Late to this but had to add my tuppence worth, but why should she have them? Maybe I am older, more world weary or just know a lot of tossers but I see this a bit in real life, a man get divorced and the first thing he does is find a woman with kids to help him look after his kids from the marriage. There is an expectation that women in that position owe these men childcare, that they should be only thrilled to take care of someone else's children to make life easy for them while bending over backwards in their own lives.
I see it with the woman my cousin married, it's his second marriage and all you hear from his mother is how little childcare the new wife does, why does she need time to herself for meeting up with friends or family when she could be looking after his kids. She is not allowed to chastise the children, they have literally told her to fuck off, and the reaction is "well she is not the mother, not her place", yet when money, childcare or any assortment of other stuff for the children is needed she is expected to be a walking wallet with endless patience and time for them, even though she works full time and has older parents in another part of the country that need her support too. She is expected to put herself last always and to be honest I don't see this marriage lasting.
Back to MP, many will disagree with me but I think she is right to have firm boundaries around this, they are KH and KP kids and it seems MP can do no right for doing wrong, if she includes them she is goading Kipper, if she doesn't include them how dare she abandon them.
And maybe just maybe she refuses to have them when KH is not with her as a part of her suspects if Kipper hears about that she will start manipulating the children to say that MP has done or said something inappropriate while they are alone in her care, does anyone here really think that KP is above manipulating those children to say that MP hits them or abuses them somehow because I think Kipper is dangerous enough to do just that, maybe MP is protecting herself.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk