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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To allow these kids to be taken into care?

352 replies

RebelFromTheWaistDown · 19/10/2011 10:25

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?

OP posts:
TipOfTheSlung · 19/10/2011 11:29

Seriously SS can't really do much can they

They will ask your dds are you happy looking after your half siblings, as your daughters have already told you they don't want ss brought in then presumably they have said yes. SS will see that the children are being cared for by 2 adult relatives for a week tops until their mother gets back, why would they do anything?

TheScaryJessie · 19/10/2011 11:29

I really do think professional intervention is needed here. The children's father abandoned them.

Original poster
RebelFromTheWaistDown · 19/10/2011 11:30

Kungfupanda - I am just as confused as you are!

Can I just make one thing clear? I am glad I got away from my ex a long time ago but I do not hate him. I wish he was as happy as I am with his new life. Obviously he isn't. This does NOT make me happy. And it certainly does not make my DD's happy Sad

OP posts:
LoopyLoopsPussInBoots · 19/10/2011 11:30

They will monitor the situation when/if the parents return.

They will have support available if the DDs struggle.

They may offer help when DDs are working.

scaryteacher · 19/10/2011 11:30

Why are the school handing them over to the DDs without a note from the Mum, or do they sometimes pick them up?

moonshineandspellbooks · 19/10/2011 11:31

Social services are not going to come in and whisk these children away. They have neither the manpower, money nor available foster carers to do so unless a child is considered to be at serious risk and there are legal protocols that have to be followed. Far more likely is that they will support the OP's DD to carry on acting as the carer if they consider her to be a suitable short-term carer (and I can see no reason why she would be unsuitable - she's generally willing just unable to manage it all by herself, she's a blood relative, over 18 and presumably has no criminal record or history of troubled behaviour).

Speaking as someone who ended up fostering a friend's 2-year-old on very very short notice indeed, I think it's far more likely that SS would do what they did with me and simply organise childcare while I was at work so my job wasn't jeopardised. That's easily the best short-term solution for the little boys, who must be terribly confused and feeling very unloved and insecure right now.

Meanwhile SS would be alerted and speak to both parents about what's going on. None of this means the children will be permanently removed unless other serious concerns come to light. What it does mean is that professional people are looking into whether there is a stable family background. If there is, and this is a one-off aberration, all that will happen is a stern telling off (possibly with charges if appropriate, but unlikely TBH), a period of monitoring and then eventual closing of the case.

It's all well and good saying families should stick together and help each other out, and in generally functional families that's a great attitude to take. But if the parents of these boys aren't up to the task of being parents then it's going to be a lot more than helping out and neither the OP or her DDs are in a position to do that on a long-term basis.

ThingsThatGoFlumpInTheNight · 19/10/2011 11:32

FFS some people on here are being v hard on the OP! Of course she is putting her own family first - does anybody not do that?

And I also think some people are referring to the SS as if we are still in the Victorian age. They won't steam in, take these children away and put them up the chimneys you know! They will talk with you, with your DDs and see what you are all willing to do in the interim. They will do their best to get hold of the mother & or father to get the children back with their parents if they possibly can. Then they will monitor the situation. Then the father & mother will hopefully realise they need to sort themselves out.

LoopyLoopsPussInBoots · 19/10/2011 11:33

Excellent post moonshine

wannaBe · 19/10/2011 11:34

"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" And of course the children would know the foster carers that they would be placed with when the op involves social services... Hmm

I agree with whoever it was that said this advocating of responsibility to the state is absolutely shocking.

By all means involve ss in terms of the fact these parents have abandoned their children. But what are you going to do if ss say that given the children are clearly happy and safe in the siblings' care given we're talking a maximum of two weeks here? What then? Are you going to stamp your feet and say "no, my daughters shouldn't be caring for them, please take them away."? well?

Is this really about what is in the best interests of these children or is it about getting them away from your own dd's?

VivaLeBeaver · 19/10/2011 11:35

Social services should do something as these kids were abandoned! It is not responsible parenting to be at the airport trying to sortout childcare for two weeks. If it had been arranged properly it would be a different story.

I don't see ringing social services as washing hands of the kids, total opposite in fact. Social services probably would be happy if teenage half sisters can carry on looking after the kids and would leave them there. However they will give the mother a stiff talking to when she comes back and make sure there are no other areas of concerns. Something like this could indicate that the children are been neglected in other ways. If so the ss would be able to support and help as appropriate.

