To not allow DS to come home for Xmas

[peekachew]

Apologies for the slightly clickbait-y title.

Last week DS moved to NZ for 6 months in order to continue training for a very niche profession. He has expressed wishes to come home for Xmas but would only actually be home for 6 days! I think it's pointless given plane tickets are easily £1500 a pop Not to mention the 24+ hrs of travel required.

He's a young sociable lad who has the world at his feet, surely it's not unreasonable to expect him to spend Xmas over there. I know he is missing our 3 dogs (grew up with them) and wants a traditional (i.e cold) Xmas. We do have the money if it makes a difference but it's such a waste imo.

Also, he's offered to pay half.

It really is between your brother and your parents. Give it no more headspace.

+1 to this. It's not your money and it's their choice how they spend it.

As an aside there seems to be quite a lot of 'niche' professions on Mumsnet. Maybe that's a contradiction in terms - on my part.

@FudgeBrownie2019

With all due respect, your entirely self-reported status of being strong, independent, confident through what you report as your parents "whatever to make our children happy" position is hardly scientific or objective is it?

Who knows if you are as all together as you say you are. It might all be a facade. Who knows if your parents would do anything to make their children happy, even if as a 38 year old woman you had embarked on something, failed to budget for it, decided you wanted something else and called them up telling them you want something. Would they really cave in and give you whatever you want?

A self-reported survey of 1 doesn't disprove masses of evidence and research: parents focus on "making children happy" rather than "making children strong through life experience" is a (some say the) leading cause of the catastropic lack of resilience, common sense and increase in mental illness of Millenials and 20-somethings in the UK today.

They can't cope, because they've never had to. They bail, because parents bail them out. They don't plan or save, because parents scoop them up and remove all negative consequences which result from their choices.

Yes, the problems facing our society and the individual children let down by "just want to make you happy" parenting does distress me. It should distress you too.

I am just baffled as to why you wouldn’t want your brother home for Christmas if it is a possibility. My brother lived abroad for a few years and couldn’t always make it home at Christmas due to work, each time I was very upset and missed him terribly.

Parents should be encouraging their kids to make the most of their potential and opportunities

And if coming home is what he needs to make the most of his potential? Children all have massively different personalities - and need handling as such. Rather than the awful, gung-ho “pull your socks up and carry on” ascribed to everyone.

As the partner of an airline pilot I think you need to let it go and enjoy Christmas with him as when he gets an airline job he will be working over Christmas a lot.

Yanbu.
Your brother should be paying

Yeah none of your business, he wants to come home, they want him home and it's their money, butt out

As an aside there seems to be quite a lot of 'niche' professions on Mumsnet

I was thinking that too

If you can afford it and he wants to them there is nothing wrong with that but if it’s something he wants and it was his decision to leave then he should be funding it. For this reason I vote yanbu

@Devereux1 masterful post 🙌🏼

@Curious2468 I take it you didn't read her update then, it's not actually her son, it's her brother and it's her parents who are paying (very willingly) not her

is this just a thing on mn.because i dot see it in real life.its fits under the post we see about other parents and their children(because yes they are always someones children even as an adult they are called your child.before anyone jumps on me!)
its like once tey reach a certain age.or do a certain thing in life they need to bugger off,never to be helped,never to want to be around their parents again.
and if they heaven forbid want to be around them for more than a week.or want help.then they are bad bad humans.

If he wants to come I'd welcome him if I was his mum - he's offered to pay half which isn't insignificant so he's obviously missing his family at Xmas.

Oh in that case you are def being unreasonable!! Nothing to do with you at all!

As the partner of an airline pilot I think you need to let it go and enjoy Christmas with him as when he gets an airline job he will be working over Christmas a lot.

I'm wondering if the parents are aware of this more than OP.

I've been trying to see more of my family - in Uk and with us paying - but they've been putting it off.

Next 8 years it’s near constant actual external exams, after Christmas and Easter holidays, due to how they do them here and our kids age gaps just as I’m trying for f/t as nearly done with primary school and DH is taking on more responsibility as we can’t relocate geographically for our holidays will have to cover orthodontist, hospital and school holidays and suddenly it’s all we haven’t seen you for years when are you traveling back .

I find it depressing how many parents here wouldn't want to help bring their homesick child home for xmas under the guise of they need to build a backbone. I can't decide if they're hard hearted that they don't really care if their child is with them at Xmas and instead miserable in a foreign country or if it's really jealousy that in reality that they mightn't be able to afford to do the same.

I was never supported as a child or young adult and I am super bloody resilient and independent. So are most of my friends who had parents that went the extra mile to make life a bit easier for them. They developed it from all the things that will come anyway. Like the death of loved ones, bereavements, sick and SEN children that came along, redundancies etc etc.

The only material difference is that they have always felt loved and the shitty times were a fraction less shitty. Oh, and their parents have had a bit more kindness and support shown to them down the line when they've faced their own difficulties.

My son has one to uni and has been away two months and been home twice. We paid for the first trip and he paid the second for irrelevant reasons. I offered to give him money. My children will always be able to rely on me to give them home and money and he can't come home as often as he likes as it will be an affordable amount.

I voted YABU as it sounds like the first year he is away at Christmas and I think you are making him, or potentially making him, feel unwanted and not worth £1500.

No doubt you'll be moaning when he wants to spend Christmas with his new partners family and their new baby or maybe this is just because you aren't fussed about seeing him.

One thing that strikes me OP, is that your parents have four children, two of whom at least are young adults - so at the time of life when family Christmases, with all of you together, are likely to end soon.

One or more of you will find partners who don't want to come to your family every year (maybe at all), move away for jobs, maybe even to other countries, gain work commitments over Christmas.

Yet you say 'we're not going anywhere'. Why on earth do you tink that?

Even without any tragic incidents, it is more than likely that you will all be going somewhere - independent adulthood - from which your parents won't be able to summon you back with anything as simple as a financial transaction.

I am not sure why you have to ponder over this issue re your Brother,as you say he is capable and independent,so the decision about his Christmas plans,should be his,no matter what.

It would be sad,if he were to feel pressured into coming home, as in your parents wanting him home for Christmas though.

Gosh, some people have money to burn, and fossil fuels too. I agree with you, OP, for what it's worth.

Your brother wouldn't pay half unless he wanted to come. If your DM was putting pressure on him then that would be different but him paying towards doesn't suggest this. I don't see what the big deal is TBH. You seem to have fixed thoughts of how he should spend his Christmas when it isn't really any of your business. A work colleague paid for her son to spend Christmas with the family even though he had only recently moved abroad. They are a close family. so what.

Let your parents do what they want. It's their money and not really any of your business. If it makes them happy to contribute to your brother's ticket - well perhaps they consider it a Christmas present to themselves to have the whole family at home.

I know you say we're not going anywhere - but you cannot possibly know that. A few years ago I waved off my Dad, who had been visiting me abroad, in mid October with a cheery "see you at Christmas". But I never did as 3 weeks later he died of a heart attack.

Don't know how he can be bothered to do the incredibly long haul flights within such a short space of time, considering he only left last week!

Lunde

@Devereux1 there are no ramifications. For anyone else. OP has simply decided to insert herself into this when it has nothing to do with her.

Are you seriously suggesting that a parent cant provide a little more support for adult than the other, because they need it?

That a parent must make all decisions, based on what might upset the other adult sibling? Cant help one out cause the other, wont be happy. What happens if at some point the other needs more support.

OP says they parents are a soft touch regarding both of their children. They go to great lengths to be fair . So all the chat about potential favouritism, is just ridiculous.

As is the talk about him being the golden child etc