Children mustn't see grandparents until vaccine found?

[Witterywoman]

Now that the kids are back at school, SIL has said her kids must isolate from both sets of grandparents in case they give them Covid picked up at school, and this must continue until a vaccine is found. All 4 grandparents are over 70 but healthy, no health conditions to speak of. My parents are particularly upset and don't understand it. I don't get it either and don't intend to stop them seeing my kids.

Are we missing something?

@Reallybadidea

I can see this from both points of view - on the one hand it's up to the grandparents as to whether they're happy to take the risk. On the other hand, how would the children and grandchildren feel if they caught coronavirus and passed it on and one of your parents became very ill/died as a result? Personally I would struggle to come to terms with that and we will be having very limited contact with elderly relatives this winter.

The alternate timeline, and not necessarily much less likely, Is that your sister-in-law stops the grandparents from seeing them, and before a vaccine is found one of the grandparents passes away. How would she feel knowing that they spent the last months of their life and not seeing their grandchildren?

The truth is none of us knows what the future holds on any level and if the grandparents are upset by this decision I think she should reconsider.

My SIL is a GP and she is getting her DPs to do the school run this week 🤷‍♀️. She's being pretty cautious about CV, so I don't think she would do anything reckless.

@RedskyAtnight

I would say it should be up to the grandparents to decide.

I don't know why people keep saying this. If the worst happens and SIL's DC infect their grandparents then she will have to live with this. Maybe she doesn't want to?

That said, I can't see why socially distanced outside visits could not be managed.

Why does she have to live with it if the GPs see the children at their request?

I can see it might be different if she has asked them a favour with childcare etc, but where the GPs have made the decision it really isn’t on her at all if the worst happens.

Risk to over 70’s is very high

Well it isn't really though, just exponentially higher as you get older. Over 80's more so, and also more likely to have co-morbidities.

So many over 70's still work, it's crazy to consider them at special risk from their own family. Everyone in my family who is in their 70's either still work part-time, volunteer, or have very busy lives playing sports, going on holidays, and generally being out and about. They are all pretty much back to normal, and can't wait for things like theaters to open back up.

I guess its up to the grandparents to say something? in a kind way obv.

Surely this should be the grand parents decisions? They are the ones who would be at risk and it's up to THEM to decide what are the risk and what level of risk is acceptable to them.

Yur SIL is BvvvvU.

@RedskyAtnight

I would say it should be up to the grandparents to decide.

I don't know why people keep saying this. If the worst happens and SIL's DC infect their grandparents then she will have to live with this. Maybe she doesn't want to?

That said, I can't see why socially distanced outside visits could not be managed.

So in that situation the grandparents say they are happy to sell of their grandchildren but if any of the parents then choose not to that's what they do.

Are you confusng GPs being fine to see grandchildren with GPs forcing themselves onto grandchildren?

@Blackforesthotchoc

Sorry but that's insane. Are the grandparents going out of the house? Driving a car even in their age group is a more "risky" activity than catching and dying of covid. They're in their 70s so they're definitely inordinately more at risk of getting some form of cancer or any number of other diseases. This govt have really done a number on peoples ability to rationally assess risk.

Amen!

@WhereTheCrawdadsSing

My SIL is a GP and she is getting her DPs to do the school run this week 🤷‍♀️. She's being pretty cautious about CV, so I don't think she would do anything reckless.

A GP as in a General Practitioner! Confusing abbreviation there as this is to do with grandparents.

Why does she have to live with it if the GPs see the children at their request?

The GPs are requesting because they think the risk of them catching Covid is small. But it's still a risk. So if the children contract Covid from school, and pass it on to their grandparents and they die, SIL'll probably feel pretty guilty about this (I would anyway).

If you're driving a car, have an accident and your passenger dies, most people would feel bad about it, even if the accident wasn't their fault. Same situation.

SIL is being massively oversensitive. Those poor grandparents.

In England the guidance is that a two + person Household should still be socially distancing, so grandparents should not be hugging etc grandchildren.
We are following this. So allow outside, distanced visits but no closer.
I actually agree with @RedskyAtnight if anything happened to my children’s grandparents and we hadn’t been socially distancing I’d always wonder whether we gave it to them. That’s a heavy burden to bare.

I actually think that isolating grand parents forn teir hrand children is cruel if this goes against what grand parents want tbh.

I wonder how you SIL would feel if someone was unilaterally deciding that she cant see people that are dear to her... Just because they think THEY are right and THEY get to decide

The grandparents are capable of making their own risk assessments and decisions based on whether they want to accept that level of risk.

They can do that about anything they want. In fact they are entitled to. Who are we to stop them seeing their grandchildren?

If they contract the virus and die from it, that would not be my fault. Same as if they went mountaineering and fell off a cliff.

I think it's up to the grandparents whether they wish to take the risk of seeing their grandchildren. That being said, I would probably insist on social distancing and no hugging; and I would not use them for childcare under present circumstances.

Does the children's father have a say?

@ErinBrockovich

In England the guidance is that a two + person Household should still be socially distancing, so grandparents should not be hugging etc grandchildren. We are following this. So allow outside, distanced visits but no closer. I actually agree with *@RedskyAtnight* if anything happened to my children’s grandparents and we hadn’t been socially distancing I’d always wonder whether we gave it to them. That’s a heavy burden to bare.

There is nothing that says that grand parents cant see their grand children though. Two bubbles can meet up indoors, wo hugging and keeping 2 metres away form each other. So the SIl + dcs and the grand parents could meet up at one of their house.

And the another time, SIL+ dcs and the other set of grand children

Meeting up doesnt mean you dont SD.

Surely it’s in OP’s interest for SiL NOT to bring round her children? More exposure, more “bubbles” to reckon with, more risk for the grandparents.

If she’s not comfortable with it, she’s not comfortable with it.

I agree with your sister in law. I'm pretty sure my parents (in the 80s) are going to be careful around their grandchildren now are back at school too. It's not just that your parents. If the grandchildren get infected and pass it on to the grandparents and they die they are going to have to live with that and they may not want to.

I think your SIL is being very sensible, I am taking exactly the same position now kids are back at school. (Mine are too young to distance reliably and grandparents don't try that hard either). I don't know how the GPs feel about it as they don't express any opinions, we haven't had the conversation explicitly.

All those saying they would feel bad if the grandparents caught covid from the children would you not feel worse for depriving them of seeing their grandchild if they were to die before a vaccine was developed??

Most 70 year olds still lead pretty full lives, they are just as likely to catch covid from going to work. To be honest even if they did catch covid, and its a big if, theres no way of knowing it would be as a direct result of spending time with their grandchildren.

My parents will not let us visit

Has your SIL factored in the fact there's a high chance we will never have a vaccine?

I imagine she hasn't factored in any complete scaremongering nonsense. We will almost certainly have a vaccine approved in the next few months and rolled out in the months after. We are more than halfway through this shit. It would be unbelievably tragic for people to die or suffer lifelong complications because they were too frightened to understand that this really will end in the near future.

@QuestionMarkNow I take that on board and that’s what we as a family do, but maybe the SiL doesn’t trust them to SD?
I’ve heard many a story on here of people who think they’ve agreed one thing when meeting people and then they get overwhelmed/forget/consume alcohol etc and social distancing goes out of the window.

You could look at it the other way that the GPS shouldn't be hugging the grandchildren just in case the children take the virus into the school. I would do SD visits in the garden, but no hugging.