To think this family set up is odd?

[Milkybars]

Nc for this. It's a bit random, sorry, but I'm trying to get my head around something.

Family - mum, dad and six children aged between 4-16 when this occurred. White, working class but with money, British (just for background)

Eldest child is now mid 30s so this is all fairly recent.

They live in the same area of the city as extended family, so within a few minutes walk of various cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

From the age of 4 or so, the children have been sent to live with members of the extended family - so child 1 lives with Aunty A, child 2 lives with Granny B, each child living with a different family member except the youngest two. Sometimes there is a swap - so child 2 might go and live with Aunty A and child 1 goes off to Aunty C for a year or two. No particular reasons given for the swap. Children would have dinner at home at the weekends. No social services involvement of any sort. Parent's relationship volatile by my standards, but joked about by the family. Children never seem to be taken out/no family days out

There is no real reason ever given for the children living with these relatives, and nobody seems to have a problem with it, however as adults there is some dysfunction/poor grasp of boundaries/mental health issues/poor parenting. The parents of these children both worked, one parent worked school hours only, there was plenty of money, and the family home was big enough to house all the children, so space didn't come into it.

I think this situation is really odd, and a contributory factor to some of the issues within this family, but others disagree. AIBU?

Are you one of the children op?

I think it's odd yes. But if the kids are happy then fine. Are they happy? I don't think I'd have liked to grow up like that.

Your in laws?

It does sound unusual. But could be much worse.

Other people's families generally are odd, one way or the other

I dont think the situation in itself is odd. It's not average but it's not completely out of the ordinary. I know several people who were raised in other family members houses rather than their parents and not because of any social services involvement.
The issue is with how the children feel about it. If they were unhappy then clearly it was not a functional setup.

Sounds weird to me.

Kids say they are happy. Some are quite thick skinned and probably genuinely are fine, others very sensitive and maybe not so much. All have suffered poor mental health as teens and adults,but there could be other factors

Do the extended family have kids of their own?
Some people do this 🤷🏻‍♀️
It does take a village to bring up a child so the saying goes

What Battenburg said.

And on Mn, it seems almost the norm to expect significant childcare from grandparents. This is only a step further again.

The parents have, in the past, criticised one of the children for their lack of interest in visiting the parents (they want to see all the children frequently now, preferably more than once a week). The child in question never lived under their parent's roof again after the age of four. Before that, the child spent long periods of time with relatives other than the parents. I don't find it suprising that the child doesn't feel the need to spend a lot of time with the parents now.

What? How could that not be damaging to a child? No stability, rejected for no apparent reason by its parents, passed around from home to home?! Am I reading the same OP as the rest of you??

Two of my siblings went to live with other family members as we were growing up. No real reason. But thinking back, my nana actually raised her niece for most of her childhood too.

We were a very dysfunctional family though, so maybe they are too?

Have the children asked?

If they were raised by auntie a - maybe she is best placed to explain it all?

It's as dysfunctional as it gets- to me anyway.

So they were just raised to 4 and passed to a relative for no apparent reason?
There must be more to it. That is far from normal.

If this happened today then ss would need to be aware of the arrangement - there was a radio ad campaign a few years ago. So from that pov I wouldn't say it's 'normal' or maybe 'average' would be a better word.

But it's not necessarily a bad arrangement if all the kids needs are being met. However, it sounds like they weren't? Emotionally at least?

I know of a family who packed off the older two to any old relative at the weekends and after school, while the youngest got to stay home and play happy families with the mum's new bloke. They're all pretty damaged adults now tbh.

My mum and her siblings were often sent to live with relatives for extended periods of time due to her mums ill health. Could it be something like that?

It does seem unusual. I lived with my nan on and off throughout my childhood and teens, but that was because I really loved the freedom she allowed me and I was fed up of my baby sister. She was burgled when I was 13 and terrified to live alone, so I moved in again for a year. But my parents didn't force me to do that and I am very close to all of them now.

And for those saying it;s ok if the kids were happy, the kids would have had no idea that it was odd, because it was their normal so they would have been happy with it. Which is a phenomenon seen in all sorts of circumstances, including abusive ones. It's not until kids experience other set-ups that they can make a comparison and by then the damage is done. I'm with Havelock!

It wasn't the case that the children were raised just by Auntie A.

At any given time, at least four of the children would each be living in a separate home to their siblings.

So child 1 would be with auntie A in her house
Child 2 would be with auntie B in her house
Child 3 and 4 would be with Granny

Child 5 and 6 would be at home with their parents.

Two years later

Child 2 would be living back at the parents with child 6

Child 5 would now be living with Auntie A

The eldest child 1 (aged 17) has moved out to live with a friend...

The rest are divided up again.

Like musical chairs. Only with houses.

It’s not normal to outsource the raising of your children to other people, especially if there are no extenuating circumstances at play.

Parents were both healthy, yes.

I'm not sure they ever had all their children living with them at once, at any point during childhood or teen years, actually

I'm pretty sure parents are obliged to tell social services if their children are living with any one else other than a parent for a period of more than 6 weeks (I think it's 6 weeks but it could be less). So no, this is not a normal situation.

It is abusive emotionally. Rejection from parents, isolated from siblings so unable to bond, no stable home.

How can they form stable relationships when their home life changes so much.

No wonder some don't want to see their parents.