We don't want my niece to stay with us

[canthandleniece]

My brother and his family are planning on moving to his wife’s home country so that his son can participate in a clinical trial for nerve regeneration.

My brother also has a daughter named Mary (15). She very much does not want to move with them. She doesn’t want to leave her friends behind, wants to continue her schooling here, and does not want to move. My brother has asked if Mary can stay with me and my family while she is in school. He has offered to pay us monthly for her food and utility usage while she is here with us and she will go stay with them during the holidays.

I’m going to be very blunt here. No one (Not me. Not my husband. Not our children) like Mary. It’s not because she’s purposely unkind. She is just incessantly annoying. She talks nonstop. Constantly asks questions. Many of which can be very invasive. She also often interrupts. Often to correct you for something you said. I swear the amount of times she’s gone “well, actually” in an afternoon is enough to drive me insane. I really don’t think she is an unkind person. It seems more like an impulse issue.

We all find it very hard to tolerate though. She is actually the reason we tend to keep family visits on the shorter side. I don’t think having her live with us full time would be a good idea as she would drive us mad, so later on I called my brother and told him it wouldn’t work out.

Brother asked why. He brought up how we have an extra bedroom and how since our son goes to the same school as her so our commute schedule wouldn’t have to change.

I at first tried to just say that I didn’t think we would be a good fit. My brother kept pushing though so I gently told him how the issues she has are very hard for my family to handle and that we couldn’t tolerate her full time.

My brother said Marys life is going to be turned upside down and I wasn’t willing to look past a few quirks and help when it would be everything to Mary to get to stay with us. He ended the call bu saying what a great aunt I was in a sarcastic voice.

Why is a physical disability less deserving of treatment than an illness?

If my eldest, who has CP, was offered a chance like this when he was a child I would have moved to bloody Mars if I had needed to.

Treatment like this can be life changing, as anyone who has lived with a disability or cared for a person with one, will tell you.

My DCs are young adults now, but I'm a single parent and when they were still young I had a health situation. It was okay in the end, but my sister and her husband, who had their own older children, said that if necessary they would take them in. They did some planning around accommodation and finances. They really meant it, and I know that if my children need support in the future their uncle and aunt will be there for them. I'm not even particularly close to my sister. She offered because it was the right thing to do, and I know she and her husband would have done everything they could. That would have been for over a decade. And yes, I would have done the same for her children, but realistically I would never have been asked, as there were loads of other people higher up on the list. What OP is being asked to do is not such a huge deal. I would genuinely not hesitate in these circumstances.

You are not her parent and you are not obligated

@ImAvingOops Why judge the OP and not the brother?

The family has two children in need, not one. The brother could stay in the UK with the 15 year old daughter, who needs to stay for academic and social reasons while the wife takes the son to her family's country for treatment.

Well done for taking in your teen, but there is no suggestion of abandonment with this family - yet. As long as the brother steps up to his responsibilities.

We’ll if he wasn’t before he is now! OP told him. 🙈

@Nonewsplease no we are not counting on family in such a situation. We already have appointed guardians that have agreed to take our kids in if anything should happen to us.

Even so @NoMoneyHun, this treatment could be life altering for him and make his future much easier. It's an important reason to go. It's not like the brother has just got a new job and wants the OP to parent for him because he's following his own ambitions.

Gosh I'd like to think that under these circumstances, where the family needs to move abroad for medical treatment for another child, that close family would rally around to support them. Even if the teenager is a pain in the arse (and many teenagers are), I would still want to help. I would set clear ground rules and I would probably look forward to the school holidays when they would go to their parents, but I would definitely accept to take the child to help ease their burden. I assume the parents are not taking the decision lightly to up sticks and move abroad for the required medical treatment. They must be quite stressed already about the health of their son.

Tricky but I think I’d have to do it but stamp on things hard. If that trial could improve his life then how could you not really? And at 15 her whole education would be disrupted. But then our family dynamics are different and only you know yours.

I’m British and a niece/nephew is part of my family. OPs attitude and everyone who agrees with her- is their own attitude, they should at least own their insularity and not use “culture” as an excuse.

Why do both parents have to move abroad? Could the close family rallying round not be that of the dm as they are going to be near them in their home country for the treatment and she can stay with them, negating need for 2 households being run?

