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.

Is either your brother or his wife be able to work out there?

What stood out for me OP is that you said your brother doesn't own a house. How is he funding it? People who do this sort of thing tend to either sell or re-mortgage their houses to do so. Is there a Go - Fund Me? Is it going to pay for it all?

Because there will be extensive costs of relocating an entire family and paying for visas for all of them. Obviously, reducing that by 1/4 by leaving their daughter at home will benefit your brother. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but are you sure this trial exists? Why would it need both parents to be based there for over a year? Is this simply a way for them to get to the States without the normal visa requirements? If your brother plans to finance a lot of the costs by continuing to work online, then he will need a special very difficult to get visa that allows him to work in the US. Because even if you carry out work online for an overseas company, it is classified as working in the US.

It may well be that the reason they're going abroad is because the treatment isn't available in this country because it doesn't have a good enough chance of working, so won't get ethical approval. It may even be that there have been trials in this county which have concluded it doesn't work except in very rare cases. The UK doctor I heard talk said that some parents would be prepared to take on treatment that had very low chances of success because of the chance of that child being the 1 in 100 that made a minor improvement.
We've all heard of some of the places in America that promise the earth for money, with cancer treatments that don't seem to work. I'm sure there are places in other parts of the world, and for other treatments.

This too.

Poor Mary, the unloved child.😣

The brother has offered to pay Mary's costs. This thread has jumped the shark now with posters suggesting the trial doesn't exist and the brother is trying to offload his daughter so he doesn't have to pay for a visa

And Mary has morphed from a normal teen attached to her friends to an Oliver Twist character, dragging her begging bowl from house to house while the family take turns spitting on her and laughing.

I feel sorry for the OP but it is quite entertaining to watch the hysteria mount and mount!

Of course ops family SHOULD come first to them! So are you saying family should be able to blackmail others into doing what they want or be 'cast out'? Really?
Again don't see why both parents need to go.

Is it possible for Mary to do her GCSEs from the other country e.g. by remote learning, maybe flying back for exams? I think the answer to this is massively important and affects whether YABU or not.

If it's possible, and not going is simply Mary's preference, then YANBU. In this case her parents are basically saying they don't want to deal with her being upset/moaning/missing her friends etc. I'm not saying she wouldn't have very good reason to moan, btw. But if she lived with you for a year then surely she would still be upset/moaning/missing her parents and brother. Your brother and his wife are just passing the handling of it onto you, if you look at it clinically.

However if it isn't possible for her to do her GCSEs from there and she'd have to defer, etc, then she's possibly the most sensible one here to be honest. In that case I would absolutely be insisting on knowing why your brother can't stay here with her. If he can't afford to maintain two households, is there any support he'd be entitled to? If it's absolutely not possible, then yes I'd be seeing if I could make it work for a year. Are there any other relatives you could "share the load" so to speak with - they could have her over for a night or two a week, etc?

It’s hardly a controversial notion that OP’s first responsibility is towards her nuclear family. What do you suggest she do, exactly, even if she were inclined to say yes? Unilaterally move her in against the wishes of the co-owner of the house? Kick her husband (and probably her son) out if he says no? Split up with him and sell the house?

Why would OP lose her wider family? You have no idea as to her dynamic with the individual members. It’s also quite the assumption that they would be the people she turned to if ever in need of help.

Thats not "jumping the shark". Its suggesting possible motives for the brother's rather strange notion of offloading his child while he goes to another continent for 18 months.

Perhaps you could do with being a bit less gullible. Do you actually believe everything anyone tells you?

I'm thinking theres a reason Mary asks so many questions...

What a terrible rejection for the girl. I thought you were going to say she was out of control with school, drugs, something like that. They've even offered to pay and you have a spare room.Of course you should have her.

Its her own parents who are rejecting her, not the OP.

I would take her and make it clear the the interruptions and incessant chat had to stop.could you trial a weekend based on those rules?
Personally,I feel families should help out but that's my opinion.
it's up to you.
if wife has family support out there perhaps she could go with dc although I imagine dad will want to be there to see the treatment specialists too.
difficult one,it won't be forever,give it a go but have a plan B ready.
good luck 🌈

On paper: a disbabled nephew is going for a clinical trial and your brother asks you to look after his daughter (paying her way) while they uproot their life, yes, I help my family when they clearly need it.

