Hi. I'm afraid that when your SD is with her mom it is up to her mom how she deals with picking up and dropping off to friends. It's easy to worry about everything but my way of dealing with things is to let go when my children go to stay with their father. I sometimes find things he does with them irritating but have come to realise that you can't make them do things the way you want. Just accept it and it will give you less heartache. If your SD doesn't like this she should talk to her mom about it.

I am a bit confused....this is happening when SD is with her mom and doesn't involve you or DH doing any of the transportation? If that is the case then I agree with tdwh.

My SD10 attends a school that is about a 15 to 20 minute drive, one way. Most, if not all, of her school friends live in that area so a drive to their home may take that long or longer. If SD10 is invited to visit then we may or may not offer to drive one way. It just depends on how I am feeling ( pain issues ) or what we already have going on. We have done it both ways with a good friend of hers...sometimes her parents drive both ways, sometimes we do. We do try to keep things as even as we can since the distance is long for both of us.

I guess I should clarify - most of SD's friend's parents are also friends of ours, so it makes things a little more 'personal' and does effect me because I hear about it from them. Her best friend's mom is one of my closest friends, and this is usually the mom told to come get and/or bring home SD if the girls want to get together. It puts this mom in a bad situation because to allow her daughter to see her best friend she has to pack up all three of her kids and drive for 20 minutes to get SD .and 20 minutes back to their house . . when many times SD's mom and/or step dad are home . . . they just don't want to make the drive. So the friend's mom has to make the choice to do this drive or keep the girls from seeing each other - be the bad guy if she doesn't want to make the drive down and back to pick up SD.

SD has talked to her mom many times about this, and the fact she can't see most of her friends EOW because their parents don't want to have to make the drive 4 times over.

I just don't think it's fair to put that caviat on allowing the socialization and make someone else the 'bad guy' for not wanting to make the drive when mom or step dad won't make it themselves. Am I wrong?

NO you're not wrong. This happened to me when my children were teenagers. Only none of the parents friends would budge on this issue. I ended up being the taxi back and forth. I just don't have any solution other than speaking directly to your SD's mom and SD. be patient, She'll get her license someday and you'll have a whole new set of worries.

I think it's okay to expect a certain amount of give-and-take when it comes to ferrying kids to and from friends' houses. Saying, "only if Jenny's mom does the driving," can be a way of keeping things running smoothly in your own household, because having to drive kids back and forth can disrupt your schedule.

The only thing is that it's inconsiderate to be all take, which is what it sounds like the BM is doing. You have to be willing to sometimes be the one to pick up/drop-off your kid's friend when the friend is coming to your house and you have to be willing to sometimes take your kid to/from the friend's house, too.

I agree with you Sovra, it's give and take. Sometimes it interferes with your own schedule to do the driving, but mostly we do the driving as I don't think we can expect the friends parent to run around. If they offer to share, that is great, but if not than we will drive if we can. Which is most of the time. And if it doesn't suit our schedule to drive, than usually we ask the SD's to see if their friends can come over to our place with their parents dropping them off.

I also agree with the other posters when they say:
"I'm afraid that when your SD is with her mom it is up to her mom how she deals with picking up and dropping off to friends". In essence that is true. Buuuttt, in your case JNM I can understand where you're coming from, because it doesn't sound like a normal situation with BM not treating SD well.

I agree with tdwh. It shouldn't be your problem who tansports who when SD is at moms. I wouldn't feel any need to justify to my ex who transported DD's friends or DD. DD had friends whose moms transported DD. One of the moms didn't work and was bored out of her mind, she insisted to do the transportation. It is not nice of mom to take advantage of people but what happens in their house is up to them (absent abuse)