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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:
spidookly · 06/02/2011 12:55

Actually I just like and enjoy my children too much to miss out on a year of their lives by choice.

There will only be one opportunity to see these children through their 12th and 13th years.

There are lots of post-grad courses and they aren't about to go out of fashion.

not1not2 · 06/02/2011 12:56
Grin

trying to remember about Penelope?

TheButterflyCollector · 06/02/2011 12:59

(Or in anotherwords, what animula said, only far more elegantly than I).

NinkyNonker · 06/02/2011 13:00

I certainly wouldn't want to be separated from my family for a year, regardless of what they want/need.

NinkyNonker · 06/02/2011 13:06

Very much enjoyed Animula's posts by the way.

orangepoo · 06/02/2011 13:07

I don't really know the answer but I think I would have been beside myself if my mum had left us for a year when I was a child.

spidookly · 06/02/2011 13:07

It's entirely reasonable to point out to the op that there might be downsides to this that she hasn't considered.

How much she will miss her children is a central consideration here, or at least it should be.

Ultimately the selfish decision (leaving guilt, children's welfare, other people's opinions aside) comes down to whether doing this course will make her happier than missing this year out of her children's lives will make her sad.

It's really up to her whether she thinks other people's views on that are useful.

ChippingInSmellyCheeseFreak · 06/02/2011 13:16

Once you have children people will say that any time is a 'terrible time' to leave them - they're too young, still very young, pre pubescent, starting puberty, young teen, older teen... no single year is any better or any worse than another until they are adults. Your children are a long way off of being adults.

I have splinters on my butt over this one.

Part of me feels 'Oh my God, how could you leave them' and the other part of me thinks 'It's only for a few weeks each time'

I can't say...

  • I don't know your kids
  • I don't know what your relationship is like with them
  • I don't know your DH
  • I don't know what kind of Dad he is nor what kind of husband he is
  • I don't know how well you all communicate normally, will you be better on the phone/skye or are you better in person
  • I don't know you
  • I don't know how many weeks you will be apart at any one time
  • I don't know how much of it you will be able to do at home

I could go on listing all the things I/we don't know - things that are crucial to know to make this decision. No one here does. Everyone is just coming from their own POV - so there wont be 'an answer' but there will be a lot of questions that you can ask yourself, then you will have to come to your own conclusion.

Best of Luck
Let us know what you decide.

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 13:19

Sounds like a mickey mouse course if you can seriously devote enough time to a family overseas whilst studying.

Makingaminime · 06/02/2011 13:28

I think it would be fine, like belgo says lots of fathers work overseas (or spend so much time at work and travelling that they hardly see their children anyway) and generally no one thinks it's 'odd'.

Regrding this ^ I do^ think its odd and wouldn't have children with someone that had this kind of life. My best friend's father was offshore for 3 months at a time growing up and is now away for 6 months at a time. I thought it was wierd as a kid and now even more so as a married adult.

To the OP, I wouldn't have coped if my mother had left for a year aged 11 or 12. I loved coming in from school to chat about the day and discuss the trivial bits and pieces kids are interested in. They are changing and growing up so much at that age, they desperately need their parents. So no, I wouldn't do it.

susiedaisy · 06/02/2011 13:31

personally i couldn't do that, i miss my kids when they have sleep overs but then they are only 10 and 13, so might feel differently when they are big stroppy teenagers! ask your dc but only if you are going to respect their replies, they may shout NO at the tops of theirs voices and then where will that leave you?

Ephiny · 06/02/2011 13:33

My life was an ongoing battle of wills with my mother at that age, it would probably have done us both good to have a bit of space from each other! It tended to be my dad I went to if I wanted to chat or talk over problems.

Every family is different though, and obviously the OP should do what seems best for her and her family. Just think it would be sad if she missed out on this opportunity because she happens to be female and because of other people's notions of what women/mothers should be like and should/shouldn't do.

I liked animula's post too - always though it sounded like Odyseuss was having much more of a good time than Penelope patiently sitting at home! Really loved the Margaret Atwood retelling of the story from Penelope's point of view.

Normantebbit · 06/02/2011 13:44

I might name change to thegerund.

RIZZ0 · 06/02/2011 13:51

Hmm. My mm was away for three months including the summer before I started secondary school aged 11.

I must admit it affected my confidence at the time far more than I realised.

