DS sent across the world to PIL

[StrawberryShortcake32]

Hello all
First time poster on here but have been a lurker for a while. I'm just needing some advice.
DS is less than a month old. MIL lives in South Africa. My DH is talking about sending DS there to spend time with his grandmother in school holidays, for the whole of the school holidays, every year. This will be years from now, he will be 12 onwards. I just have major issues with this and have voiced them to DH only for it to be met on deaf ears. My beef with this is that I just don't want to part with my son for a whole month of the year, every year. I know it sounds selfish but I can't help it. My other concerns are...what if he doesn't want to go? At 12 he's going to have friends he wants to spend time with, clubs or sports he's doing. Also...putting a 12 year old on a plane for an 11 hour flight alone? Really?? If that had been me I'd have been so frightened! I have suggested we make it a family holiday with all 3 of us but we aren't always going to be able to afford that. MIL put pressure on us to have grandchildren since we were married and I'm not sure how much of this is her influence, I had a baby because I wanted one, not for her sake! I want him to have the experiences going over there and spending time with DHs side of the family but a whole month at a time is just too much and doesn't then give us ability to use summer holidays for other places we might want to go on holiday.
Appreciate it's years from now and I can't imagine that DH will have the same views when it comes to it as he will realise the circumstances are different to what he's imagining. But I'd like some views of other non biased and non hormonal people just to make sure I'm not just being an over protective mumma bear.

AIBU?

Hi OP first of all you are NOT being unreasonable.

This kind of thing pisses me right off because your 'd'h is spoiling your early days with your new baby with worry about something that probably will never happen, and you should not have to deal with this.

Secondly, your DH is a LOON for making plans in twelve years time.

Thirdly, there is no way on this earth my child would be travelling overseas for months on end without me every summer until they were an adult - unless circumstances dictated that this was 100% in their interest, which I cannot see how this ever could be for quite a number of reasons.

So as you say...

"My beef with this is that I just don't want to part with my son for a whole month of the year, every year." And you should not have to! Your MIL had her chance to parent her son, and she did, your dh, he doesn't listen to you and has frankly mad ideas, so well done MIL but had your chance.

You are totally right, "At 12 he's going to have friends he wants to spend time with, clubs or sports he's doing." Children like to see their friends in the holidays, that's what they do, they play on their various devices, ride their bikes, trampoline, I know not all kids like this but mine is nearly 12 and that is what she likes. The idea of sending a child of this age overseas for a month every year, against their mums wishes, is appalling.

Re " I know it sounds selfish but I can't help it." It doesn't sound selfish and you should not need to help it, it sounds normal.

Re "MIL put pressure on us to have grandchildren" She sounds awful, I'd be avoiding her to be honest. People do not have the right to put pressure to get grandchildren or to demand time with grandchildren.

You say you can't imagine that DH will have the same views when it comes to it and I hope so. But he is spoiling your peace of mind now.

Totally agree with Bruce, "There isn't any point arguing about this now. But also there is no point seemingly going along with it. Because the expectation will be there. "

Do no be pushed into agreeing to anything you do not wish to agree to!

No. Just bat it off. Say no at the time.

I'm an expat south african, in the uk for more than a decade, my kids born here. We go back every 18 months -2 years to see our parents and other family. My parents don't have a lot of security around the house, only perimeter alarms. Firearms in the bedroom. My in-laws live in a super high security gated estate with ridiculous security, hourly patrols etc. I would NEVER send my children there on holiday on their own, and I know exactly where they're going, who they'll be with, the security, the attitude to safety etc. Your husband is being ridiculous (And deep down he knows it)

Italian By the same token, the OP has chosen to get married with someone who is coming from another country.
The fact that her DH would want his dcs to spend time there isn't really surprising and to be expected. SA is and will always be part of her ds heritage and I think it's pretty normal that said child is given the opportunity to spend time there.

I agree that planning things so far ahead is bonkers. And that, just when a baby is so small isn't the right time to talk about that.
The right time should have been before planning the pg TBH. But as things are now, then yes waiting for things to settle down and taking a more gentle approach would have been a good idea.

