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?

My DS is at an independent rugby playing school. To be Captain of the A team is a significant achievement and at Year 9 the boy will be earmarked for some major school tournaments in the future. Schools take rugby safety very seriously. Your DS will also be a year group hero and your SIL has to factor in his humiliation if he has to abandon all this because Mum said so.

This is not about your SIL but your DN. He has the talent, commitment and team player skills to have got this far . The decision is his.

on Sat mornings she was usually with her partner who's the opposite end of London.
And as per a pp..
"Ex never goes to dc's X activity because he spends every Saturday seeing his new girlfriend. ..

Would be eaten alive with all the 'what a bastard!!'

Very useful. Thank you

The SIL has been totally disinterested and disengaged from her son.

This isn't about failing to read correspondence from school. Nor is it about the brother 'being sneaky'. Nor even the son for being secretive.

What about all the opportunities to watch him play? What about talking to her son about what he loves most? What about parents evening? What about thinking about the impact of going to a particular school which pushes rugby and how that might play out if you refuse to allow your child to participate in the contact version when you knew before it was his passion? Being anti contact was a position that was always going to arise and be untenable even if Dad was supportive of Mum on it and it was stupid to agree to that school if you felt that strongly about it.

The number of multiple opportunities for Mum to be involved - emotionally and practically - in the last two years isn't small even with joint custody. In fact I'd argue that she perhaps should have been more involved not less precisely because of the custody arrangements.

This is about her failure to engage with her own child, engage her own brain and foresight and not being present at a time her son possibly needed it.

Instead she's focused on her issues with contact rugby, some of which I actually share, rather than how she's not really given a real shit about her son for two years.

She doesn't get to come back in now and suddenly show concern when she's been so detached from her son and demand her son, who is old enough to express his wishes and understand risks, does what she says.

And I think this needs to be seen in the context of threats of wanting to live with Dad. It's not just about the rugby, regardless of how this thread is framed. Nor is it about the Dad being manipulative.

She's just been a clueless idiot from start to finish.

Exactly.

SIL saying she didn't go because she was too busy with her boyfriend just makes it look even worse!

She will have to take him to court on a specific issue order

100% @RedToothBrush !

Your nephew is old enough to pick a sport he w ata to do and his mother is an idiot for trying to prevent this .

@Codlingmoths
"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."

DB is involved in all aspects of DNs life. Hes the only child for both of them and DB goes to everything. He's either with DN or working. My SIL frankly has a bit more going on in her life- she divorced my brother because he was either working or taking DN to sports and nothing much has changed for my brother. She wanted more and is happy.

I feel like I'm having to fight for her a bit- she's a bit scatty and hasn't been engaged perhaps as much as she should have about sport but she's a good parent and DN loves her. DN plays an instrument quite well- none of that comes from DB! He goes along to the concerts but has no clue about lessons or levels or types of strings etc. I thought they managed things quite well , playing to each others strengths.

The trouble is there probably was no good way for your brother to act. In an ideal world he could have had a chat with your SIL, talked her through the safety guidelines, encouraged her to talk directly with the school about safety and all would have been well. But it sounds like that wasn't going to happen. So he had three choices.

1. Not tell her and hope she wouldn't read the emails, which is what he did and has led to the current upset.
2. Told SIL, she would have said no and then he would say to his son, sorry, but your mum won't let you, nothing I can do which promptly labels SIL the bad guy in the eyes of her son, damaging their relationship.
3. Presented a united front to your DN saying he agreed with SIL that Rugby was too dangerous, which would involve him lying to his son and might have damaged his own relationship with his son.

My interests too lie in music and academia but I have a very sporty son who has chosen to make that sport his career. It's not rugby but it is a risky sport. Yes, I worry and no, I do not understand his enthusiasm. But I've still supported his passion over the years, am really proud of how he's made it his career while also wondering how a couch potato like me gave birth to this strapping, sporty lad!

Sorry I think the mum is being u, the boy is talented and will probably only play rugby while in education anyway. 95% of rugby players never play again after high school/uni.

I think she's learning the hard way that tuning out of the 'boring' bits of your child's life especially when it's something you have certain views on, is never going to end well.

You don't get to pick and choose what's worth your time and what's not.

The mum is in danger of losing her son

If op sides with mum, then she might lose nephew and brother

If the mum pulls him out of rugby I'd find it entirely fair if dad refuses permission for art and music

Op should stay out of it. Mum needs to accept his love of and ability in rugby and support him instead of prioritising her boyfriend

Blimey, well done to he lad for making captain! That's impressive, I do hope his mother is making it very clear how proud she is of him.

Rugby is a fab game. Yes there are risks, but there are risks in every aspect of life and he loves it now.

Or 4) told SIL that his son wanted to play rugby, he’s given permission and she needs to:get over herself?

