To allow these kids to be taken into care?

[RebelFromTheWaistDown]

Long story. I hope you can make some sense of this.

I have 2DDs age 18 and19 I have brought up alone since they were toddlers.
Their father has come in and out of their lives as he pleased and is now married with 2 DS's age 4 and 7.

DD1(19yo) has recently started a new job after a few months of unemployment. She got a call yesterday morning from her father's wife (SM) who was in tears as she was about to get on a plane to visit relatives abroad for 2 weeks, she had left her children at school to be collected by their father and he had left home and was unable to be contacted. He had told his wife that he would not be there for the kids so she had better come home. DD tried to contact him but he is also ignoring her.

DD asked her boss if she could leave work earlier to collect the children from the after school club and get the key from a neighbour to take the kids home. This is costing DD in wages as well as bus fare for a 15 mile journey to their house.

SM asked DD to take care of her DCs for the 2 weeks while she was away. DD said she would leave work early to collect them Tuesday (yesterday) and Wednesday but she would not be able to get them this Thursday as she is going to see Erasure in concert with me. Also it is half term next week and DD is worried about jeopardising her new job. SM told her that if her father had not returned home by this Thursday that she would get an emergency flight home.

DD1 has now roped in DD2(18) who is due to return home from uni this Thursday to stay with the DCs on Thursday night while we go to the concert. She has also arranged for the DCs to stay at my sister's house (the DCs have never met her) on Friday night as DD2 has a job over here too. Now the SM is saying she can't get a flight home until Sunday or Monday.

My DDs are very upset and stressed in this situation that they cannot cope with. I have pleaded with DD to contact Social Services to tell them the DCs have been abandoned. She has now done this but has told them she is looking after the DCs because she doesn't want them taken into care. I have asked her why she is so worried about that - she is obviously unable to cope with them herself. She says it is because the DCs were not born in this country. I don't understand what that has got to do with it!

I have not seen DD face to face yet. All my contact with DD has been by phone as I work long hours. I will see her tomorrow. I think she would be best to let SS take over. AIBU?

I think you are letting your personal feelings cloud your judgement.

"I have 2DDs age 18 and19 I have brought up alone since they were toddlers.
Their father has come in and out of their lives as he pleased and is now married with 2 DS's age 4 and 7." that line says everything about the resentment you clearly feel towards this man but also tbh the resentment you appear to feel towards his new family.

They are children. And more importantly, they are your children's siblings. So the mum goes away without her husband/dc from time to time - what of it? People do have a right to a life outside of their children - if she's from abroad (as you implied in your op) perhaps she has family abroad she visits?

I agree that the father leaving like that makes him a prize twat - that is not in dispute.

But it also seems clear that you don't want your own family involved in these children's' lives - what are you afraid of?

I think if you step in and go over your own dds' heads and call in ss you run a real risk of causing both emotional harm to these two young children who are presumably happy with their sisters with whom they presumably have a good relationship, and causing huge resentment on the part of your own dd's for having their siblings taken into care. I would be wondering tbh why my mum wasn't offering to help me (given we're only talking about a matter of days here) but instead wanted the children out of the equasion as quickly as possible.

I'll be blunt - I don't think it's these children's best interests you have in mind here. I think you need to step out of the situation here and let your dd's deal with it in their own way. When the mother comes back by all means have words then, but now is not the time to be bringing in SS IMO.

I truly don't believe that the DCs would end up in care. AFAIK they have always been cared for properly but it seems now the parents are going through a rough patch resulting in the abandonment of the DCs. Their father is around somewhere - I don't feel I should get involved myself. I don't know these children. Their school is 15 miles away from where I live. I work 14 hour shifts in a hospital. And I am married with a young DS! I cannot physically do anything to help care for the DC's even if I wanted to.

Forcing to step up is very different from going to a different country where you apparently can't get back for a week with no back up plan in place!

but going to the ss would be BEST for the children.
someone needs to know what is happening in their lives.

as op says, it is unfair on her oldest dd's to be forced to take responsibility.

I am not sure about the mother. depends on whether her h has threatened all sorts before and not gone through with it. depends on whether he was a reliable carer in the first place. depends why she was going abroad.

