To think db and his gf should put thier children above saving the planet???

[lillycat]

My db (32) has always been a bit of a drifter, he has never really held down a job or anything and travels a lot round the country. It was never really an issue for me, he is an adult and can do what he likes, but he fell out with our parents years ago over it. He has recently been trying to make things up with then and has been to visit, and brought his new gf who has two ds from two fathers. She is younger (24) and has a council flat but spends most of the time living in a van with her ds who are 5 and 3.
Her and db are now traveling around together and seem to be spanding most of their time on road protests (I didnt even know there were any anymore but they have found some) and things like that, and doing anti war and anti nuclear campaigning - db gets arrested every now and then which can't be good for young boys to see as an example imo.

Anyway me and my parents are a bit concerned about her ds - they don't go to school obviuosly but they dont get taught by their mum either it seems - the 5yo can't write his name even. The children are filthy as well, dressed in tatty old clothes all the time and have quite long hair which does look lovely but needs washing and brushing which doesn't happen really. Both db and gf have a dog so the children are sharing their beds in the van with two dogs. They are lovely children, really bright and sweet but they swear a lot which the mum doesn't seem to mind and they have no routines at all- they get taken to parties and kept up late. Thir mum still has a double buggy that they sleep in if they are out late. Also they are vegan and are both quite small, but they do get fed healthy food and she doesnt let them have sweets and fizzy pop. She seems to worry about strange things - I'd be more worried about my dc getting an education than being vegan iyswim?

Dh thinks its none of our business to say anyhting as the kids are obviously loved and looked after, just not to the same standards we keep . But I just cant help thinking that once you ahve kids its time to grow up and put them first?

Seems to be the general opinion that I should keep well out of their business, and of course I would never be so rude as to tell her I think she isn't doing the best thing for her dc - she prob thinks the same about me... I was just interested to see what other people thought about it.
As I'm a registered CM I know about child development and imo they are not getting the things I think are important. Dh and I work hard so our dc can have toys and books, educational things like the computer, and all the opportunities to reach their full potential - I just think these kids are going to miss opportunities, I know they can choose when they are older but its going to be hard for them then if they haven't had a good education from a young age. They are just going to be so used to that lifestyle that they'd surely find it hard to settle down to study or work?
lljkk - they do play with other kids, well they talk about their friends! And the older boy is six in june.
Their mum isn't as militant as db so I doubt she'd be getting arrested - just imo boys need good male role models esp. if they don't see their dad, which neither of them does apparantly. My mum is worried gf and db will have a baby which he (and the rest of the family) will never see again if they split up - gf doesn't seem to think fathers are that important from things she's said.
I don't know anything about the community they live in so maybe I am just by the un-familiarity of it all. I know I have no 'right' to know anything or to interfere!

Avitatrix - I see what you mean about toys but the world is so different now and computer skills are so important... you need to be able to use technology to get anywhere these days really!

I think the skills they learn on the road might be more useful ....at least they'll be practical. Maybe I read Kizzy too many times as a kid, but I would have loved to have this lifestyle, either as a kid, or for my own.

These kids are being brought up (dragged up) by irresponsible people, probably druggies, going to druggie parties instead of school and everyone thinks this is ok? Crazy!

Charming

'Dh and I work hard so our dc can have toys and books, educational things like the computer, and all the opportunities to reach their full potential - I just think these kids are going to miss opportunities, '

Your brother and his partner, however, have different values. They probably think your children are missing out on opportunities they feel important by the way you have chosen to bring them up.

It's rather alarming to think of CM's being so intolerant and narrow-minded of other peoples' perspectives.

'They are just going to be so used to that lifestyle that they'd surely find it hard to settle down to study or work? '

How do you know this?

Again, that seems a bit intolerant to automaticallly assume their lives won't be as happy as your childrens' will be because they may chose to live a non-traditional lifestyle.

Hell, I've known plenty of people brought up white and middle class who now march, very happily, to the beat of a very different drummer.

I hope your brother doesn't realise how unsupportive you are about his life - I'd be very hurt if I found out my sibling had been speculating negatively about such important things in my life on a website.

Not sure if I can comment further as it seems I'm also an irresponsible parent dragging up my dd [wildly offended]

But I agree with expat.

If you're living in squats and illegal sites and taking your child to places where people are openly doing drugs then that is irresponsible. They could be in all kinds of dangerous situations if they're surrounded by unpredictable people.

