my oldest would watch his siblings from after school to we got back which was around 12am but they should be in bed by then. Now that it's summer he starts watching them around 1pm because we have to be to work by 2. He watches them M-F and only watches them on the weekends if we have to go somewhere. Legally a 13 year old can babysit and 13 is the legal age a child can be home all day by themselves. My 5 year old daughter has some defiance issues but she doesn't get violent or anything. My son was seeing his dad last weekend and he asked me if ge could start seeing his dad every other WEEK instead if WEEKEND. I said no because he has to babysit but we could possibly move it to every week. Today his step mom contacted me because apparently he had been complaining to her about me and about his siblings and hiw he hates babysitting. She told me he's 13 and a growing boy and shouldn't be up until 11 trying to get kids to sleep. I told her first of all she's not his mom. Second of all most of the time they're already in bed. And third of all I'm not doing anything illegal. She said he wants to be here more and that now allowing him to because I can't afford a babysitter is shitty and I'm stressing him iut because my other kids can't behave. I blocked her because she's not gonna tell me what to do in my house and talk about my ither kids who are not her step kids. I told my son the next time he talks about what is going on in our home hes grounded. He told me hates it here and wants to live with dad. He's grounded right now because of that. I don't understand step moms who want to cross every boundary. I'm his mom. She's not.