I would give the sm the benefit of the doubt and rally round to help your dd's look after their siblings you can assess the situation when you have spoken to the mother. however, you may have more details that would tip the balance either way.

Wannabe I think that is rather harsh. Of course she is going to put her own children first that goes without saying, but I have read nothing to suggest she doesn't care about the other children involved.

People can only do so much though, and being passed from pillar to post with people who the children dont know is a hard situation for all involved

You need to step in and take the decision OUT OF your dds hands. Dont ask her to call ss, do it yourself. And call the school!

OP, you could help. I'm sorry, but you could. You don't want to - and that is absolutely fine because essentially these children are nothing to do with you. But honestly, if you don't step in here and support your DDs I think they are going to be very upset and hurt. I don't think you can judge whether the DCs will end up in care tbh - how would you know that? They certainly could end up in emergency foster care if the mother doesn't come back and one of the wheels comes off your DDs cobbled-together care plan.

EG if one of the DCs tells a teacher that they're going to stay with a lady they've never met before on Friday cos Mummy and Daddy have gone on holiday, I think you could find the DCs will be in emergency care pretty quickly. The school won't know to phone your DDs if there's an accident or emergency, for example.

I think your DDs are brilliant. They obviously don't want their brothers to go into care, so I think you should be supporting them to acheive that objective by providing care until the parents come back while letting SS know about the situation.

I agree with WannaBe that you're letting your own resentment and anger towards this man cloud your judgement. Your DDs are legally adults and are considered plenty old enough in law to take care of children. Women frequently have babies at 18 and 19 and manage ok. I don't think your DDs' capacity to be responsible is the issue here, especially as they've clearly been incredibly kind and responsive so far to their little half-brothers' desperate need.

From the point of view of the two little boys surely it would be less harmful and distressing in this awful situation, where they have been abandoned by both parents, if their half-sisters (who they presumably know at least a bit) could be involved in taking care of them until their mother comes back? I recognise that this may complicate life temporarily for your DDs but if they are willing to do it then surely the compassionate thing to do would be to set aside whatever feelings you may have about your ex's second family and support them in doing so?

The parents' abandonment of their children - especially the father - is a separate issue. I agree that he should face the legal consequences of his actions and that SS should be involved.

So on balance perhaps the kindest solution would be to inform SS, get SS to support your DDs in caring for the little boys until their mother comes back (or indeed support them yourself!), and then let SS make whatever interventions they feel are appropriate to help the mother and father sort this out once the immediate crisis is past.

I think the op is rightly concerned about her own kids - her DD1 has a job, and should not be jeopardising that, and dd2 will have uni work and a job as well.

Ultimately, the kids are the responsibility of their parents, not their half sisters, nor of the OP.

SS needs in this case to know what is going on. I live abroad, my relatives are in the UK, but I don't go swanning off without ensuring that either he is with me, or that if I am away his Dad rearranges things to stick him on the school bus in the morning, and give him dinner at night (and my ds is nearly 16). It is not rocket science; and yes, we have coped with dh's Dad dying recently, so that isn't an excuse either.

I'm confused. If the father had left home and couldn't be contacted, at what point did he tell his wife that he had no intention of looking after their 2 children?

Are the parents already separated? Or did the "leaving home" occur around the same time that the mother left for the airport? It reads to me as though they had a row, the father said he wouldn't care for them and was leaving, the mother left for the airport and panicked when she couldn't get hold of him to see if he meant it. Is that right or am I misreading?

If that is correct then both parents are to blame. The mother should never have left if her husband had told her he was leaving and wouldn't care for the children in her absence. Was this a holiday or a family emergency?

Whatever has gone on, the situation now is wht it is and there are 2 children who need to be cared for. I think it would be the right thing to do for you and your family to help out until the mother gets back. Whether or not you decide to involve social services depends very much on what the exact sequence of events was. If it really is the case that both parents willingly went their separate ways with the issue of the children's care unresolved then perhaps SS involvement would be appropriate. The father can't just bugger off and take no responsibility for his own children, but equally the mother shouldn't have got on that plane when she had been told that he was doing just that. Both parents have an equal responsibility to care for their children and if one of them says "right, I'm off", the other one doesn't then get to do the same.

