Would six weeks abroad without my children be unreasonable in these circumstances?

[justafteropinions]

I live in Australia. My mother lives in Spain. My mother has been given up to a year to live. It might be my last chance to see her. My children are 4 and 6. We have no other family in Australia. Would it be unreasonable to go and visit her for six weeks? I considered bringing the 4 year old with me, since the older one has school, but I have decided to leave both if I go. The whole family can't go because we can't afford it and can't get finance. My sister is going to pay my airfare. They would stay with their father obviously. I want to see my mother but feel torn about the children.

I’m so sorry you are in this situation. My dad died at the beginning of the year and the next day my mum was in hospital and diagnosed with cancer and was seriously ill. I had to leave my 6 and 9 year olds with my husband and spend weeks at a time with my mum as we live 3 hours away. It was harder for me than for them. The boys were fine. Do what you need to do and see your mum. It’s hard not to feel torn but when you look back after she’s gone, you will be glad you went. Sending you hugs

As usual you have DH problem.

He needs to step up, support you going and make work arrangements so your DD doesn't have to spend any time at the friends house. How does he feel about leaving your DD at this friend's house?

I think your DH needs to step up to the plate and arrange either to have the children all week himself, or find an option where your DD won't be bullied. It's not fair to a six-year-old to make her go through miserable weekends for six weeks.

You're in a horrible position, OP, and it must feel like you're being pulled in two directions. I hope you're able to make satisfactory arrangements for your DC and go and spend this precious time with your mum, but if there's really no safe options for both of your children, then you're going to have to stay.

Why can’t you do 2 weeks instead? Given your updates I really wouldn’t be happy leaving for 6 weeks, for an adult 6 weeks is nothing but for young children it feels like an eternity. I remember breaking up for the 6 week summer holiday as a child and it feeling like years!

If he can afford take out for weeks then you can afford to have a DBS checked qualified childminder for overnight care 2 nights a week, with him taking unpaid dependent leave for some of it too.

Take out is being prioritised over the happiness and safety of your daughter from a very clever manipulative older boy?

You should have gone with hesitation. The OP doesn’t need to hear about hypothetical CSA while her mother is dying and she is under financial pressure.

The OP in BAU has taken steps to avoid this child. She has protected her daughter. She has not been as one person accused of “blasé”.

She is now in a crisis and is trying to work out what to do.

Cut her some slack.

My first duty is to my own children. My mother would absolutely understand that and I would not feel guilty about putting their safety first in such a situation. There is no way that I would leave them unprotected in the house of a bully. If DH could take carer’s leave or annual leave for the 2 days I would go for a week in your situation.

You can see the rest of your family another time when you have saved up more money to take the whole family home or are in a different situation re the care of the children. There is nothing urgent about that and no need to put your daughter through that at this time.

Go.

I'd leave them small presents and letters or notes to unwrap once a week, from you, and try to Zoom call them at least four times a week, ideally every day.

They will be fine.

Some posters talk rubbish! Your kids will be fine. You're giving them a really important message by going which is - you care for your mum and she is no less important than they are. Perhaps when they are older they will remember this time and do the same for you if you were to become unwell.

I assume your husband will cope. It's 6 weeks not 6 years!!!!!

And honestly I wouldn't call them all the time eso if your focus needs to be your mum. Let them enjoy this time with their dad and ask them to draw or write about what theyre doing while you're away. They'll have loads to tell you about when you get home then.

We forget that when we were younger we couldn't call or text daily and we all survived.

Under no circumstances, do you leave your 6 year old daughter with an older boy who bullies her. If that's your only option then you don't go.
She doesn't need to learn to ignore it ffs, you need to keep her away from him.

If you love your mother, you need to go.
Your children will be safe and loved.
Their father is there for them.
They might not have a perfect time every moment you are away, but they don't get that normally either.

You can never get back this time and choose to go and see your mother when they are older, or the circumstances are more perfect.

Do it, or live the rest of your life regretting it because if you don't go now while she is still alive (and she could rapidly go downhill and be gone before the new year if she is that ill), then the last time you saw her will always be the last time you saw her.

