To think it’s crazy you can parent whatever way you want?!

[ItsGivingJudgey]

This OP will sound judgey has hell hence my username. I’ve NC but long time user.

I know it’s a free country (in the UK at least). I also really support human rights, however I still find it mad that you can have a child and raise them whatever way you want no matter how batshit so long as it doesn’t meet the very high legal requirements for removal.

Examples:

ONE:

My SIL does F all with her child and he’s now 2.5 years old. He literally does not leave the house other than for absolute essentials such as medical appointments. He doesn’t go to nursery despite it being free (she doesn’t work). He’s never been swimming, to feed the ducks, to the beach or the local park. He’s never met other children outside of his cousins. He’s only ever been to soft play twice when I have physically picked them up to take them with me and my dc.
He only ever leaves the house when my in-laws take him food shopping with them just to get him out. He can literally go 1-2 weeks without being outside his front door.
SIL on the other hand goes on holidays, days out with her boyfriend, cocktails with friends etc. She just has the in-laws babysit when she does. Her reasoning? ‘It’s a faff’ ‘the weather is bad’ or she ‘can’t be arsed today’. She was very lazy before becoming a parent but her laziness now has extended to her child who literally lives his entire life within the confines of the house. It’s nothing to do with mental health on her part, it’s pure laziness. She’ll only take him out if a member of the family with a car physically goes and picks them up and drops them back off home. The nursery is less than a 5 minute walk from her house. She was badgered by the health visitor to enroll him so she did it, took him for a week and then never bothered again as it was ‘too much faffing about for just a few hours’.

He lives off microwave meals and tinned food. Wakes up and spends the entire day in front of the tv or with his tablet. When my in-laws went away last year he didn’t leave the house for 3 weeks!!

It doesn’t meet the legal requirements or thresholds for social services. He is fed and clothed and has lots of toys. But it’s crazy that he is able to spend his entire life within the confines of a house and that’s that.

TWO:

My cousin. Very well educated, affluent and has always been a bit eccentric as is her DH. However over the years they have joined a kind of weird religion/cult like group and are massive conspiracy theorists. They homeschool their kids (fine), but have indoctrinated them with mad beliefs. The kids including the baby are vegan. Their unvaccinated. They can only bath in this specially filtered water. The kids are feral and not allowed to watch tv, listen to any type of mainstream music only this specifically selected whale like music. They avoid any type of radiation and limit sources of power so in the evenings the house is lit by candlelight and an open fire. The kids wear this robe like clothing that seems impractical. The kids no nothing outside of their parents beliefs. They have no awareness of the outside world. They only socialise with the other people in this conspiracy group that also homeschool.

My cousin and her husband are well meaning and obviously it’s their right to believe what they wish. But their kids won’t know how to use the internet, any real world references, learn about other religions or cultures. Surely this will do long term harm in some way?

The children couldn’t tell you what spaghetti bolognaise is or what a smartphone/tablet is or that there was ever a world war or even how what a kettle
is for. But they can tell you about crystal healing powers. What if when they get to 18 they want to live a ‘mainstream’ life and join society? How will they manage? Get a job? Make friends with peers?

It’s not that I believe there’s only one right way to parent or anything because I don’t. However I find it mad that you can have a baby and so long as you meet very basic standards, you can literally do as you want with actual human beings.

Please tell me if I’m being unreasonable to think it’s not right and if I am being unreasonable why so? I feel so sorry for these children.

The first example must count as neglect. Even if you have no money you can still take your child to the park, for a walk, fresh air, in the garden it’s all free.

What will happen when he is school age will she actually let him go? IMHO The child would be better off with foster parents.

You and your in laws need to try and step in and enrich his life as otherwise as an adult he is going to have terrible MH problems 😰

But you just said she does take the kid out... the kid is only TWO.

If she was 'she was up and on that bus with her toddler everyday of the week' then the kid is hardly isolated. I mean we are talking a tiny period of time here, only 2 years of life which he has been going out daily for part of it.

Plus part of it he would be too young to know if he was on Mars or the queue in argos.

On top of that the kid has zero long term memories yet... she could sit him in from of Yakka Dee or taking him on safari in deepest Africa and he won't remember either of them (but he will likely learn more educationally at this age from Yakka Dee).

So the PILs try to intervene and so do you but a toddler has never seen any animals (except your dog), not even a cat. None of what you are posting makes sense.

I agree the little nephew needs to be the top priority for all the other family members he has. If each set or person took him out once a week between them that means he’s had fresh air, got to run around, seen a park and animals etc etc etc.

Hard to say… I didn’t get an instruction manual with my kid.
I do whatever I think is right, but I know that loads of people here wouldn’t agree with co-sleeping, lax routines, no devices etc…

about the free 15 hours. My son started nursery in September 2020 he was 2 and it was definitely free.

The vegan diet is very restrictive no eggs no meat no dairy basically all the high protein high b12 sources among other nutrients. Fine if you're an adult but very risky to put a child on that diet.

So she does take him out daily occasionally? It isn't just locations that you would approve of.

I don't know. It all feels a bit exaggarated to me. How do you know for sure that she doesn't take him out for weeks at a time, especially if he is as isolated as you describe?

It blows my mind that in England it’s still legal to hit your little kid as long as you “don’t leave a mark”. It turns my stomach, it’s illegal for an adult to hit another adult but not to hit a 1 year old???