So the mother was still in this country when she was aware that the father wasn't coming to get them. Any decent mother would have left the airport and come straight back for them. Not carried on with her two week holiday without having sorted anything satisfactory out for them.

She does need reporting to social services for abandonment as to be honest the kids sound like they'd be better off in care.

unfair in whose opinion? What do the older dd's think? do they think that:

It's a week at best (assuming the mother can get a flight home, bearing in mind it's half term from tomorrow so talk of no flights might well not be exagerated)

or would they rather their siblings be taken into care, possibly permanently, possibly given up for adoption with that relationship lost for ever (talking worst case senario here).

The older dd's are eighteen and nineteen respectivey. Yes they may be young, but they are young adults in their own right - they are not children, and as such they should be allowed to take responsibility for their siblings and the situation they have been placed in without their mother stepping into a situation which realistically she knows nothing about.

Where is the father in all this?
Sure'ly someone should be contacting him?

These poor children have to LIVE WITH parents who care so little about them that they just abandon them.

Maybe the parents will be grateful to not have to parent them anymore?
Maybe you are doing the parents a favour calling the ss?

(Seeing that as usual peeps are more concerned with the wellfare and what is best for parents, on these boards, with little regard for the kids in question )

Wow.

Well firstly, calling social services is unlikely to result in the children being put permanently in care. This is an emergency situation, and regardless of whether your daughters might be able to muddle through, SS should be informed. The girls will need support, and the situation (especially in the longer term) needs monitoring.

Also, don't assume that time in care is worse than at home. It depends. There are so many variables, none of us are in a position to judge. This is why professionals need to be involved.

I understand why you are reluctant, but if I were in this position I would be trying to arrange things so that I was overseeing the care of the kids while DDs try their best, until SS can evaluate the situation properly.

I've been in this situation as a child a number of times. In my experience, although foster parents aren't always great, they have been much better at dealing with this kind of situation than well-meaning but poorly equipped relatives.

Also, be very proud of your daughters, but bear in mind it is all very different for them.

Also, an Erasure concert is far less important than the wellbeing of these children. In your posts you come across as less than sympathetic. I hope this isn't the case.

I'm a bit at how many people here have said 'Get SS in, these children aren't the OP or the OP's DDs' responsibility.'

While technically that's true, it seems pretty cold to me. It's basically saying 'As there is a state-funded service that can intervene, I wash my hands of these two vulnerable children who are related to my daughters, and will encourage my daughters to do the same. I will leave them in the care of strangers instead.'

This seems to me a pretty hard-hearted moral position.

"possibly given up for adoption" - clearly you have little understanding of the care system.

So if your daughter was risking her new job because of this you wouldn't be concerned?

You think it's ok for both parents to leave young children with no childcare arranged and that ss dont need to know?

Op has already said that childcare is going to be an issue with the school holidays so what exactly do you suggest they do next week?

Ss need to know, not to take the children into care but to provide the support needed in the first instance and to help ensure nothing like this happens again

QuintessentialShadyHallows has a cast-iron, solid point.

Yanbu to want to....

But dear god, I couldnt do it. Those children are confused and want their mummy, this is not the time for point scoring.

Yanbu if it were me I wouldn't hesitate to abandon my flight and go to my dc's then probably leave their "father" if he cared so little as to do something like that.

If the mum has gone to mainland Europe there are other options back to the UK which don't involve a plane - there are ferries and Eurostar as well as coaches. As it is a flight back to the UK, then as half term doesn't start til Friday, and people would be flying out of and not into UK, that argument doesn't hold.

She should not have got on that plane knowing her kids weren't being cared for. I wonder if she will come back.

It would be really hard for the OP to do anything to help given 14 hour shifts and her own ds to care for. If her dds deal with this once, then it will happen again and again, and why should they have to deal with that? As women having kids at 18/19, so what? The dds haven't chosen to have kids that young, and they should not have been put in this position by the parents of their half sibs.