You have the rest of your life to be with your children, you have a small window of time left to be with your own mother.

My parents would consider themselves less important than my kids. They would expect me to prioritise them and their wellbeing. If it were me I could go knowing my DH is not a useless fecking lump and could feed and take care of the kids. I would not go if it meant my DD had to spend two nights a week with a bully who has an enabling mother. She knows her DD will be on the receiving end of being bullied, not being believed or safe in the home she is staying in. On top of that she will get blamed for things that are not her fault. Some small gifts do not make up for that.

You think she should leave her 6 year old daughter to stay with a 9 year old boy who bullies her? What's wrong with you?

Your posts on this thread are extraordinary.

You appear to have endless sympathy for OP but zero for her child.

And I don’t think telling OP to ignore warning signs of abuse is actually doing her any good, never mind her daughter. Presumably OP cares about her daughter and wants to avoid harm. Everyone needs to hear about and to think about, potential csa to be able to protect their children. Being in crisis does not negate this.

When we started our family we had elderly family in various parts of the UK and we made up our minds that our DC would be used to being left with other people so that if we had to leave them they would be alright. We started by leaving them with my parents for weekends. At the age of 3 DS was happy to go on play dates on his own. And they were still in Primary School when they started doing sleepovers with friends. Fortunately we never had a family emergency that necessitated us leaving them but they grew up to be independent and self reliant and knew they were loved.

Agree the dc matter. Bullying should be considered. If the dd is crying about it the op should listen to her.

I'm sorry about your mum OP.

I'm going to go against the majority here, particularly so because of your DD being bullied by this boy.

I would go for say two weeks and ask your DH to take annual leave for that time, so that your DD does not have to stay in the bully's house. I would feel too guilty knowing that my child was likely to be being bullied.

Perhaps my thinking is clouded by the fact that my mum and I were not particularly close (even though we hadn't fallen out or anything) and I didn't have the sort of relationship with her where we could have deep meaningful conversations and sit holding hands.

Also, it depends on your mum's illness. Is she still able to hold meaningful conversations?

I know you said six weeks would allow you to see wider family, but with their cooperation, you should still be able to fit that in to two weeks.

I’m pretty sure the daughter will remember the bullying

And this would be fine. Except the plan is the the kids to spend 1/3 of their time with a boy who bullies then and hurts animals.

So you wouldn’t be concerned about your child having to also stay during those six weeks with a boy who openly bullies her and caused her a lot of upset on her last visit?

It sounds as though there are flaws in the plan .... notably the bullying child. I can see that this complicates an otherwise fairly simple equation.

Nope, a 6 yr old won’t have any real memory of it when they’re older and the children still have their other parent at home.

I am super concerned about someone who bullies children via hurting animals and lying about it. That’s a really, really bad sign for this kid and could signal something pretty terrible. No chance I’d be leaving my children alone with him for a second, much less for two nights for weeks with a mother who doesn’t think anything is wrong.

Your husband needs to do better and help you come up with another solution. If he genuinely is disabled or similar and can’t cook as opposed to won’t cook, batch cook loads of meals and freeze them for him to reheat. That would save you £40 a night on takeaways that can be used for a babysitter. If, if I suspect is true, he’s just pretending to be physically incapable of turning on an oven, he can get over it and parent his own kids.

My husband does 99% of their cooking in our house. He loves it. I do not. He works away a few weeks a year and I feed my kids. Not exciting food but I can certainly make some pasta, bake some potatoes, follow a recipe. It’s not that hard.

The OP’s in an awful position. You clearly have a lot of empathy for her. She obviously recognises that her friend’s son is a threat to her daughter, and the behaviour she describes is alarming, as is his mum’s attitude. CSA is really common & goes hand in hand with the sort of sadism she describes with the fish tank (which is also really common but ideally is better dealt with). I personally think the OP should go to her mum for as long as she needs to, but only if her husband can also protect their daughter from this boy, and also step up in the emotional care of his children.