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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to consider leaving my children for a year to study?

546 replies

secondcity · 06/02/2011 07:36

long-time lurker here. I am braving AIBU and am bracing myself for the onslaught....

I live in New York with my husband and children, We have been here almost two years and everyone is very settled......except me!

I have been offered a (fully-funded) post-graduate course in the UK in september 2011.

If I were to accept the course, I wouldn't bring my children, but I would aim to come back once a month, and they would obviously come to me for all the holidays. My husband is very capable and we would probably get some part-time childcare sorted (secondary aged kids)

I swing between thinking it would be absolutely fine, (their father used to work away for up to 2 months at a time!)to thinking what kind of mother would contemplate leaving her children.

Anyone have any experience or advice? Thank you

OP posts:

3seater · 06/02/2011 20:21

But it is 'normal' for many many people scattered all over the globe

Animation · 06/02/2011 20:23

It's not 'normal' to suddenly leave your kids like that. It's only a course.

Northernlurker · 06/02/2011 20:23

I don't think it's a great idea for either parent to embark on this scale of long term absence tbh.

I'm also struggling a bit with the idea of a course that is fully funded, even though you haven't lived in the UK for two years, and which will apparently fit you for a job in the USA when you're done? What exactly do the UK taxpayers paying for your course get out of this? It's not funded by Eduaction Pixies you know.

Ladyofthehousespeaking · 06/02/2011 20:24

That's what I don't get, why can't she do it in the US?

toddlerwrangler · 06/02/2011 20:24

But this 'reason' is a whole year for a course she doent HAVE to do!

And of course I dont think she going to say 'sorry kids mums got somewhere shed rather be for a year'. But i know this is how it would have seen to me at 11.

Animation · 06/02/2011 20:25

A year is a LONG bloody time to a kid.

3seater · 06/02/2011 20:27

It might not be 'normal' to many of us, but to many others it would be, especially those that place a value on education.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 20:29

None of us have to take certain jobs, or certain paths in life - but often we do and it can sometimes make a whole family grow and be better for those changes.

I would have thought it was great at 11 if mum had gone and done something like this and left me in care of dad, I wouldn't have seen why it would have been a problem.

Animation · 06/02/2011 20:29

I don't know if its education as much as escaping to the UK that the OP is after.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 20:30

A year is not the length of time the OP is intending on being away though - the dc will not go a whole year without seeing their mum, there will be visits to UK and visits to US by mum.

3seater · 06/02/2011 20:30

Agree, those are two v different issues

AnnieLobeseder · 06/02/2011 20:31

A few people at my work (which is an academic environment) are there from overseas, some for a year, some longer, lots of them mums who have left their children behind. They all visit home lots, and their children visit them.

I think it does children good to realise that they are not the centre of the universe. No worse than being sent to boarding school.

I'm sure you wouldn't even be considering it unless it was a really good opportunity.

I say go for it!

Ladyofthehousespeaking · 06/02/2011 20:32

Agree animation

Animation · 06/02/2011 20:32

Yes, ivykaty that's true.

undercovamutha · 06/02/2011 20:32

"my husband will not be travelling at all while I am away. I don't know how it will affect our relationship to be honest. We have been seperated through work on and off for almost 6 years, I hated it to begin with but ended up loving my own space, he now doesn't travel for any longer than an odd week here or there, I miss it!"

Doesn't sound like OP will be too gutted to be away from her DH for a year! Agree that escaping may be the plan!

Ladyofthehousespeaking · 06/02/2011 20:32

But it's for work not a jolly

Northernlurker · 06/02/2011 20:33

ivykaty - the visits thing is a bit troubling too though. For a start you can never tell when the channels for travelling will be open : 2001 - all flights grounded, 2010 - ash cloud ditto, Dec 2010 - flight chaos in the Uk due to snow.
Then again do the op's kids want to spend all their holidays in the UK of travelling? Kids of that age like to do things with their mates as well.

Ladyofthehousespeaking · 06/02/2011 20:33

That was at annie sorry

toddlerwrangler · 06/02/2011 20:34

3seater I think you are getting a bit hung up on the world 'normal'. If one person does it, or a million people do it, choosing to lave your children, for a year, whem you dont have to, is wrong.

its got nothing to do with valuing education, it has to do with the needs of the children.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 20:34

a year is a long time to which dc?

3seater · 06/02/2011 20:36

lbut that is because you see it as not being normal and therefore wrong! For many others it is more of the norm - and they are happy into the bargain. There are a multitude of ways of meeting a child's needs.

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 20:36

3seater, children do live away from their mothers you are right. But, enormous but, many live in close communities and family groups, these children are raised by villages not a tiny nuclear family away from home with one parent going back to the homeland. That same parent that has been their full time carer for the last ten years whilst her DH built a demanding, I assume, career. Surely his career will not let up just because his wife wants to rob the British tax payer of educational funding, despite paying nothing in for two years. Incidentally if your DH is working in NY you're either illegally applying for funding (my parents are ex pats and cannot even get a free Drs appointment anymore) or something else dodgy.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 20:37

so three times in a couple of decades of flights being disturbed...not really that much trouble with flights being grounded to worry about.

Lots of people weren't intending to travel at those three times, therefore not effecting them

chocolatepuff · 06/02/2011 20:38

i agree with ladyofthehouse -if you havent settled somewhere (and you speak of being in NY pretty permanently)the worst thing you could do is come back to the UK.

is there no way you could do the course when the kids are 16/17? i think it sounds like a fantastic oppertunity for you and i dont envy the predicament.

my dad lived in spain from when i was 11-14. my parents had separated when i was 8 so i was very used to not seeing him all the time. i visited him every 6 weeks for half terms / easter / xmas etc. But while he lived abroad i missed him SO MUCH. i would cry my eyes out coming back to england and leaving him (heartbreaking for him too im sure!) i spoke to him all the time on the phone, but i really really missed him. i still feel sad for those years.

Animation · 06/02/2011 20:38

Maybe a better word is extraordinary 3seater.

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