But then, I haven't met your niece.

I think what’s getting lost here is the sheer scale of what is being asked of the OP. It’s not a question of “can she stay with you for a fortnight so she can sit an exam before she comes?”. It’s “will you take on full responsibility for my child for at least a year (and potentially an open ended period). It’s a huge thing to take on even if the families were very close and the cousins got on brilliantly. Who liaises with the school? Goes to parents’ evening? Who does her cooking and washing? What happens if Mary wants to go out and about with her friends - is OP on the hook for chauffeuring her about? What about OP’s kids and their friends and interests? It’s a massive thing to take on. I really don’t think Mary’s father has considered this fully; if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have been so snippy and “why not” about it all.

It’s all of them. Her parents, her aunt and uncle and her cousins. They’re all rejecting her for being “annoying”. That’s a recipe for severe depression.

I agree. Imagine if the council acted like that with homeless. Did a sorry but you’re annoying so no emergency accommodation for you. Sorry but you’re annoying so no benefit money for you. Being annoying doesn’t make you less deserving of help, especially when it’s being asked of your own family!

I don't read this as her parents rejecting her - I think they are trying to give her what she's asked for, which is not to move schools. I think he's being pulled in two directions and needs his sister's help. Presumably he thought his sister would love her and be the next best thing to her mum and dad.
I do agree that it's a big commitment and would only work if the OP has the freedom to parent her as she would her own dc.

I don't envy you having to make this decision. I think there has been some very sensible advice on this thread. I can see that she might be annoying because she is constantly relegated to the background because her brother is ill, so seeks attention elsewhere. I assume her brother is younger, too, so she's been completely usurped by her sibling, even though it's not his fault that he is ill. And with that in mind, to be rejected by her aunt isn't going to make her feel any better. If you don't reject her, she might improve when she is having attention and not having to make sacrifices for her brother all the time.

Other than her not wanting to go with them, I wonder if anyone has asked her what she wants. Does she even want to live with her aunt?

Given that Mary has 2 parents, I think she needs either her mother or her father's help, not her aunt's, who has her own life to live.

Astonished that posters are unaware that you can't just move to America for 18 months without a visa! And clearly, off-loading one of your dependent children will make that process far, far easier.

OP - do you have any other information that actually proves the existence of the clinical trial and what visa your brother and his family are applying for? I know you don't want to be identifying but since they have asked you to do something like this, I assume that they have made plenty of detail available to you.

@AchatAVendre he's given me enough information that I could probably look it up.

I'm not sure about the whole visa situation. I'm very unfamiliar with how that how system works. His wife and children both have dual citizenship though so I think only he needs a visa.

And what if Mary meets a boy and becomes pregnant, or is caught with drugs, or gets hit by a bus or other fiascos...

No way would I take that on.

Yep
When I first read the thread, I was on Op’s side. I understood why she wouldn’t want to take in her niece. It is not an easy thing to have someone stay at your home.
However, I put myself in Op’s brother’s position. He has a child who requires medical assistance. He also has a daughter who has GCSE’s. He asks his own sister to help him out in a time of great need. Btw his sister has an extra bedroom .
This sister doesn’t want to help out because the niece is ‘annoying’ .
My question is if his own sister will not help( despite having an extra room) who the hell is going to help?
Op it is your prerogative and you don’t have to take her in. However, life has a very strange way of teaching us a lesson and humbling us.
Karma or whatever.
The irony, is that sometimes strangers are kinder to us than our own friends and family

I feel a bit sorry for Mary that her own family members don't accept her. You're brother and his wife presumably have to live with Mary's quirks 100% of the time.

It also makes me feel sad for what might happen to my own neurodivergent DC should I not be able to look after them.

I think I'd do it until end exams assuming this is her GCSE year (June?). She could then go to the USA for a year.

I would do it and feel for your brother.

But then dc are neurodiverse and would hate to think someone would react to them in the same way you are to your neice.

Yeah it's really outrageous of you not to help out in this situation. And you are teaching your children an invaluable lesson about family. Presumably they won't see the need to put themselves out should you or your husband become vulnerable in future.