My brother has hidden my nephews rugby playing...

[touchrugby]

Asking for my brother - I think he’s in a mess and I need to tell him what to expect and how unreasonable he was. Interested to hear from other divorced parents and sports teachers/ school administrators. I’ve tried to give as much context as possible.

My brother got divorced 4 years ago. They have (had?) an amicable coparent relationship- there was no cheating or unkindness in either side. My brother just became obsessed with giving his family a good life and he worked a lot of hours. When he wasn’t working he was a very engaged parent- my nephew is hugely sporty and they were always off doing sports- swimming, tennis, football, cross country etc. Ex SIL was a SAHP but eventually got frustrated (with justification) at never seeing her husband so went back to work and divorced him. They share 50/50 custody with my brother as the higher earner paying all DNs expenses.

My brother really wanted nephew to go to this very nice private school. To facilitate this he pays all the fees. It’s a great academic school so ex SIL was pretty happy-except for the sport. They’re a big rugby school and she was adamant that DN not play rugby due to injury risks. There was a big argument about it, with my brother and DN really wanting rugby, and her adamant that he wouldn’t play.

The school offers non contact rugby and eventually they agreed DN would do that. DN is in year 9 now and it’s recently come out that he switched to full contact rugby in the 3rd week of year 7 and SIL didn’t know. It’s come out because he’s recently been made captain of the A team and a few mums congratulated her.

It seems he hated the non contact team. He’s very gifted with sport and apparently it was a team of lads who just wanted to run around for a few hours and throw a ball. The school put little effort into it and there were no matches. He asked to switch to “proper” rugby and the school said they needed a parent to approve it- and my brother did.

His argument is that his son wanted it, the school did email SIL as well, and it’s been 2.5 years.
Her argument is that he knew her stance, he also knows she’s a bit disorganised and rarely reads emails especially ones about sport which she know my brother manages (she has over 10,000 unread emails on her phone!) and that my brother conspired to hide it.

She has a very valid point about the conspiring. She has a new partner. He works Saturdays so my brother used to have DN every Friday night so they could see each other, and he’d then take him to Sat morning matches before dropping him at SILs Sat evening. Brother and DN have both, in 2.5 years, managed not to say anything to her about his rugby which is obviously duplicitous, especially considering how good he is. Brother just managed all the kit and the washing and the games and it apparently never came up in conversation.

Shes utterly furious and is going to the school Monday to tell them to remove him from rugby. Brother planning on going to the school to tell them to keep him in rugby. DN is apparently going to refuse to return to his mums house unless she agrees to the rugby and is determined to continue.

I’ve maintained a good friendship with SIL. In many ways I’m closer her than my brother as I see her more (he’s still a workaholic in his non parenting time so he’s hard to get hold of!) I heard about the odd match but nothing specific, I assumed it was non contact and frankly don’t know anything about rugby anyway. She’s very unhappy with our family as obviously our parents knew as well. My dad watches half the matches!

Does anyone know what the school might do? My brother and nephew are digging their heels in and saying he’ll live full time at my brothers and my brother will therefore get full parental responsibility. I think this is rubbish and not legal. I am worried that a nice coparenting relationship is ruined and that SIL might lose my nephew. He loves his mum but he’s obsessed with sport and apparently A team captain at a school like his is a BIG deal. He’s already playing some 2nd eleven matches as well which is also apparently important. I don’t know how to feel about what my brother did. He has absolutely supported what DN wanted. My nephew is so happy playing rugby and so good at it and still uninjured, and it’s the game played by 90% of the school. She knew sending him there that if he didn’t play rugby he’d be a bit isolated but she will not have it.

Frankly I think there’s fault on both sides, but on balance how much more unreasonable was my brother and what the hell might happen next?

Teaching the boy to lie to get what he wants is a great lesson that will serve him well in life. That's some A+ parenting right there. Not at all a toxic trait for a man to have.

I think your SIL has to not think about who is right or wrong in this situation, but what future relationship she wants with her son. If she goes to the school about this she could damage that relationship irreplaceably. He son obviously has a talent and loves playing rugby, she has to think of him only.

My son does play rugby, yes, there are injuries but they really have a 'if in doubt sit it out' mentality and he absolutely adores it. There are injuries in all sports and unfortunately the worst one, which resulted in a fatality was from swimming on holiday in a pool. No one says not to learn to swim. Part of being a parent is about supporting your child.

Maybe let the 12 year old student decide? Or at least discuss her concerns with the school rather than a blanket ban

What a bastard your dad must be to support his daughter in doing something that she wanted to do.

@touchrugby rugby itself isn't the biggest problem they have - it's what the rugby represents and what this situation shows about family dynamics.

