I'm beyond irritated at my oldest and my ex-husband. My son is in 5th grade and a straight A student and has is book smart but has been coddled by his father's side of the family his whole life. He doesn't behave like a brat, but he's way less independent than the younger bios. All in all, though, BS11 is a good kid. He never talks back. He does his chores without any lip. He's afraid of getting in trouble and so he never gives me any issues, whatsoever. Until this week.

My son has had a whole year to work on this science project. Every month something was due and it culminated in the large project and presentation this week. I started drilling my son a month ago, bought the materials he needed, and asked him repeatedly how it was coming and spoke to his Dad, asking what the plan was, how his data was going and he always said "I've got it taken care of Mom. It's fine." He normally does have things taken care of with school and so I let it go but eventually last week started asking for evidence of his report and data because it was due this week. He said it's at his Dad's. His Dad calls last weekend and says that BioSon is grounded for life as he has nothing done for the project. He has a hypothesis and materials list. That's it. He's madder than a hornets nest and I tell him that I've been telling them for months that this would be coming up soon. (DH is in charge of Math and Science and I do Reading and History)

My ex says he's been pulling together data offline and working on the project for 2 straight days. I ask him why in the world he would be doing our son's science project and he said 'Because Bio is really upset and scared and I can't let him fail.'

I said, "I beg you to let him fail. This is a fail. He knew all year about this. He lied and said he had it taken care of. He deserves to get an F on this." and Ex-husband said he couldn't let that happen because BS was an honor student. So I said 'So you're teaching your son it's okay to lie to a teacher when you didn't do the work as long as it benefits you with a good grade?.' He didn't have an answer for me. He said he'd think about what I said.

He sent me the completed photos on Monday of the project. And it's a really nice project. But it's definitely not done by a child.

His plan is to punish bio for not doing his project. I'm completely on board but I'm super pissed that he's turning in the project at all when he admittedly did ALL THE WORK! Not a little ladies, but ALL of it.

Do I sit down with bio and tell him how wrong this was? I definitely plan on that...but what else can I do? What will undo the damage that I feel his father did this week? Or do I ... I don't know. I can't email the teacher and tell her what they did but I want to. This is why kids are entitled. Dad just totally walked in and took care of the problem. And though BS will be punished there are bigger elements at play like 'It's okay to lie.' ...which is under my skin really bad.