To leave children for 3 and a half months?

[elbigbx]

Hi

Would like opinions on my current situation as I've had mixed feedback from personal relationships.

I start my second year of university (Law degree) in September and we have been told we have the option for a work placement abroad for half of the academic year, which is just over 3 months.

I'm a single mum to 2 daughter's who will be 7 and 4 at the time. I share custody with their dad and he is very open about the opportunity and has said he would have the girls if it came to it.

AIBU to take up this opportunity? I can pick anywhere in the world to secure a placement (depending on if I get accepted of course). I don't think this opportunity will present itself again but I also can't shake off the fact that I would be leaving my 2 girls behind who are my everything.

Please let me know what you would do in my situation. Luckily I've got a few months to really think about it.

Thanks

I think the OP said about a million posts ago that she wasn't going to do it unless she could find a way to include the children...

Not a hope.

Some children would be traumatised. A child in DDs class aged 6 cried every day when his mother went away for a few months but at least he knew she had to go and missed him just as much. I suspect OP’s children are not that close to her but I still don't think good parent would put them through a potentially very upsetting time just so they can go on a jolly.

It sounds like a semester abroad.. in which case I wouldn't do it.

Psychotherapist here. Do not leave your children. It may be good for you, but it is not good for them. Children do not have the same concept of time or ability to regulate that adults do, and will experience this, no matter how you frame it, as a form of abandonment. If you would miss them, and you would, consider what it would be like for them. They would miss you desperately, and would just have to tolerate that awful feeling with no way to moderate it except to try to cut off from it. While on the outside they may look ok, they would in fact be traumatised by your decision in which they have no say. You obviously love your children dearly, please don't leave them.

Yep, the multiple lawyers, even and the senior lawyers who hire lawyers who have commented here are all definitely jealous. That’s definitely the reason why they have all said it makes zero difference to a career in law and won’t be beneficial in the slightest……

@SpidersAreShitheads you really need to RTFT before you go off on a rant worthy post! - PPs meant those in OPs life (ie knowing their shared care situation) who complain may be jealous

• Pretty sure all those lawyers you mention have other things going on!

• Also how do any of those 'lawyers' know what area of law OP may wish to specialise in that it definitely won't help(?!) - I doubt many lawyers would confirm or deny that!

-As repeatedly said the university law dept would not invest in this study overseas for a term programme if it added no value to the Student.

....because taking a 4 yr old away from her mother for three months definitely won’t be problematic at all.
... Jesus fucking Christ.

No one is taking her mum away from her for 3 months, she'll spend EOW with them for a temporary instead of 50:50 - 24 days less than she would usually have had them most of which are school days.

If you want a three month break from parenting to just go and enjoy a jolly overseas at least have the decency to be honest about it.
It's not a "jolly" , it's studying abroad and expanding her knowledge and experiences during her degree. I do believe OP has been honest and transparent that t will help but she's looking forward to the experience of it.

Is there anything else you hope to exaggerate or also not actually read properly? ... (.. Before you continue berating an OP for something you misunderstood and misread? )

I wouldn't do it. It's too long, it will be confusing for them and they will miss you. I'm a working mum with a challenging job but would draw the line at that much time away.

Gosh you must have an awful lot of ‘patients’!

Every dc from an armed forces family, every child with one parent whose career means occasional travel, those whose mother got constipated once and who spent too long on the loo, this leading to feelings of abandonment and trauma.

😂😂😂👍

Oh and op, I’m actually the top leading psycobabbleist in the world here, and I reckon your dc will be just fine given you aren’t dumping them in an orphanage for ten years, so 👍

Go. Be ambitious. Be selfish enough to want this for yourself. You have a life outside your children, as well as with them. Take your 3 1/2 months, come home to visit EOW.

Lots of parents in lots of professions spend some time away from their dc. Their children are not all traumatised and damaged and all the rest of the rubbish being laid at your door for daring to want more. No more than all the children of helicopter parents will all turn out well.

You go be brilliant.

@EvilGoldfish

She is a therapist (but not their therapist) and I'm surprised any professional would make such sweeping strong statements ignoring that it is a reality (EOW or one parent away for periods of times) as you say for so many DCs and also as they haven't taken into account the existing and then the planned child contact arrangements or that these children are already securely attached to their father who will have them a little more for that period. .

FFS. 🙄

I feel a lot of responses coalesce around a subjective question of whether you should put yourself first or your childen; whether it would be appropriate to feel guilt, or better to fulfill your own needs. It's like deciding which emotional drapery we should be dressing ourselves in. I'd be more struck by the practical issues, around whether the other parent has adequate practical support and whether he is going to get tired - and those are different for different families, who may or may not have aunts and uncles and grandparents and good childcare nearby.