My best friend brought her kids up on the road like this in a big old bus with loads of dogs and a woodburning stove until they were about six and four. The kids were grubby etc etc and those two kids are now the biggest strapping 17 and 19 year olds who between them have had a total of about two colds per lifetime! All that mud gave them a great immune system. And the oldest belongs to Mensa. Other families we met on the road had kids, some went off to live with grandparents cos they craved going to school when they were about ten years old. They generally turned out very sensible, mature, intelligent young adults; as is usually the case we rebel against our parents so the hippies I met on the road generally ended up with very straight well behaved children.

I'm sure the op didn't mention anything about drugs?

And actually, squatting or occupying land as a protest is not in itself illegal. Refusing to leave when asked by someone in possession of a court order to that effect is.

It doesn't sound like the mother of these children is on the frontline, so to speak, and I'm sure she is well aware of her responsibility for the safety of her children. Most parents are, you know, even if they live what seems to an outsider to be an irresponsible lifestyle.

Even if she's not "on the frontline" her van is parked somewhere isn't it? I've been to plenty of sites and squats thanks, and very few have them have been places anyone responsible would take a child.

erm, have you namechanged for this? If you're going to post such silly generalisations then at least have the courage to do so under your own name.

Plenty of squats are well-established family communities - you could probably walk past them in the street and not even know it's a squat. Some of my best friends were brought up in squats and went on to university and highly professional careers.

Really visiter - like where?

Not all squats are full of drugged up loons. Not all drug users are unpredictable and dangerous.

Obviously you have to be careful about where you take your children, but I think that you can lead that lifestyle responsibly. There are risks inherent in whatever path you choose. You have to weigh them up and make your choices accordingly.

I think you should be extremely proud of your brother. We need people like him and his dg with their passion and will to actually do something about the madness which we all know, now, is killing our planet, frankly.

I feel humbled by him. You need to open your eyes.

I am a 44 yrold SAHM with disabled DH and Home ed Dyspraxic son. I have already told DH that if he pops his clogs whilst DS is still dependant on me, I am selling up and going round the world in a camper van, working as I go. It would be a fantastic education for Ds (and what I have wanted to do all my life).

sorry - where as in where are the squats or where did my friends go to uni?

Answer to 1) well, there's one in my road, a formerly cheap bit of London that is now quite posh. In fact I think the people have lived there so long that they now have the right to stay (which you get after however many years, I forget). There is also a community cafe in my home town, designed as somewhere for kids to hang out after school, which started out as a squat (though it subsequently got funding and was regularised).

Answer to 2) Oxford.

haven't read the whole thread, but have a friend who's a bit like this. her 2 sons are very bright and i feel sure that when they're a bit older they'll rebel - dress very smartly and become accountants . seriously, as long as the children are loved and looked after they'll be fine.

ERm, plenty of house-owning, suit-wearing, wealthy middle class professional parents take shitloads of drugs. Given that the suit-wearing materialistic drug-users' drug of choice is usually cocaine, which can make you violent, rather than cannibis, which mostly makes people giggle, eat chocolate and go to sleep, I think you might want to be more worried about what alleged 'normals' do than about whether someone is risking their DCs wellbeing by living an unconventional life when it has not even been ascertained whether or not the couple in question use drugs. Just because dumb bigots think that everyone who isn't exactly like them must be some kind of deranged criminal doesn;t mean it's true.

Surely the concern is that these children are not CHOOSING a non-traditional lifestyle, but are having it imposed on them by their mother (especially in the case of the school age child)? It's just another way of being intolerant and narrow-minded. (Dons flame-proof overalls and runs).

Oh FFS ladygrinningsoul! Exactly how many children CHOOSE their lifestyles when they are 4 and 6? Of all the stupid arguments I have ever heard mundanes advance against any parent who doesn't want to conform, that's the most witless, because it doesn't make any sense at all. Many children may wish for a different lifestyle to the one their parents lead but (with the exception of cases of severe cruelty, neglect etc where other people have to intervene) they are obliged to live pretty much the way their parents do, whether that involves travelling the country in a beaten up old ambulance or being carted from violin lesson to chess club to other-status-symbol-activity in a chelsea tractor when they'd rather go and roll in some mud.

i always thought that travel was a good source of education.I wish i had been brave enough to live like this.

What precisely makes you think I am a "mundane"?

LGS, didn;t actually say you were, just that you used an argument which is a classic mundane argument ie it's all right for us mundanes to make our kids live the way we do, because we're 'normal', but anything different is 'forcing' the kids into a way of life.

I used to wish desperately that we didn't have to eat strange shaped vegetables and hard homemade bread, and wear wierd dungaree type clothes, and that we had a tv, and that my mum would wear clothes that matched nd those eighties-esque earrings that looked like Smarties....

Don't think it would've been better for me though.