Essentially, your DB made a co-parenting decision, then unilaterally changed that decision without telling his co-parent, and then embarked on a two-year deception in relation to it, including getting his son involved in a sustained lie. Getting a child to maintain a lie to a parent like that is actually considered a form of parental alienation, damages their relationship, and risks feeding into an unhealthy pattern of behaviour in relationships longer-term.

Your DB has fucked up.

If I were him, I would apologise to SIL and to DN for putting him in this situation. I would tell DN that I'm not going to facilitate any form of non-contact with SIL as she hasn't done anything that warrants that. I would then withdraw DN from rugby myself at least temporarily, making it clear to DN that it was my decision and my responsibility, as it had been my error of judgement that led to him being there secretly. Then I'd suggest the family get some family therapy, to try to fix this mess. Part of that could also involve discussion of the pros and cons and importance of rugby to DN - as a family.

This thread is fascinating given the split of views. And also some are focusing more on the rugby and some on the deception. Most people can see the perspective of both parties to a degree but siding instinctively with one side over the other.

We’ve been drawn a scenario by the OP which in some ways feels like a school debating challenge (not accusing you of lying OP!) because you can really create several, justified, points of view and perspectives here. Obviously none of us know these people and the OP’s perspective will also inform how they’ve set the issues out, but I suppose we all are influenced by our life experiences and prejudices here.

If I had to choose a side here (which is not the question and I’ve posted my thoughts on the wider points upthread) I’d be with the SIL. Mostly because I think the active deception is the worst part of all of this and also because I can’t stop thinking about the brother/dad being like the rugby version of Rupert from Ted Lasso… this of course reveals my own prejudices against stereotypical workaholic rugby boys who always think they know best.

My 6yo is a terrible eater in general, but would happily eat haribo or marshmallows from morning until night. DC has told me several times that one of their dreams is falling into a pit full of gummy bears and marshmallows.

Now we have a large paddling pool and we could afford to buy sufficient sweets to fill it. Are we "bastards" for refusing to facilitate DC's long-term ambition (this one's been going for over six months) because we think it would be harmful for them?

Sometimes as a parent you have to make the right choice not the popular choice. They may overlap, but not always.

I come from a rugby mad country. I also lived in a city with a spinal unit. As a teenager, a lot of young rugby players got spinal injuries and you'd hear the whir of helicopters taking them to the spinal unit. Eventually my school could not field a single rugby team - neither boys nor their parents wanted them to play. They did change the rules to make it safer but you're still one high tackle away from a neck or spinal unit. I would not have ever agreed to my own sons playing rugby and my husband is in total agreement. Your brother is an idiot.

While I don't agree with what your DB did, I am also struggling to understand why your DSIL feels she should have had the last word on this - it comes across as very controlling. I understand why she might be angry now, but at the same time, I also have some sympathy for them both hiding it from her. It's a sport that's played in so many schools now and enjoyed by thousands of people every day.. it seems crazy to me that she believes her feelings about the sport should trump her son's desire to play it. Why does she think her opinion should have trumped that of your DB or her DS? Surely in this situation, where the parents are completely at odds, (and it's over something that really only impacts on the child) the DS decides - he can listen to both points of view and then makes his own decision? Would she still feel the same about it if he ended up playing the sport for this country one day?

Shabby of the brother.

The lad is 14 almost certainly Gillick competent so can decide for himself. She risks losing him if she goes in hard on this. Can see why she’s upset though.

Goldbar he is 14 not 6. Very very different.

No idea what you’re going on about in the second part. I didn’t say any of those things you’re referring to. I didn’t put forward my opinion at all actually.

I do think this is down to him though. But that’s just me and I’m not looking for anyone else’s agreement.

Mediation in a calm environment with a trained professional would be incredibly beneficial for the parents to hold discussions regarding their future co-parenting.

Sometimes as a parent you have to make the right choice not the popular choice. They may overlap, but not always.

Yes, but the right choice is often not “the choice that is going to make the parent least anxious, regardless of what the child wants”.

In this case the school has presumably done a risk assessment and decided that the activity is safe enough to offer, with appropriate safeguards, to its pupils. Unless the son has something that makes him particularly vulnerable (and OP hasn’t said that’s the case), why should his mother’s fear stop him doing what he wants to do - particularly when his father has agreed? Surely as a parent your job is to do what you can to support your child to achieve their potential, even if it’s in something you don’t personally agree with or understand?

Why is it 'crazy' for the SIL not to want the boy playing a comparatively dangerous sport? If my DC wanted to scoot at speed down a very steep hill with a busy road at the bottom of it, I'd have pretty 'strong feelings' about that. Some things are just reckless, and we all have different feelings about what falls into this category.