To me it sounds rather naive and infantile to equate new experiences such as this studying one with gaining confidence and becoming more interesting. Isn't that for eighteen year olds who have just stopped being children and who are contemplating a gap year? Being a great role model is always going to mean understanding the realities and complexities of your own situation and building in flexibility, so that when things go a bit wrong you can deal with them.

If you are really keen on experiencing another country (and that’s definitely a good thing) then you can achieve far more in the summer break. Book an Airbnb so where for the full 6 weeks and really get to know the place. You will get more seen and find than if you were there for schooling as you won’t be in a classroom all day and in the library all other times. Plus the children will experience it too.

I’m in two minds as to whether a study abroad program really achieves anything. If you were to come to the US, for example, (and I use that example because it’s where I live) then 3.5 months is nowhere near enough time to really learn anything about the legal system here or even experience life here. You won’t have learned enough here to practice law here, it won’t help with job or visa prospects at all in the future, and what you do learn here won’t be applicable for practicing law in the UK. Student visas here have a high financial requirement (you have to prove you have enough and more to be able to fully support yourself and the cost of living is much higher here than the UK).

STOP THE PRESS - I am going to be nominated for the Nobel Prize!

I just found a wormhole to the 1950s.

They have two parents.
It would not be for terribly long. Only you know if you could deal with not seeing them. Yet it would be good for them to see you also are ambitious and career minded..

But it won’t help her career. Nor does it help show any ambition.

Builds up children's resilience. Although I am pretty sure they'll be fine. Looking at some of these responses you'd think it was about kids being separated from their parents in the Ukraine 😑

Exactly 50/50 op,that's not helpful is it?😀

go somewhere where you can return home occasionally or ,if affordable,family could bring dc to you.
life is short,take these opportunities,there are so many ways now to keep in contact.
and don't feel guilty when you go,you are working to build a future for your family.
and if you have fun there too,well why not?you are working so hard.
live your best life.
you can always make it like a big work based adventure for dc,send them home local things they can show or write about at school.
have a great time.

@EvilGoldfish

Sure, sure, all the ‘top lawyers’ are on here getting wound up and wailing about a four year old not seeing their mum for a few weeks.

Not like they have anything better to do 😂👍

All I know is I can see who the articulate, professional sounding posters are. And they aren’t the ones moaning about the ‘go girl brigade’ and being hyperbolic about ‘taking a four year old away from their mother’.

That’s odd, because I can’t see a single post from a lawyer that is full of “weeping and wailing”. Most don’t even take a view one way or another as to whether OP should go. They are all just giving her some information to help her make her decision, and that information is that the three months studying abroad is unlikely to enhance her employability.

You’re inventing things to fit your own narrative I’m afraid.

If you are really keen on experiencing another country (and that’s definitely a good thing) then you can achieve far more in the summer break. Book an Airbnb so where for the full 6 weeks and really get to know the place. .... Plus the children will experience it too.

She can't take the DCs for 6 week summer holidays as she has 50:50 shared care with their Dad.

@BritWifeInUSA
Why do you think it's ok for OP to remove DCs from their other parent (Dad) for 6 weeks- 56 days- than (as PP said earlier) -they spend only an extra 24 days in total -over all that time in their Dads care? OPs plan sounds better!

OP wants to do this study term abroad. It's not up to us to second guess how useful it'll be. I'm sure she can arrange a long holiday some other time.

Sorry bold fail on the first paragraph!!! Which eree @BritWifeInUSA 's words not mine

OP-
Do you want to go?
Is exH OK to keep kids?
Are kids OK with you going?

Ignore all the weeping and wailing on here. My dad had to go away for work cos we were ridiculously poor. This was before I was born and he was gone for three years, visiting far less than once a fortnight cos we couldn't afford it. We kids have turned out fine, great lives jobs and emotionally unscathed. Everyone here is always dramatic.

Do it. You are still allowed to do things for yourself. Life doesn't stop when you have children. It just gets harder and people judge you more. If you are a woman, that is.

Yet it would be good for them to see you also are ambitious and career minded.

This old shit is always trotted out on here, presumably by parents feeling guilty about spending more time in the office than with their children. First if all, a four year old doesn't care if their mother is ambitious or career minded. They're four. Second of all, as numerous posters have pointed out, this jolly abroad won't have any impact on her qualifications or future career at all.

Absolutely agree