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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Animation · 06/02/2011 20:58

3seater - don't put yourself down. Smile

Anyway lets hope the OP comes back and explains this course - it better be a good one.

balloonballs · 06/02/2011 20:58

Sorry, I've changed my mind. If my dc were the age of yours, staying with their dad and I was coming home often then yes I would do it.

Again, good luckGrin

toddlerwrangler · 06/02/2011 20:59

On what planet can you compare CHOOSING to lave your children for a year to do a postgrad to being TOLD you are going to travel XXX country for XXX amount of time for the general purpose of being shot at?

Ladyofthehousespeaking · 06/02/2011 20:59

Yep, I haaaave to know what course it is/why not NYC etc?

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 21:00

so its ok to leave your dc to go and fight but not ok to leave your dc to get an education.

leaving your children is the same thing whatever you are going off to do the end result is the same you leave them

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 21:01

Ivy....yes Hmm. No, of course not. I mean that parenting styles and cultural norms are different everywhere. (I did not say 13 yr olds married to old men)

3seater...I feel like I'm on a different planet to you, the OP is British. The OP hasn't paid any tax herself for some years and her DH pays tax in the US, therefore I'm wondering why the British tax payer should pay for her education.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 21:02

toddlewrangler - could you answer my question as to why it is wrong to leave children with one parent and go away in your opinion?

AnnieLobeseder · 06/02/2011 21:03

Lady - yes, work, but the same sort of work that a one year postgrad course would be. Some are there as postgrad students. In the academic world, there's not much difference between study and work.

Why would you think a year's postgrad study woule be a jolly? How odd.

Horton · 06/02/2011 21:04

My aunt left two of her three children behind in the UK for a year while her husband had to work in America for a year. She and the youngest (11) went with him. The next oldest (14) was at boarding school for a year. The oldest (17) lived with family friends (their children were good friends of hers and she knew the adults very very well). The two oldest felt terribly abandoned and alone despite spending every holiday with their parents and their mum flying home every half term. I think it has harmed their closeness, despite it being a necessity at the time. And they weren't short of cash for phone calls or flights. 11 and 12 is very young to not have your primary carer around for most of a year.

My parents moved a short flight away when I was 26 and I still felt kind of bereft and alone. It sort of sent me off the rails a little bit. There just wasn't anyone to turn to when things went wrong, although I still had aunts and siblings in the UK.

I'm sorry, I wouldn't do it. Your children are young enough for them to go with you and spend a year in another school in the UK without it harming their education. That would be my personal choice.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 21:04

well I had missed about drowning children and could see where it was relevant Hmm
no sorry you said
send them off to have sex with their future husbands at thirteen along with anyone else in the village that fancies a go

3seater · 06/02/2011 21:04

Posie, most people prob feel that way about me so I shan't take it to heart.
Ok, theoretically, lets just say this course would mean that OP could work towards finding a cure for some life threatening disease, something really worthy. Woudl that change peoples opinion??

Animation · 06/02/2011 21:04

ivykaty - too intense - come down a bit. Smile

scottishmummy · 06/02/2011 21:05

this has got hysterical full of what ifs
with hints of assignations with other man in uk
suggestion of financial impropriety
potentially traumatised children

i do think this is something she needs to discuss this away from the nay sayers of mumsnet.given the mere mention of babies at nursery gets posters bp rising and fingers brushing the biddulph books it is inevitable that potentially going overseas for academic year will produce such histrionic responses

op,get impartial well thought out advice.
and good luck whatever you decide

AnnieLobeseder · 06/02/2011 21:06

And all this 'what if one got sick?', 'what if one got kidnapped by aliens?'stuff is completely irrelevant bollocks! Of course she's go home if there was a problem! These wonderful things called aeroplanes have been invented that actually allow people to cross the Atlantic in a matter of hours!

I know, it's incredible! Hmm

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 21:07

If it's so important to the OP why don't they all move back? And quite clearly it's not anything like that.

toddlerwrangler · 06/02/2011 21:08

ivy its wrong because, IN MY EYES, you loose the right to go off on unnecessary year long trips when you have kids, they deserve thier primary care giver to be just that. Be it the father or mother.

Northernlurker · 06/02/2011 21:08

I really, really want to know how come the course is fully funded when she doesn't intend to work in that area in the UK and hasn't been leaving and doesn't intend to live here!

Northernlurker · 06/02/2011 21:09

'living' not 'leaving'

TheFallenMadonna · 06/02/2011 21:10

There's no absolutes here IMO. I wouldn't do it, nor would I want to be married to someone who did. I wouldn't want a partner in the forces or who worked on a oil rig either. It's not a relationship that would work well for me. But I'm not in your relationship or your family, so I can't say...

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 21:10

scottish mummy.....impartial advice doesn't come any less so than a forum of strangers, surely.

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 21:11

She must have lied on her application.

ivykaty44 · 06/02/2011 21:12

Would it be ok if she took the dc to the UK with her and left dh in the US? Just curious

Animation · 06/02/2011 21:12

The fact of the matter is when you've got kids you generally don't leave home and go swanning around the world getting an education.

scottishmummy · 06/02/2011 21:13

im advocating not asking the hysterical nay sayers of mn

not putting self up for trial by internet
and being realistically grounded and seeking sensible advice from people who know her,and the circumstances

girliefriend · 06/02/2011 21:14

I think the guilt and the heartache would negate any positives of going. Your children will soon be off and doing their own thing and you will have no control over that. Enjoy them while they are still your children - they will be young adults before you know it.