Yup...

@housethatbuiltme Sorry there was a typo in that sentence. He was out everyday of that one week her boyfriend was working in the area.

So her now boyfriend was working in our city for a week and asked to meet her for lunch whilst he was up here for the week.
That week and that week alone, she met him for lunch everyday. She was able to get up and dressed and out of the house with her toddler for that week for the lunch hour. The minute that week was done it reverted back to business as usual of the tablet and tv.

if you added up the times she herself has taken her toddler out of the house in 2.5 years it’s probably 15-20 times MAXIMUM. 5 of them that week. A few times for medical appointments and the rest when family are able to physically pick up both her and the toddler in a car.

I would say on average, he goes physically out of the house once every 7-10 days when in-laws take him out. Even then they take him out to go food shopping or run errands and only because if they didn’t do that, he would go months without going outside.

I actually think that those children are being neglected. I would raise this with social services. They are not being educated properly if they aren't being taught computing so therefore that's another issue to be raised

In the case of parents who do not vaccinate their kids, I have always thought it's a conflict of rights: the right of the parent to decide the health outcomes of their child, and the right of the child to protection against disease.

What would happen to these parents if the worst happened... Would they go to prison for manslaughter?

Honestly, I'll eat my hat if there isn't a mental health problem causing SIL not to take him out unaccompanied.

I have had problems in the past (not this bad) with anxiety and leaving the house with my child by myself. I'm not sure exactly why, I just felt like something bad would happen and it would be all my fault.

I felt better with someone I knew and trusted coming along.

I can't believe things have got this bad and the rest of the family isn't a) taking the lad out more than they are and b) trying to help the mum.

How does SIL get groceries? Does she online order it home? Doesn’t she have to leave the house to run any errands at all?! That poor child, does he atleast have a back yard/garden to play in when the weather is good?!

My son’s childminder told me a horrid tale about a kid she’d babysat years before who never spoke unless asked a direct question, came in, sat down facing the TV and only got up from that position if called to do so. Turns out he spent his life alone in a room with only the TV for company, and was yelled at by his parents if he spoke so was terrified into obedience and silence. Parents were eventually done for neglect and abuse.

The question I have is why the hell would people like this have a child as they clearly don’t WANT one. Why go there in the first instance? More education needs to go in to really help people make informed decisions before they get to that stage.

They wouldn’t go to prison.

There was a boy, unvaccinated, who caught measles, then got on a plane.

A baby in the country he arrived in caught measles and died.

Because he went to school, other children also caught measles, but didn’t die.

I personally thought his parents should have been charged with murder of that young baby.

However, luckily for them, I don’t make the law (and it wasn’t in the country that I live in anyway).

It's a funny old thing isn't it. People have mentioned religion being taught in school. Someone dying then rising up and doing it to compensate for our sins... Or as my daughter took onboard aged about 6, remove all her badness.
Fancy a 6 year old thinking they were so bad that an adult had to die thousands of years before her!

What if parents only allowed their child to use the toilet at certain times? That would seem abusive in the home environment whilst it is viewed as practical in school.
What if our children came down dressed in a way we didn't approve of so we stuck them in a room in their own say at a desk and facing a wall?
There are a lot of things we accept as being normal for children that are really quite odd and done for crowd management reasons rather than being in their individual best interests.

This. Both cases are neglect just different types.

I disagree that they're not being educated if they're not being taught computing. I wasn't taught computing but ended up with a degree in IT.
Disappointingly, my kids have no interest in following in my footsteps so they haven't been taught computing. They can navigate a computer or phone but have no interest in programming or the inner workings of such things. It takes nothing to learn how to use an interface.
Kids are not harmed by growing up without these devices. In fact their imagination, concentration span, ability to play and even eyesight might be better without them! They're certainly in no danger of wandering into the scarier corners of the internet either.

If anyone is interested, here are some news articles about the effects of not vaccinating children. All are in English.

https://www.thelocal.de/20130614/50305

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/unvaccinated-boy-almost-died-tetanus-hospital-bill-was-more-800-n981256

https://www.9news.com.au/national/measles-death-rise-around-the-world-us-cdc-says-vaccinations-decline-blamed/50ff0ad3-a5bc-4078-ae0a-d449980ec777

https://theconversation.com/measles-its-not-just-london-thats-at-risk-of-an-outbreak-its-all-of-the-uk-210233

I'm shocked by the amount of people who are clearly dismissing neglectful behaviour and claim that any baseline of care that children should get as fascism. They are the sort of people that will claim that if a child is fed every other day that it's not ideal, but nothing should be done just because they aren't being sexually abused at home.

Why can't we have a very minimum baseline that all children should be fed daily, go outside for a minimum of 3 times a week for at least half an hour, learn how to do basic maths, English and computer skills and talked to daily?

Both sound a bit batshit to me. A hermit or a cult. Its still no excuse for a fascist state. Its scary that so many people align with that type of ideology.

Conspiracy theories are awful but theres nothing wrong with children being vegan :) I think vaccines should be mandatory, nothing fucks me
off more than the anti vax crowd.

No medical procedure should be mandatory. You can educate, but bodily autonomy must protected, its a slippery slope.

But when she had the chance to take him to the fair/petting zoo thing with her boyfriend, so she wouldn't have been alone, she took her boyfriend but not her child.