It doesn't sound like they bothered much before now. All of a sudden they are moving abroad and wanting their highly annoying, teenage daughter to move in for a year and a half all because her auntie has a spare room .... aye sure.
I'm sure half of MN live in a fantasy land. I'm sure all of you claiming you'd help anyone, anytime would... while it's only a made up scenario.... in real life it would be a very different story.

@Chocolatefreak the OP said her brother can't afford to run two separate households, which is presumably why one parent isn't staying. I think the brother is caught between a rock and a hard place - he needs to do this for his son but equally doesn't want to force his daughter to give up everything that is important in her own life.
Im not without any sympathy for the OP because it's a big thing to take in a child, especially one that you aren't fond of. I was lucky in that I really liked my bonus child, but it's for 18 months, not indefinitely snd for a very good reason.

Just as well. Let's hope they don't find your kids annoying as they get older eh?

I find the idea that your niece "isn't your problem" baffling- she's family. Your brother has one disabled child, who has the chance of a lifetime, and one child who has likely hard a hard life dealing with that, and is in the middle of exams. You're asking your brother to choose between his children, when he's asked you for help. Unless there's a mega story of abuse or terrible family dynamics, I cannot imagine 'a teenager is annoying' meaning I wouldn't help my family.

My niece is my Ds age and at the same school. Apart from tragic circumstances, NO WAY would I take her in. She is also annoying. No only to me, she steam-rolls over my children too. Putting up with her in short bursts is character building.
But having her in their space all the time, talking over them, talking down to them, trying everything to take their parents attention away from them. No. That's no fair on them at all.

Yes, it does make a difference if the child is sick and this is a last chance to keep them alive or disabled (with the caveat that it depends on severity). Of course you want to improve his life but if this is successful the treatment is likely to be available at a later date. I feel for the family - right now the children's needs are conflicting and one will be harmed,whether by leaving friends and school or by delaying treatment.

I honestly don't know what I would do. I suspect from the conversation that the OP would be constantly undermined by the brother if the nice was taken in - "oh well she is always allowed x at home, she needs it to keep things consistent. I know your DC aren't allowed it but she is going through a hard time...." If this was just about school it is one thing but it isn't- nothing with a teenager is! Does she go to sixth form or college at the end of her GCSEs (and living where?). Arguments with friends, curfews, boyfriends, trouble at school, is she allowed to wear makeup or dye her hair? What happens when she is grounded or argues with your DC? she does badly on her exams- clearly the OPs fault (actually it will be whatever she does - the disruption of moving school or the "lack of support" at her new home). And all the time the brother twisting things....

It doesn't sound as if they bothered much before now

Sorry @NoMoneyHun but where are you getting that from?

I have to say I’m rather shocked by the general selfishness of the responses. I wouldn’t even hesitate if it were my family.

yanbu
at a push I would offer to host her a week per term so she could visit her friends 'back home'
moving at that age is tough though. poor girl.

@theinkblacktart and @Porcupineintherough agree entirely.

It's going to upset the dynamic of the OPs family....what about her DC? I guess what her family wants doesn't count then because her brothers wishes top Trump everyone because he has a disabled child, who is participating in a trial abroad which requires moving to another country and his teenage child doesn't want to go, so should also have her feelings put above her everyone else's ..... yeah sounds about right. Ffs.

@ImAvingOops Exactly - so the brother's wife needs to stay with HER family in HER country while her son is treated there, while the brother stays with HIS daughter in the UK...hence only one place to run - the place in the UK.

That way each child has a parent and each child's needs are attended to. This situation is different to yours - neither child has been abandoned and there is a way round it. Plus you liked your bonus child while the OP predicts difficulties with hers...

The OP said they seen them at family occasions.

JUST physically disabled? If it is a severe disability, it could be just as serious as a life-threatening condition. Quality of life is as important as quantity.

I have lots of sympathy for the daughter, but frankly it's likely better, even just for her, in the long run to feel abandoned or uprooted (there is that choice!) for 18 months now, than to have to become her brother's full-time carer after her parents get old and die, or for him to have to go into a care home. Of course, the disability may not be on that level, but if the parents are uprooting themselves for him to go on a clinical trial, it's unlikely to be something relatively minor.

If they can't afford to look after both children and do this.. then they can't afford to do it.

Good god, what a horrible thing to say. This isn't a holiday or a hobby!