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?

I think she's got a right to be annoyed, but honestly, the moment for getting up in arms about it has long since passed.
At this point, she's got to weigh what's more important, her stance on rugby, or the relationship with her son.

If i was your sil I would be furious. I'm not sure she can be blamed for not reading every email either. I get numerous emails a day from my children's three different schools. I don't have time to read them all! If I see an email from my sons school titled drama rehersals I'm likely to skip it as I know he doesn't tale part in any productions, likewise I might ignore an email from my daughters school titled ruby tour. Some emails are 8 pages long!
Unfortunately though I think she will just have to make peace with it. She is not going to be able to stop him playing at this point without damaging their relationship.

@Stressfordays you make a good point

"I'm the Mum of 2 boys and I am also of the artistic incline. However having had 2 very sporty boys and being a lone parent, I have had to do some quick learning in order to foster their interests and support them appropriately. A good parent will do this for their children so I really don't think it is an excuse."

SIL has ignored how obviously sporty he is. Thinking back I'm baffled she never asked or did much with his sport.

But she knew he played rugby - she just thought it was contact rugby and not the proper game.

You can't actively choose to ignore all communication from the school then claim ignorance two years later.

There's nothing she can do about it now without destroying her relationship with her son. I'd be incredibly angry, though. Some kind of mediation or family therapy would probably be a good idea to allow them all to move on from that. Gosh, that's such an awful thing for your brother to have done! All she can hope for now is that it hasn't and doesn't permanently damage his brain.

I think your brother saw himself as supporting his child in a perfectly reasonable endeavour- whatever the risk profile playing schoolboy rugby is an understood and totally accepted activity. She’d have only alienated her child two years ago and she will only lose her child now, and you should tell her you had nothing to do with it, and have told Dh he should never have lied to her, but her anger is somewhat misplaced. She needs to accept that her child wanted this then and he wants it now, and every judge and court in the land would acknowledge his wishes particularly in light of his obvious talent, and she will lose her son unless she accepts his goals. Your children will be their own people, there is a limit to how much you can control them. Remind her that from sons and dbs perspective she is being just as unreasonable as she would have thought db to ban his son from learning a particular instrument he didn’t like, which he showed enormous talent for. Yes, concussion is dangerous, but legally these are pretty equivalent wishes, and in her sons and his father’s eyes.

I feel for her re the concussion risk but if you care for her you will warn her she will lose her son. If she manages to accept this, she can stay in his life and perhaps take him for annual brain scans.

@lifebeginsaftercoffee

Of course he's a cunt.

He lied to the child's mother and encouraged the child to lie.

Not what a decent parent would do.

So she knew he was playing rugby, so no lies, she just wasn't interested enough in her child and his likes to go and watch him play or train ever?

Our children are at a school that is very keen on rugby, the boys think of nothing else, it can be all consuming even down to the stupid mullet hair do’s!

As a non sporty person, i just dont get the urge to be throwing myself into a puddle of mud but each to their own. At 13/14 its up to your nephew, he’s old enough to know the risks and sounds like he’s good at it.

Teenage boys get themselves into all sort of scrapes, I can’t see rugby is much more dangerous than many other activities.

Sadly I agree.
If I'd stopped my son doing stuff because I was afraid- he'd never leave the house.
I almost stopped a school holiday , but the teacher and my dh talked some sense into me.
It's hard but ti have such passion for something, and ti be made captain
She should be very proud.
If she carry's on with the control she will lose him.

My DS plays rugby and is obsessed with it. I think it sort of satisfies the teenage testosterone side where boys seem to want or need to be physical. My two DS regularly wrestle at home for no reason!

Rugby was terrible and to be honest football also has issues. They are far far more aware of these things nowadays and also the contact element is built up gradually over years.

Tag or touch will be a very poor cousin to contact in a rugby school And so his mum will have to balance the sporty son desire to excel. Being captain is abig deal and also a prestigious thing in that sort of school. I get she should have been properly informed at the time but also she never ever asked a question about his matches or anything? Not once ever? I mean I'm not very into team sports but I at least ask about matches or feign interest from time to time.

It's done now anyway and so as a PP said she needs a way to climb down before it vecomes a hill to die on. Could she insist on a skull cap? The season is just about to end so I'd not make a big deal here, in my experience interest drops off for some kids just around the late teens (as other things get in the way). And if he's still really interested then set some boundaries rather than banning

Hmm, but the school contacted her during that time - she just chose to ignore any communication about it for two years.

If this was the other way around and a man had chosen not to pay any attention to his childs' achievements and activities, everyone would be saying it was his own fault for not being an engaged and involved parent!

Yep.

If this was a man who didn't bother to read e-mails from the school or show any interest in sports matches, he would lambasted for being a shit, uninvolved dad.