However, saying that there is no way that child will ever go on his own etc.. isn't on. Unless you are happy to go there for 4 weeks every year so that the child can spend time with his family there. 4weeks is only 14 weekends a year so like seeing his grand parents once every month. I don't think that's over the top is it? On the other side, the child will have had 14 weekends 'free' to spend with his friends etc...
I can tell you that my dcs would jump (and do as much as we can do it) at the opportunity to spend time with my side of the family like this. They relish the opportunity to connect with some their roots. They relish the opportunity to spend time without me or my DH (Freedom!!). They love the opportunity to be fushed over, do new things that they can't do in the uk etc etc. They love being able to spend time in a place where people do things the same way than I do. It gives them meaning and a feeling to belonging. It would be very wrong to assume that they wouldn't want any of this because as the adult you assume they won't want it (because you wouldn't have done so or have never had that opportunity)

In effect what I am saying is that I am urging the OP to think carefully about how she approach the issue of being bi cultural, how she will approach the issue of having a dual heritage and how she will handle that with her dcs.

Gandal yes security issues are a big thing to consider. However, as the OP hasn't mention anything about it, I'm assuming this is not her main issue?

Don't worry OP my xP decided when our DS was born that when he was 5 he would send him to live with Buddhist monks for 6 months (I kid you not, he was so serious) as he wanted him to be one of those little kids that can stand on his head for hours on end and break wood with his little finger. He had been watching too many movies
Fast forward 12 years and if my DS wanted to I would be more than happy to send him across the world to spend time with his other side of the family. As a PP has said many airlines do a great unaccompanied minor service and it would be a great experience for him.
Please don't worry about it now or even bother debating it with DP!

Humus I will answer your question and then answer the general question from KeyserSophie "For those who wouldnt consider it, do you mind me asking why not?" and together they may explain my position in respose to the OP.

Hummus the OP clearly does not want to think about this now and her dh is being selfish putting this on her now. IF it was all so important to him he should have discussed this before marriage or before a baby came along. Maybe the OP would have chosen not to have a baby with him if she had felt relinquishing him for six weeks a year, from age 12, was part of the plan.

Her dh married her, perhaps they met in the UK, where he had already set up a life. Is that the case Strawberry

He has no right to expect this arrangement just because he comes from South Africa IMHO. not unless he specifically said this is how it would be, which I am guessing he did not.

South Africa is not a very safe place to live. I would not want my child there without me. I have a friend from South Africa, she and her dh live in the UK now, and her sibling moved to another country. They visit (my friend, her dh and kids) every few years and the relatives visit them.

If I were in the OP's shoes I would consider this, visiting as a family. There are lots of countries I would not feel happy to visit, let alone leave my child in. Parents get to choose not to do these things and not to be pushed into them by their partner. If the OP was from North Korea or one of the hot spot war torn areas of the world, would her husband be fine with the kids going there? There are lots of places people may not like to visit, for all kinds of reasons.

KeyserSophieparents get to choose, but it's rather nice to hear people say how they spent summers in Italy or whatever, (much closer than South Africa and I would imagine much safer) and of course any family that wishes to do this, great, fine, up to them.

I am answering for me, we do not have extended family anywhere more than about 3 hours drive away! If we did the key things for me would be:
Did my kids have a good enough relationship with the relatives to live with them for a number of weeks?
Would I trust the adults do a good job in loco parentis?
Would they want?
Am I happy/are they happy to work hard all year and for my kids to be busy with school each term and then for summer holidays to come round and me not to see them and them not to see them?

I'd rather spend money on nice holidays to see the relatives with my kids, why does the DH wish to send his son rather than spend some time with his own mum? Yes, work etc tricky but in the end as an adult I want to cultivate and continue relationships with my and dh's family as well as them cultivating relationships with the kids.

My kids would not wish to do this, I know that, won't bore you with the details, and my in-laws are nearly 80. They had a fab day with kids yesterday but a week would knacker them out, let alone longer.

