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

Also the way travel is going at the moment I wouldn’t be confident that the frequent trips back and forth will happen either.

Since when have students ever been required to look “professional” @Diverseopinions? It’s an oxymoron.

If you're learning in a profession which deals in life and death decisions, sometimes, and the most important aspects of people's lives, then it's good to start at the beginning of your career, I suppose!

How many times. This is not an “opportunity” it is simply a choice of OPs to go on a child free jolly.

And I disagree that nobody would bat an eyelid if OP was male. Actually I think she (he) would have had his arse handed to him on a plate. And there would have been considerable concern for the mother left to solo parent whilst he goes on his jolly.

It’s not a jolly.

@Aprilx completely agree! It's not some sort of amazing opportunity. EVERYONE at my uni had the option to study abroad. My sister went abroad and had a lovely time experiencing a new country with her uni mates but didn't really learn anything! In any event, it will not enhance the OPs job prospects. The only thing that will do that is a first class degree and work experience in the country she intends to practice law!

Would the OP be considering it if the participating uni was just in a different part of the U.K. do you think? Like Edinburgh or Wales or Belfast?

Why not?

No it is, it really is. It is not a requirement of the course, it won’t help with the course, it won’t help future employment prospects. It is irrelevant that OP even mentions the course, if she had just said I fancy going travelling for three months, well it is more similar to that.

Interestingly this is how women create a glass ceiling all by themselves. I'm not knocking it, but just being clear that we take choices that can limit opportunities by putting others first.

Remember, our lives are not determined by being mothers, we determine our lives by the choices we take.

My choice would be to go, it doesn't matter if it adds to employability or anything else, what matters is that you give yourself the ability to take opportunities that present themselves.

You will miss your DCs, they will miss you but its a short period of time and in all likelihood, little will change in that time, but you will gain from this experience.

Absolutely, go for it. Good chance for them to bond more with their dad. You can Facetime them everyday.

I say yes because I worked abroad for a year and a half when my son was 11, it was only Europe though and I was back every couple of weeks for a weekend. He was fine.

My husband had to make more effort, yes. He also became a really good cook! The downside was that I still did all the school/home admin online but I felt it was a small price to pay for the upsides.

Perhaps get a flight back home halfway through for a long weekend or something?

So all that matters is doing whatever you feel like doing even if it doesn't further your career and regardless of the effect it has on other people including your own children. How selfish.

OP won't gain anything from the experience as has been pointed out by several people. It's just a trip abroad and she will have plenty of other opportunities to do that in life.

OP must be on the trip by now while posters discuss how selfish she is and how much her husband will hate it, while also having to look after his angina ridden parent, staying celibate with his imaginary girlfriend and plotting to gain custody of the DDs:)

OP won't gain anything from the experience as has been pointed out by several people. It's just a trip abroad and she will have plenty of other opportunities to do that in life.

There is no way you can possibly predict that, Mystic Meg! @elbigbx may just be far, far better at leveraging opportunities than you are. Random conversations, imagination, opportunities. Who knows where anything could lead? Why not find out?

Several lawyers on this thread have said it will do nothing to further her career. It's very common for university courses to offer opportunities to study abroad with partner universities. It's not some unique once in a lifetime event anymore than a holiday abroad is. Most students don't take it up.

It's not some unique once in a lifetime event anymore than a holiday abroad is. Most students don't take it up.

This. I could have done it, and I was an undergrad in the late Middle Ages, but I was concerned about the possibility of messing up my grades by trying to study in a language I had at best A level proficiency in. Seeing the inside of a different university library and study bedroom while trying to keep up with studies on a different course was not the experience most of my peers were expecting when they did their year abroad. Also the beer was reportedly a lot dearer in most European countries 😁

Several lawyers on this thread have said it will do nothing to further her career.

So they’ve all got crystal balls too? It’s astonishing how many people seem to own one.

Blossomtoes.

In fairness, how else does one weigh up a decision other than by balancing risks which have been identified by a process of imaginatively projecting likely scenarios. I'm sure lawyers and CPS peeps do this when deciding whether a case is winnable, or in public interest to pursue.