QuintessentialShadyHallows · 19/10/2011 11:36

Well said moonshine

LoopyLoopsPussInBoots · 19/10/2011 11:39

If not SS, ask DD to tell school. They should know anyway. The head will do what's necessary.

TandB · 19/10/2011 11:39

OP, I see you are confused - but what is your understanding? Were the parents still living together on the day that the mother got on the plane?

LadyEvilEyes · 19/10/2011 11:39

Sorry, I asked above and have had no reply.
Where is the father?
Can your daughters not get in touch with him or is he away too?
I'm clearly missing something here.

wannaBe · 19/10/2011 11:40

moonshine tbh I think it's all in the wording.

If the op had posted "ibu to speak to ss wrt the fact that the mother and father have both walked out on their children at short notice leaving them in the care of their older siblings," I think that one wouldn't hesitate to suggest that SS involvement is required. but the thread title reads "Ibu to have these kids taken into care?" which clearly implies the op just wants them taken away and for her dd's to have no part in it.

And tbh yes, I think the op sounds very resentful and that a lot of her response is based on her personal feelings, otherwise she would IMO be supporting her DD's while encouraging them to seek support from SS...

cjbartlett · 19/10/2011 11:40

I don't see why an 18 year old and a 19 year old can't care for 2 children for a couple of weeks

diddl · 19/10/2011 11:42

What I can´t quite figure is did the mother only go away because OPs oldest daughter said that she would help?

LoopyLoopsPussInBoots · 19/10/2011 11:42

cj - they might be able to, but the fact is, the kids have been abandoned. The situation needs monitoring.

Georgimama · 19/10/2011 11:43

I think to protect yourself and your DDs from any possible later ramifications you need to inform the school what has happened - they will no doubt invoke their child protection procedures which will involve a notification to SS if the responsible teacher considers it necessary.

SS are not the childcatcher, these children have two unreliable parents by the sound of it and need and deserve proper care. Hopefully with support their parents can provide that. And right now your DDs should not be shouldering the burden without help (or the protection of some kind of official sanction of what they are doing - what if SM gets back and decides your DDs haven't looked after the children properly? What if there is a genuine accident or emergency in the next few days?)

DogsBeastFiend · 19/10/2011 11:43

I went through the experience of dealing with a child who was pretty much abandoned so maybe can offer my experiences.

There were differences - the child was not a relative but a very distressed and frightened schoolfriend of DDs and she was 14, left at home alone for 10 days whilst the mother went on holiday. Parents are divorced and the father lived nearby but basically put his own interests ahead of his child and left her to it, dropping £4 a day through the letterbox for food.

The upshot was that I took the lass in and informed the school - not least to "cover my own ass" - as I barely knew the girl. School, as is their duty, called in SS. The relevant point is that school already had concerns - they told me that but of course not what they were - and had therefore a much clearer picture of the situation as a result.

The lass remained with me with SS knowledge and permission until her mother called her to say that she was back from Spain - 2 or 3 days after the mother actually arrived home. Shock The parents were investigated and, AFAIUI, given the shake up and warning of their lives. Since then I have noticed that both parents take a far better interest in the lass and there has been no repeat of the situation.

Going on my experience I would strongly urge you to contact the school and SS, not least because they may be in possession of facts which you aren't and which may make a difference to how the matter should be handled.

cjbartlett · 19/10/2011 11:43

well they haven't been abandoned, because the mother has arranged for their sister to pick them up from school
if she doesn't pick them up then they will be abandoned

wannaBe · 19/10/2011 11:45

yes but the op doesn't want the situation monitoring - she wants the children taken away.

Thread title "Ibut to have these kids taken into care?" further down the thread "I think they would be better off in another home." (that wasn't the exact wording but ykwim.)

There is a vast vast difference to want intervention in order to help these children in the best way possible, and to just want them taken away...

cory · 19/10/2011 11:46

The OPs dds are young adults: it would seem very odd to me for their mother to take decisions about their lives over their heads- not something I would have accepted at that age. Surely it is up to them to decide whether they can cope or not, and to contact SS for help with childcare etc?

LoopyLoopsPussInBoots · 19/10/2011 11:46

Not the OP's call how SS deal with it. But they do need to deal with it.

VivaLeBeaver · 19/10/2011 11:47

They were abandoned. Mother left on holiday before sorting anything out, in my book that's abandoning them. Yes she thought the father might pick them up but she still left even when she knew he wasn't going to. Yes she's roped the half sister in at the last minute but not for the full length of the holiday. Hardly suitable arrangements.