Lastly, my kids like their friends and their home and would not want to be in different home for weeks on end. But we all know our own kids, don't we. Except the OP, whose child is a month, and her dh is badgering her to agree to something in 12 years time.

I think the OP has the usual, a dh problem not a MIL problem.

I'd tell dh to stop talking about it, we will think in future. Say same to MIL, Not agree to anything.The lovely tinkering with cars/running through fields future some children may have had may not be the case for this family, why can't he build a car with his own father one day?

I love my in laws, I loved my parents when they were alive. But they had their chance to be parents, and their role is to love and support their kids and grandkids and not to make demands which are unreasonable, IMHO.

Oh sorry, LONG!

Keyser there are various reasons I wouldn't agree to this now:

I wouldn't want to be held to a decision made now in a decades time.

I would miss my children.

My children would miss me.

Neither set of Grandparents (although lovely and fairly fit) could really cope with them for that long.

My DC have great relationships with both their grandparents and love them dearly. But they wouldn't want to spend that long alone with either set.

South Africa is a really long way away should something happen.

I have a friend who sends her girls to France for the school holidays to stay with her parents and learn the language and it works well for them. However because France is relatively close she visits several times for weekends during that period.

As so many others have posted, this is a long long way off.

However, last year we sent DS (13 at the time) to Panama by himself to visit his grandfather. He flew as an UM with KLM and their service was fantastic. On the way back, his flight from Panama City was running late and I thought he would miss his Amsterdam-Edinburgh connection. When his plane landed in Amsterdam they sent a van just to collect DS and it took him straight to the next plane, with the passport checking people waiting for him as he boarded.

He had a brilliant time in Panama and I would happily send him again for longer, regular visits. I just need to persuade DH.

It is not even worth thinking about now!
You have no idea what your situation will be in 12 years.
The most I would do is to say 'Ask me in 12 years'

You may want him to go by then, he may not want to go, Your MIL may not want him to stay over because she will be older. There are lots of things that can change!
I like planning ahead but this is ridiculous.

Yes Italiangreyhound we met in UK. DH immigrated to UK before we met.

It's really interesting reading so many different opinions and experiences. Thank you all for these. It's making me realise that as long as DS wants to go, there's no harm in him going. Still not happy with a whole month though. Maybe 2 weeks.

MIL visited and stayed with us for 2 weeks during birth of DS and I don't think it was totally DH's idea that he be sent there for holidays. DH realises it was not the time to bring this up and has stopped talking about it. We've spoken about leaving things like this to talk about until nearer the time. I want him to have the experience and to bond with grandparents but not on those terms.

Also, after living with them for the other 48 weeks of the year, I'm glad I don't have to look after the kids for a couple of weeks.

You might think you'll miss them, but about an hour after they've landed in the place where they're going, you'll forget completely. I don't get this mentality that you'll miss your kids if they go away - that's worrying. They're going to have to go away without you at some point, best to confront it young, in my opinion.

I'll be sad when the kids go to Uni, but not as sad as parents who have spent every waking moment with their kids.

Strawberry re "It's making me realise that as long as DS wants to go, there's no harm in him going."

What's convinced you of that?

My list of criteria would be a bit longer than whether a child of 12 wanted to do something. Please do not let it all rest on what your ds wants, because by the time comes your MIL may not be really capable of looking after a pre-teen, she may be thinking of herself now, and the tiny baby now, 12 years is a long time. If you want to be open, be open but IMHO it does not all rest on your dh or your MIL or your son.

My dd has been away a bit, for a few days at a time. I don't miss her hugely, but I always say I do! As she tells me she has missed me. (Maybe she doesn't). But the trips she has gone on are based on what would be good for her, I'd need to know that month in another country, especially one with some degree of security issues, would be totally right for her. And I can't quite see how you would know about all this unless you had already been and stayed with MIL beforehand.

Italian if I may say, not everyone has or will experience things the way you do.
Nor parents, nor the children.