And presumably she thought she could have the last word because her ex behaved in a cowardly manner and pretended that he had accepted what she said. No, she shouldn't necessarily have had the last word, but this needed a conversation not deceit.

Why are you trying to make a comparison between two completely different things?
Sport (much as it seems to be loathed by many on here) is seen as healthy. A paddling pool full of sweets is not.

Good luck with this OP. You have had some good advice. I have to say tho I think whoever said about press is right - there’s some absolute rubbish in the Mail a online, Mirror etc and it’s always stuff like this from mumsnet. Lots of detail on this thread now that would be recognisable.

@ZebraPensAreLife . The whole point is that SIL wasn't given the chance to make ANY choice at all. Perhaps the right choice would have been the popular one, but she wasn't given the courtesy of being involved in the decision-making.

On the rugby rather than the deceit, there is a lot of evidence of long term brain damage but there is also a lot of research into minimising this and these schools are often involved in this. My parents both had dementia and neither played sport. DD1, played rugby, DD2 played hockey and was injured much more. They both played non contact rugby when younger (only reason I let them) but when they were older they made their own decisions.
On the broader issues, for me the bulk of the blame lies with your brother for not insisting that his ex was told. Am amazed it took this long to come out!
This is not on the school to do anything, it requires a sit down discussion with the three involved to see if there is away forward which doesn’t involve a breakdown between mother and son.

Children start to deceive their parents, if they can, when their parents go against things the child wants - examples being parents ban child from seeing a particular boyfriend, child claims out of bathroom window to see them anyway. Parents ban child from attending a party, child says they're having a sleepover elsewhere. I don't think SIL can blame DB for this really. My mother lied to my father quite a lot for us!! But my father was completely unreasonable most of the time

Banning the captain of the A team from playing rugby now is going to end in your SIL losing her son. He will never forgive her. I know I wouldn't.

She didn’t read the email because it was a sport thing. The OP says the mum is very involved in the academic side of things but let the father deal with the sport, believing it was being done in the way she agreed (no contact rugby).

It’s clear the father kept schtum and encouraged his son to do so too. The OP says:

”She's a good parent. Engaged with everything but sport. She basically saw rugby in the email header and assumed DB would deal with it as sport was "his thing". DB said he spent a long time wondering if she'd read it and was just ignoring it and waiting for the other shoe to drop. When he heard nothing they just quietly carried on. He does not come out of this well

Is a sport that has a proven history of serious head injury and legacy of traumatic encephalopathy and early onset dementia ‘healthy’?

SIL is going to lose a lot if she stands on her rights here. Yes, they both should have told her about the rugby.

But it sounds as if there was no way any argument on the part of BIL or DS would have moved her. If they didn't talk about it because they knew her views were set in stone, then her unreasonableness was a factor in the current mess.

She needs to get on top of her emails. She was notified properly. It's up to her to pay attention to what's going on. Nobody should have to chase her down and remind her of emails that were sent. Her scattiness isn't anyone else's problem.

'Seen' by whom? The SIL (and an increasing number of others) don't necessarily see rugby as healthy given the propensity for and severity of injuries. Not all sports are equal in terms of risk versus benefit. Is supporting your child to do an activity which has a significant risk of long-term physical consequences incontrovertibly a 'healthy' thing to do? Over-eating on sweets might be less harmful in some cases!

My point was that as parents we shouldn't necessarily go along with what our kids want for an easy life. It turns out SIL thinks this too, as whatever her faults in the past she's prepared (perhaps mistakenly) to be the unpopular one and fight this one now.

This. My parents taught me to lie and it is NOT a good lesson to teach your children. Not at all.

I also understand the mother´s concerns about head injuries.

But I do (unfortunately) agree with PPs: I don´t think there is anything your SIL can do at this point. She will simply have to accept this and try to strengthen her relationship with her son.

I agree with the point about the mental load. She assumed DB was managing "sport"- as indeed he was. I said earlier in that I felt they played to their strengths- I'm pretty certain that SIL manages other aspects of his life more than DB. The thing is, she copies him in on emails about music lessons or drama costumes. My DB didn't reciprocate. This sounds spot on to me. Your SIL trusted your DB to manage this thing whereas he trusted her to manage a lot of other aspects of their DS´s life.

He abused her trust and probably ruined their co-parenting relationship (at least partially). And I do wonder whether he´s read the research about head injuries and dementia!

Yes to this.

He'll be getting driving lessons in due course. How will she feel about that?

Heck, he probably travels in a car daily. That comes with a large dollop of risk.