There is a likelihood that this study experience won't be career advancing, say many lawyers on this thread.

Coming in VERY LATE here.

@elbigbx I can't see anything wrong with what you are wanting to do. It's 3 months, not 3 years! I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, as I don't have time to read nearly 1000 posts, but NO-ONE would bat an eyelid if it were a MAN who wanted to do this.

Ignore the haterz and grab this opportunity. People slating you are very likely jealous, and bitter that they never had the same chances. (Or even worse, DID have the same chances, but were too chicken shit scared to take them!)

Go for it!!!

Good luck!

I don't know whether this has already been mentioned, as I don't have time to read nearly 1000 posts, but NO-ONE would bat an eyelid if it were a MAN who wanted to do this.

Ignore the haterz and grab this opportunity. People slating you are very likely jealous, and bitter that they never had the same chances. (Or even worse, DID have the same chances, but were too chicken shit scared to take them!)

Yep, in 40 pages nobody has once mentioned that if a MAN did this, nobody would bat an eyelid 🙄And that the actual lawyers advising caution are just well jel🙄FWIW, I do know men who have turned down extended travel that would have taken them away from their families, even though that travel would have had real and tangible career benefits for them.

Nobody has actually addressed the issue as to whether flying home eow would hurt the OP's studies. It seems to me, to take this opportunity the OP has one of three choices:

A) To take full advantage of the opportunity afforded by the placement, spending time exploring her surroundings and meeting new people, but also flying back every other weekend to spend quality time with her young daughters. However, when does she have time to devote to her studies? Law is hard. Reading case law on a plane isn't going to cut it, I don't think. So the risk is that she ends up with a lower grade than she would do otherwise.

B) To plan her time meticulously so she spends every spare moment during the week studying, freeing up time to go home every other weekend. At which point the OP won't have time to see many of the sights or absorb much of the culture, and any benefits of her being in another country become extremely marginal.

C) To forego the fortnightly travel and perhaps return only once during her time away. But now you're talking about leaving a four-year-old and a seven-year-old for extended periods of time for an opportunity which, on balance, is unlikely to have a significant impact on OP's career prospects and surely can't be in the children's best interests. (Although, yeah, I don't have a crystal ball. Maybe there's a recruiter at the sister university who's on the lookout for mature students to hire into a Magic Circle law firm. I don't know.)

Alternatively, OP could recognise that this particular opportunity is primarily aimed at childfree students in their early 20s.

Instead she could take option D), which is to realise that she would love to spend some time abroad and then seek out opportunities that would actually benefit her career and tie in better with family commitments. For example, a sabbatical during the summer holidays. A work placement when her weekends are free from studying. A secondment with a chance for her kids to go too. Who knows?

Finally, I don't get the posters who are saying "you already spend half the week away from your kids, so it won't matter if you spend more time away from them". Isn't it the other way round? She already spends half the week away from her children - surely it would be better for the young children (one only four-years-old) to see more of their mother, not less?

Oh FFS
why is it that everyone who disagrees with someone’s life choices “jealous and bitter”
Some people just have a different opinion
Quite a few people who thought this wasn’t a good idea based that on the fact that OP is the Primary Carer rather than the fact she was a woman.
If the dc are 50/50 with their father then it’s slightly different, which I believe is the case here.
I still wouldn’t do this personally but perhaps that’s my “bitterness and jealousy” showing (Which don’t exist)

I think a man posting the same dilemma would get his arse handed to him on a plate. I doubt posters would be encouraging him to make up for this with expensive gifts and exciting tales of faraway lands!

I also don't get why people keep insisting that NO MAN would THINK TWICE. DH would not even consider it. Either we would go abroad as a whole family, or he wouldn't go.

As long as the mother was on board I don't think so. Men get way less of a hard time for daring to spend some time away from their children, in fact often they are congratulated for working towards a better future for their families or for 'making sacrifices' for their family even when it's fully things they want to do.

Yup.

I don't think anyone on this forum would congratulate a man wanting to go on a 3 1/2 month holiday if he had young children and it doesn't seem very relevant to the point of is it fair on the children.