TyraG · 06/02/2011 13:59

edam Perhaps here in the UK the armed forces are such that the men and women who serve can come and go at their leisure, but that is certainly not how it works in the US. Once you sign a contract with the military you cannot simply walk out whenever you choose or refuse orders without serious repercussions.

bubblewrapped · 06/02/2011 14:00

I just think it is utterly selfish. You have children. Those children need a mother. There are plenty kids who dont have a mum, and that is not because the mother chose to leave them.

I think you have to evaluate your priorities, and if you have chosen to have children, then those children are your priority. You should have finished your education before having children, or accepted that you now have children so you have made that choice instead of a career.

No doubt I will be flamed and called old fashioned, but I do believe if a woman gives birth to a child by choice, then that child deserves to be raised by its mother and not abandoned while a mother pursues a degree.

changeforthebetter · 06/02/2011 14:02

Wow, animula I think your posts were fantastic. I am a pretty earth-mother type (bf, co-sleeping sort of thing) and I do wonder if I chose the right path as I am now lone parenting (nice to see that LP is always inferior according to some posters on here Hmm) and my economic potential has been hampered by a)having kids and b) not returning to paid employment in the first year of their lives. However, I do feel some of what I did was active choice. This isn't a post about the ability to be a SAHM. I am not one now and would not choose to be one again.

What depresses me about the thread is the flat refusal on the part of many posters to contemplate that motherhood is a complex undertaking and there is no one set trajectory which is right for every mother and child.

OP please let us know what you decide (if your head hasn't exploded, that is Wink)

RIZZ0 · 06/02/2011 14:03

I meant mum, not mm.

RevoltingPeasant · 06/02/2011 14:08

secondcity

Haven't read all the thread, only about half (have to get back to work!!).

I'd say, on the basis of what you've said here... do it.

How many of those saying, 'Children can't cope without a parent' actually have any experience of what they're talking about? I'd be interested.

My dad worked away from home for extensive periods of time - 6-8 mos and longer when I was a kid, from the time I was about 3 through my teens. You know what, it was fine. We did miss him, but we all kept in touch and it was quite cool having a dad who worked in Honduras, or Singapore, or some place most kids at school couldn't find on a map.

With an MA course, you will be able to come home for Xmas vac (mid-Dec to mid-Jan), Easter (basically, April), and then you will probably be able to come home after teaching stops in May and write your dissertation in NY, using the libraries there. So you will effectively be away:

  • end of Sept to mid-Dec
  • mid-Jan to end of March
  • late April through mid-May

I don't think that is too much at all. Or your kids could be with you at that time. Plus, if you have a DD, I think it is really important that she sees her mother going for something she wants. Honestly, if she gets her period, she'll deal. Get Skype.

Normantebbit · 06/02/2011 14:09

I think whatever decision op makes, it will be difficult. I expect being away will be harder than anticipated, children will at times be unhappy and then settle again.

The question is , is the post grad worth it? Can op's relationship take the strain? Is her DH going to be as supportive as she needs him to be? Only she knows the answers to this.

RevoltingPeasant · 06/02/2011 14:11

Oh plus second, as a lecturer I can tell you that in many places funded MAs will soon be a thing of the past except for exceptional students.

Unless you are really academically elite, you want to do this before 2013, which is when (the on-dit is) the big funding crunch will really hit for universities.

Good luck. If nothing else, I respect your brains for getting the funded place at all, since they are not easy to come by.

Normantebbit · 06/02/2011 14:11

And yes you can plan for periods etc Get her the stuff, talk her through it.

ThePosieParker · 06/02/2011 14:13

Some people do not think of the op's choice as a mother thing, but a parent thing. Also the fact that she has been the main carer and then would withdraw completely....I think given the hormonal charges through puberty. it's too much to ask of her children. I would think the same if she was a 'he'.

maltesers · 06/02/2011 14:14

Its only a year, yes ? and if kids are ok about it and DH then go for it. As you saya there plenty of university holiday and school hols to spend with kids.

If its what you really want to do then its worth it .

undercovamutha · 06/02/2011 14:14

It depends on your DH's relationship with your DCs, and how you think they would cope in your absence.

I couldn't leave my DCs for that long, and I can't even contemplate what it would have been like if my own mother had moved away for a year when I was 11 or 12.

Perhaps unfairly, I DO think its different for the primary carer to be away for a long period. I don;t think you can equate a father who has always been in the forces, with a SAHM who has spent 10y at home with DCs and then decides to spend a year away.

I am of course talking about this in terms of impact on the DCs and not re. what is fairest for the parents. But then I don;t agree with boarding school either.....