A divorced mother cannot prevent a 14 year old from participating in a school spirt that he wants to take part in. He has Gillick competency. It is all risk assessed and he has 2.5 years of training in it. In all these years she has clearly never even watched a match. It smacks of ignorance and disinterestedness combined with control freakishness. She risks alienating him and ruining her relationship if she storms into school. It is not her ex-husband’s responsibility to make sure she reads her e-mails.

Captain of the rugby team. Our very sporty school would just say they had parental permission & that if the parents disagree that's up to them to sort out privately.

I get Mum isn't sporty, but seriously? There's no way a sporty child at a private ruby playing school is going to be playing 'non contact rugby'🙄🙄.

People blaming Dad for making DN lie to his Mum -really? Like he would have needed to be told/pressured by Dad not to tell his Mum he'd swapped over to proper Rugby!

I don't blame your brother for doing what he did. It's his son too.

all this 3 men lying to a woman is bullshit, her sex is irrelevant. They were keeping something from someone irrational & unbendable

'mummy says' is not the final word on something.

Going forward (IMO) she has the choice of accepting her son is playing Rugby & carry on 50:50 OR continuing to try to stop him & losing him.

But he wasn't and the DM doesn't seem that bothered as she doesn't even read emails.

The boy is old enough to decide and I suspect will end up living with dad full time, good luck if you take that to court.

I'm sure the court would take into account that the DS is enjoying the game and doing really well at it.

she's a bit scatty and hasn't been engaged perhaps as much as she should have

Aww bless, scatty? She's obviously the victim isn't she? Does your brother know how sympathetic you are to her?

I thought they managed things quite well , playing to each others' strengths

This doesn't really work when you're a divorced parent, unfortunately. You can't just opt out of a huge chunk of your childs' life because the other parent is dealing with it all.

You say dad doesn't know much about music but at least he makes the effort to attend the concerts - and presumably he facilitates practise etc. at his house.

In this case, she's chosen not to bother with a huge part of her child's life and now it's come back to bite her.

It doesn't really matter who is being unreasonable.

A number of people have pointed out that there are changes in the way rugby is played, etc, and that any sport carries risk of injury.

This is all true.

But it's also true that people are not rational. And if SIL was worried enough about contact rugby to insist on non-contact, I suspect this is going to blow up badly in your brothers face.

The school are covered - a parent consented and all parents were kept informed by email.

So if SIL goes nuclear, what will happen? She might contact the school and complain. If she does so in an emotional and I'll go to the papers sort of way then, yes, the school will have reservations about putting the kid in for a team again. Whether they'd keep him in rugby I don't know.
Again, if she started showing up at every game and begging him not to play/crying etc school would pull him from the team pretty damn quick.

Regardless of how nuclear she goes, obviously she's never going to trust a word your brother says ever again. The amicable co-parenting relationship is gone.

So... yeah. Could be bad.

Yes there were a lot of head injuries coming to light now but the rules have changed. Years ago they were allowed to play on after a head injury, they weren’t looked after, high tackles were allowed. They have made so many changes in rugby to eliminated the chances of head collisions and monitor players afterwards. It’s safer now than it has ever been. My brother played top level rugby and developed epilepsy in his 40s, he is suing Welsh rugby.
My son plays U14 contact rugby, he’d be devastated if I tried to stop him playing. I won’t stop him learning to drive because teen drivers get into a load of car accidents and I won’t stop him going to the park with his mates because teen boys are getting attacked and stabbed. You can only do so much to keep them safe.

I really don't get why the SIL is getting such a pasting here. If they're both busy and working, it's really not bad parenting to say, "Ok, Parent 1 will focus on doing these things with our DC, while Parent 2 will do these other things". It's fine for the nephew to have stuff he does just with his dad, when his mum is interested in other aspects of his life. And she knew he was doing rugby and presumably asked him occasionally how it went, just not that it was the contact type. DN isn't going to be scarred for life because "oh mum wasn't that interested in my sport but dad did it with me".

I'm mostly on SIL's side. Given her attitude probably came from a place of being worried about her son's safety, I agree it was wrong of your brother, OP, to deceive her and (even worse) presumably encourage nephew to deceive her. Instead, they should have had an honest conversation with her about how much DN wanted to do it and risks versus benefits.

It’s a really tough situation but I can tell you 14 year old boys all the way to 50 year old men need their Mum more than they need sport. Your brother is really extra awful and not a good father if he’d allow his son to abandon his mother over this.

I would do two things. Encourage SIL and DB to set up mediation. This is now a serious situation where one's lied (albeit by omission) over an extended period of time and the other's been neglectful. They now can't trust each other so will need more formal protocols than they've had previously. A court order re contact maybe.

Two - I'd get this thread pulled asap. There's too much detail. It'll end up in the papers and none of them will speak to you again!