It might be that in 12 years time (it's a very long way!) the OP and her ds will feel like this.
It might be that they will feel like I do, e.g. It's a great opportunity, a nice thing to do etc..
And yes I do miss my dcs when they are away. In some ways. And they miss me, in some ways too. But the fun they get whilst away far outweighs that (they usually don't really think about home TBH. They are just enjoying themselves) and I enjoy seeing them grow up and have fun as well as having some me time, a different rythm to the day and week.

Please don't believe that, if a mother is happy to see her dc go away, it's because somehow she has been convinced against her will or wishes. That she can't possibly be happy with that. Because this is very far from the reality (from some mothers agin, not all)

To come back to an earlier comment though, I don't think that wanting to raise your child as bi cultural should be discussed in particular. If you get married with someone from another country, someone who clearly has some strong ties with that country still, then the default position should be tha the child will be raised as bi cultural. I'm at the idea that it might not be obvious TBH.
Imo, if one of the parent do not want to raise the child bi cultural, then it's up to them to raise the issue, not thenother way around.
And it's not because you have lived in a country for years that it means your initial (?) culture isn't still the most important one for you and that one can just assume you'll not want to transmit these traditions to your child.

Strawberry all the best with your baby :)
This is not the right time to really be discussing something like this and you will find that, as your DC grows, you will feel more comfortable with some stuff (and still unconfortable with others probably !). I hope you find the right balance for your family when it comes to it.

I wouldn't worry about this now. Time changes as children grow older. Half a day's separation from a newborn seems absolutely unbearable, by the time they are 5 and go to school it is routine. By the time they are 18, we send them into the world, to live for months on end at the other end of the country.

I did send my ds to stay with his grandparents abroad for a month when he was 12. If that had been when he was 2 months, I would have cried every day: time at that stage was still passing so slowly, he needed me so much, every moment counted.

At 12, he was already turning into a young man, somebody with his own ideas and his own interests, who was not going to be attached to me forever. I was glad to see him back. But not heartbroken when he went. I knew he was happy to go, otherwise we would have had to rearrange.

And absolutely agree with Hummus about what happens when you marry somebody from another culture. I would have been seriously pissed off if dh had turned round and said "because we met in the UK, everything you are, your background and your culture and your childhood don't matter in the context of our family". My background and my childhood are the only background and the only childhood I am ever going to have: I can get very knowledgeable about their British counterparts and very good at understanding his British culture and his British childhood, but I am not going to sit around pretending that mine never happened or that they are not equally part of what made our children.

Bowie I think your attitude on this is unusual.

I agree it's good for older children to experience school trips etc but I disagree that most parents "forget about them after an hour". I do think that's quite an odd attitude.

It's not "worrying" for a parent to miss their child. It's perfectly normal.

And not wanting to send your 12 year old to the other side of the world for 6 weeks every year will is irrelevant to how you'll feel about them leaving home as adults. They aren't comparable situations.

Everything Hummus said.

I think it's a matter of trust too - how much I trust them and how much DD trusts them. I would be happy to send my daughter on a long-haul flight to my home country because we have spent loads of family holidays there, she is familiar with the country and the people and the language. She skypes (with?) my parents and my brother and sister quite regularly and spends hours talking to them. Parents are fairly young (early 60s), plus my brother and sister would love to have her around and "share" her. I trust my family and I know they would all - including my daughter - enjoy it.

Plus, it would free up some annual leave, which we always spend between my home country and Christmas time (plus the odd long weekend). I would love to be able to travel around a bit more, but I don't want to stop DD's special time with her grandparents. When she can go by herself, we can have a bit of both .

Airlines used to do an unaccompanied minor service, but pretty sure I head BA was stopping it, with a view that other airlines would follow.

Let your son decide when he's 12. He might love the idea or refuse to go. Either way it'd be mean to prevent him from having the opportunity. He could always go for a fortnight instead of a month.

Flying on his own at age 12 isn't that much of a big deal esp as he'll have done it with you several times.

Plus things may be very different by then - PIL may have moved, people may no longer fly due to environmental concerns, etc etc....

Don't even waste your energy on this just now. Who knows what will happen over the next 12 years. Most of the things we worry about never come to pass anyway.

