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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think it’s totally wrong to board children in another country during a global pandemic *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

332 replies

Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:26

I live in a town with two boarding schools (junior and senior) and there’s another 3 - 18 school nearby. All are day as well as boarding. I assumed that they’d empty due to the pandemic but they are as packed as ever. As far as I understand, kids have always been able to fly home to parents as essential travel even during lockdowns etc, but many kids haven’t gone home for holidays due to quarantining restrictions either end. Pupils at the schools are largely from China but there are other nationalities too (including U.K. boarders of course).

AIBU to be totally shocked that even during a global pandemic families are willing to send their children overseas to live? I think it’s actually neglectful to the point of being deeply immoral. And I’m quite surprised that it’s even legal to have children age 7+ boarding in another country in the first place.

YABU It’s fine
YANBU It’s awful

OP posts:
Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:28

Dear goodness I’ve messed up that title! Confused

Should be ‘To think it’s totally wrong to board children in another country during a global pandemic’.

OP posts:
Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:33

I’d (genuinely) love to know why all the people who think IABU think it’s fine to send your kids to board overseas in a pandemic. I just can’t imagine how that’s ok!

OP posts:
swimlittlefishy · 27/04/2021 15:36

Did it ever occur to you that its none of your business?

ComtesseDeSpair · 27/04/2021 15:36

Cultural values differ across the world. Broadly speaking, Chinese (and other nationalities) families who send their children abroad to boarding school do so certain in their belief that they are doing the absolute best thing to ensure their children receive the best possible education which ensures future success and good prospects. Why, then, would they take them out of school - particularly when presumably the school has assured them that they are providing a Covid-safe environment?

SwayingInTime · 27/04/2021 15:36

What’s the alternative? My eldest is a day pupil at a school like the one you describe. During lockdown her classmates were having lessons on teams in the middle of the night.

ComtesseDeSpair · 27/04/2021 15:38

You think the best thing for your child is to have them at home with you receiving an average education at the average local school. Another family thinks the best thing for their child is to receive an elite and prestigious education overseas which will allow them to return home compete in the international job market. Neither of you is more right than the other, you just have different views on how to best prepare your children for life.

minniemomo · 27/04/2021 15:40

Depends where you live. Some parents would have thought their kids were safer remaining at school in a country with good medical facilities and a government whose implemented lockdowns

4PawsGood · 27/04/2021 15:41

Why does the pandemic affect it?

I’d also think these children are possibly less affected by covid than other children.

Lepetitpiggy · 27/04/2021 15:43

@ComtesseDeSpair

You think the best thing for your child is to have them at home with you receiving an average education at the average local school. Another family thinks the best thing for their child is to receive an elite and prestigious education overseas which will allow them to return home compete in the international job market. Neither of you is more right than the other, you just have different views on how to best prepare your children for life.
I'm humbled. My poor dear average children. I'm astounded that the average son I have at the average schools he went to, enabled him to do a physics degree at a top ten university.

Was this meant to sound so awful?

Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:44

Did it ever occur to you that its none of your business?

Oh please - nothing on this forum is any of anyone’s business! Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:45

Why does the pandemic affect it?

Because having your children thousands of miles away during a global crisis means that you can’t be sure they can get home or that you can get to them in a crisis.

OP posts:
Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:47

What’s the alternative? My eldest is a day pupil at a school like the one you describe. During lockdown her classmates were having lessons on teams in the middle of the night.

The alternative is to do what almost everyone does - send your kids to a school near where you live. The alternative isn’t being on Teams in the middle of the night. I agree that’s awful as well.

OP posts:
VladmirsPoutine · 27/04/2021 15:47

They're being set up ostensibly for a great life. I think it's one of those things you either take issue with or see no issue with at all. I'm on the latter. Wonderful opportunity, if a parent can afford it for their kids.

Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 15:51

Oh gosh. I just don’t think sending your children away to live in another country is ok ever, but accept it happens. But during a global pandemic when you can’t be confident you can get to them? Inexcusable.

OP posts:
TheKeatingFive · 27/04/2021 15:57

But during a global pandemic when you can’t be confident you can get to them? Inexcusable.

Who knows, it may be logistically very difficult to take them out/find other schooling.

Your position seems strongly judgemental when you have no idea of individual circumstances.

picklemewalnuts · 27/04/2021 16:00

Maybe the parents have home situations that mean they couldn't get to them anyway? People who are in the forces, or people who work away from home, use boarding school as a way to ensure their dc have stable positive influences if the parental home is not able to be stable in that way.

Around the world an English education is seen as very desirable. To be able to speak excellent/native English is seen as an advantage for many people elsewhere.

Should they bring their dc home from the school they carefully selected two years ago, in favour of living at home, if home isn't a great environment? Maybe parents work on oil rig equivalents, or film sets, and kids would be with a nanny all the time anyway.

IHateWinter88 · 27/04/2021 16:01

The alternative is to do what almost everyone does - send your kids to a school near where you live

Are you being thick? You realize that the reason the kids are in the UK in the first place because there are no schools or no decent schools where the parents live. Has it not occurred to you that the rest of the world isn't living some middle class dream and choosing to send their kids 2000km away for no reason?

seadreams · 27/04/2021 16:02

So what are they meant to do, take kids out of the school they've been going to for years, away from their friends and socialisation? Interrupting their education, probably having to start in an entirely new school system. The kids are probably way safer in boarding school, in a little closed off community anyway.

sadpapercourtesan · 27/04/2021 16:04

I completely agree, OP. It's incomprehensible.

Still, if the elite, prestigious education is all it's cracked up to be, at least the kids will be able to afford the elite, prestigious psychiatrists' bills when they grow up and realise their parents dumped them in posh children's homes overseas rather than bring them up themselves.

BottleFlipper · 27/04/2021 16:06

@Totalbeach

Oh gosh. I just don’t think sending your children away to live in another country is ok ever, but accept it happens. But during a global pandemic when you can’t be confident you can get to them? Inexcusable.
I wouldn't do it, abroad or domestic but obviously it happens and there's nothing to say it's not in the childs best interests and a pandemic may have absolutely no effect on anything. The lack of lateral thinking on threads about boarding schools puzzles me at times. I doubt it's hardly ever a parents thought to send their kids away through dislike, just that they feel it gives the child the best opportunities for education and progression.
SamMil · 27/04/2021 16:06

You don't know what the parent's circumstances are.

Perhaps the parent/s work long hours so would be unable to provide supervision & care to their child in their home country.

Perhaps education in a school near to their home is not sufficient or unavailable.

Perhaps their parents are dead so they have noone to return to.

Perhaps they just want the child to have consistency.

I'd imagine the majority of families sending children to a boarding school are doing so because they think it is the right thing for their child. We can only do what we think is best as parents and it's not up to you to define what the best is for someone else.

ComtesseDeSpair · 27/04/2021 16:06

Was this meant to sound so awful?

If it made you think about how other parents might feel when you criticise their parenting whilst having little to no understanding of or insight into their culture or choices, then yes, it was.

Mamette · 27/04/2021 16:08

This is a cultural thing and I don’t think you can really just dismiss these parents’ choices out of hand. You have no idea where the parents are coming from or what the alternative set up would be for the child if they weren’t at boarding school.

drainrat · 27/04/2021 16:09

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Original poster
Totalbeach · 27/04/2021 16:15

Are you being thick?

Are you being unnecessarily rude? Yes, you are.

You realize that the reason the kids are in the UK in the first place because there are no schools or no decent schools where the parents live.

Are you seriously trying to tell me there are no decent schools in China?

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