SIL is in the wrong here. Your brother lied because he had to to allow his son to follow his passions. I'm sorry but I'd lie too in this situation. It's not fair for her to take so little interest in something her son is passionate about (sport) and then expect to dictate his involvement in this. Also she agreed to send him to this school knowing her son would be a bit isolated if he didn't play full Rugby. She's also happy to let Dad pay.

In fairness to her the afternoon games lessons aren't open to parents and on Sat mornings she was usually with her partner who's the opposite end of London. She just assumed there really weren't any matches at the level she wanted him playing at, and crucially they didn't tell her. She's at all his music recitals, choir, the school production where he had one line and held a tray. She's engaged but sport is a blind spot for her.

He plays cricket in the summer (pretty well apparently) which she does know about and also doesn't attend. It's DBs thing and I think that's OK?

Your brother's focus needs to be on mitigating the damage to the relationship between your nephew and SIL. He needs to make it clear to your nephew (and your dad!) that lying to her was completely wrong and he's made a very bad misjudgment- he's sent the message that mum's wishes can just be completely ignored if all the blokes just keep schtum. He also needs to knock any idea of her losing custody on the head- yes, your nephew can choose, but he should be sending a strong message to nephew that mum is an equally important parent and he doesn't support the severing of their relationship.

All of that. However much we might think that his mum's been unfair, as women we should really be focusing on how the three men have basically said that she's not worth their honesty and can be overruled without compunction.

Are you sure they didn't tell her? You say she ignored all the e-mails about sport so how do you know there was no communication?

I was on several sports teams at private school and there was regular communication home about matches.

Both parents fucked up.

The mum didn't really look into how the school handles rugby and mitigates risks. School rugby in a good school these days is no more dangerous than many other sports (risks are much better understood, equipment and training is better, and no school wants to get sued). Plus she showed no interest in the sports which are a big part of her son's life.

The dad fucked up in obvious ways.

I think the dad did worse than the mum, but at this point the mum has little choice but to suck it up or else utterly alienate her son. The only good news for her is that her son is probably at much less risk than she thinks he is.

I think it has become an unnecessary mess. I think the son has a right to decide what sport he takes part in. However they should have got mum on board before starting the deception. I think now the son should talk to his mum and say that he has been doing it for 2.5 years and wants to carry on with her blessing.

You will get very polarised views on here, such is the way on MN.

The sporty people will get the desire of the son and dad to play a sport and how brilliant the feeling of being good at a sport and excelling in it is. They will also understand that being part of a sport can tie in with your whole identity and to have it taken away from you is devastating.

The non-sporty people just won’t get it and recoil in horror because of anecdotal examples of injuries and a lack of knowledge about how a sport is taught, risk assessed, monitored and managed nowadays.

I don't think your brother was right in how he dealt with this. He should have discussed it with SIL prior to giving his consent. However, she was the one who ignored the school emails about rugby. Saying the sport side of DN's life was your brother's responsibility, thus ignoring it herself, is not acceptable. Would it be acceptable to her if DN was failing academically and your brother ignored all those emails, saying he's not interested in the academic side so didn't bother to read them? I doubt it. Your brother knew she was getting the emails about rugby. She'd have found out if she'd read just one of them (although that's not the way she should have found out about it). He's not responsible for her dire life admin and not reading emails.

I also don't think it's fair dragging your father into this. Yes, he knew and went to matches but it's not his responsibility to discuss his grandchild's activities with his ex-DIL.

They did tell her. I expect they told her quite a lot of detail in a number of emails, which she didn’t read.
Is your brother completely totally uninvolved in your dns arts performances, in his academic success? Or is it just one parent that says nah not my thing I shall ignore every mention of my child’s role and success in that field? Until she ends up here. Where she’d have ended up anyway as there is zero chance the resentment would have gone away if she’d paid attention and said no.

Your brother needs to apologise and then your sil needs to accept the apology and move on. You nephew should be the one to decide if he continues. They shouldn't take this family spat into school. It will be embarrassing and hugely unprofessional all around.

Get your brother to share this with her https://www.englandrugby.com/participation/coaching/age-grade-rugby/about-age-grade-rugby

The simplified pdf explains the way rugby progresses now through the different ages and what they can do and not do. It's not the same as you see at an England match and they take any head injuries very seriously (no playing for 2 weeks etc).

She may not even be aware that it's not actually full contact

To be honest, neither your broether nor your nephew should have hidden the truth, but I am not going to blame either of them for that because your SIL is being utterly ridiculous. In a sense, all that has happened is that the blow up has been delayed, because she should never have insisted that he can't play rugby in the first place. Yes, it is possible that he might have been injured. That's life. Rugby is no more dangerous than thousands of things he has done and will do - most of which she will know about (like getting in a car, walking down the road, crossing the road...). I think she had the right to exprtess her concern, and to give her opinion - but not the right to ban him from a sport that he loves and is obviously good at. All she has done is teach him not to tell her about things he knows she won't like - it was her that taught him that, not your brother.