I think you're borrowing trouble - it's ages away! But the issue isn't the holiday, it's about you both trying to lay the law down. You must both compromise and negotiate or you'll end up with a dictatorship of two. Very frustrating.

Hummus Re "Italian if I may say, not everyone has or will experience things the way you do. Nor parents, nor the children."

You may. And I agree. But I am posting my opinions here, what I think. The OP if free to ignore me. I won't be offended. And I expect I won't know.

And may I point out the OP's son may not have the brilliant time your children have. So it is all very much from our own perspective, that we post.

Do you think I am judging others because of what they chose? I am not. I am saying I would not do it.

And if others do it and it works very well, great.

But no husband or MIL or FIL or parent in general has the right, IMHO, to expect this.

re "..because somehow she has been convinced against her will or wishes. " I don't but if you see the language used here you will see this woman is being put under pressure when her baby is a month old. That is not fair.

I think you have totally misread my posts. I have no issue at all with children being raised bi-culturally or living in different paces (with their parents) eating different food, learning different langues etc etc. Fabulous. I am quite jealous I would have loved that!

Being sent to South Africa for weeks on end each year, without parents, I would not have loved as a child and would not love as a parent.

They are two totally different issues.

And the idea that because the OP's Dh is South African this should be expected is, IMHO, wrong. Bi-cultural raising, lovely, being sent for weeks away from parents on the wishes or one parent only, wrong. Is that clearer? I really am not sure if you've just read that into what I said or I expressed myself poorly, if the later, I am sorry. I find this subject quite emotive and that may come through.

But there is absolutely no way that a child will be raised bi cultural (and/or bilingual) if they don't spend time in that country.
So by saying that no they can't spend the equivalent of one weekend a month there, you are basically saying they can't be bi cultural.

And no it's not clear how it can be wrong to send children to spend time with their family.
Other posters have shared their own experiences of having being away like this OR having send their dcs away wo any issues.
It really isn't the end of the world.
And yes it IS to be taken into account and should be expected, unless you are happy to spend 4 weeks of your own hols there every year.
Around me I have seen children in that situation going to family for the whole of the school hols, part of it with parents, the other on their own. I have seen the whole family taking all the hols in that other country. I have seen one parent going there on their own with the dcs whilst the other parent then take a hols at a different time. There are plenty of solutions. They will all involve trusting the father and letting the child go wo the mother (as in that case, its the father who is from another country) unless she is happy to also spend a lot of time there.

My point his though, that yes you do adapt according to the child blablabla. But the starting point is to have the child heavily involved with his second heritage. Then you adapt around that. Not the other way around.

I posted earlier about being packed off to airplane for 6 weeks every summer and how much I loved it. Back then I just enjoyed the freedom and change of scene but with hindsight I can see how it also benefitted my parents (the English parent and the Irish one).

They did not have to take lots of precious holiday time in the summer - they had free child care and were abLe to save up holiday time for the rest of the year. This gave them brownie points at work and their bosses were kindly disposed to their requests for time off the rest of the year.

They had unencumbered time at home to do home improvements and DIY without constantly juggling our needs.

Most importantly, they had time together as a couple - as very young parents I think that was vital for them.

Most years one of them would drop us off and the other one would pick us up and that gave the Irish parent time alone with their family and the English one time to bond with the Inlaws.

And my deeply, deeply beloved granny absolutely did not do things the way my parents would have wanted. For a start there was no indoor loo and no bathroom at all so hygiene went out the window (although she was strict about tooth brushing ). We ate our body weight in chips accompanied by fresh veg from the field, mostly cabbage and onion. We stayed up until midnight watching rubbish RTE tv. or lying out in the yard watching bats and shooting stars. She encouraged soaking up vitamin D for the winter by lying out on the flat roof sunbathing without any sunblock and I used to cycle 6 miles to the beach on her ancient, brake less bike before cycle helmets were invented. The mantra was 'and don't tell your mother' and we are all in our 50s now with no apparent ill effects. Apart from desperately missing my granny.