Is sister BU to take nephew and live in a van?

[ThanksItsUncleFranks]

My sister, A, is in her late 30s. Her son, B, is 3. B's dad has no involvement in their lives and lives abroad. A and B have had housing insecurity for a long time - short term let followed by staying with our parents followed by flatshare followed by being back with our parents. A doesn't have a job as such but makes a wee bit of money selling crafts online and at markets. She gets PIP for her mental health issues and UC for B.

That's the background. So the current situation is that A and B are sharing a (small) spare bedroom at our parents' house. B attends the local preschool and while A doesn't get on particularly well with our parents, they tolerate each other and everyone stays calm. B has access here to toys, clean clothes, bathroom facilities etc.

But now A has announced that she's bought an old semi-converted van from someone on Facebook and her and B are going to live 'on the road'. She says there are FB groups where people offer places to park in return for work and that she's going to do this, moving from place to place. I am concerned that B will lose his access to preschool plus the warmth and convenience of living in a home. A says I am being small-minded and that she will homeschool B, that he will 'learn more on the road than at any school', and that the van has a woodburner so they will be warm and able to cook hot meals.

Essentially A thinks I should butt out. My parents think they will try it and swiftly return to their house so we should just let A 'get it out of her system'. But I don't just think A is being naive, and making life harder for B, I think she will worsen her own MH issues (anxiety, depression, bipolar) by sleeping in an old van every night with only B for company. Historically she has always become iller when away from other family adults. I'm older than her and still feel protective of her even though she is, I accept, very much a grown up.

AIBU to keep voicing my concerns in the hope of dissuading A from this path? Or should I butt out as my parents suggest.

It isn't that you're wrong. It's just that dissuading her isn't going to work. It's sad for B but hopefully there will be no long-term harm.

Sounds like a novel!

Yanbu, a life on the road with no stability and and no network for either of them sounds awful, especially when combined with the home schooling.
lots of the concerted vans are cold, damp, even with a lot burner, what are they doing for showers etc? Sounds like an ill thought out plan that won’t be helpful for either, good for holidays but not long term living.

I would make sure she always has a way to contact you (maybe a solar powered phone charger as a gift?) and let her try. It might go wrong but it might also be the making of her.

You might want to point out thst receipt of PIP is based on the care you need from another person to live normally. I.e you need someone around you help you washed and bathe, cook and eat, get dressed, etc all sorts. Even for mental health issues, the criteria doesn't change.

If she's independent and capable enough to go live on the road, in a van, with a child, mo one to help her, and work for her stay, I cannot imagine where her eligibility for PIP is considering the criteria.

If she's that unwell, she'll likely be back soon. Or should lose the PIP perhaps...

I think the problem is that it's not likely to.be a good lifestyle for a small child to be kept alone with just his mother for company. A child needs the company of children his own age. The best toy a child can have is another child to play with. What is A going to do when B gets bored and starts acting up?

Can't get my head around the need for A and B in this story!

The more you try and talk her out of it the more she’ll dig in.

Okay, I'm weird but that sounds great to me- if she was otherwise stable, health wise, and had already experienced that lifestyle. Embarking on it during the winter and taking them both away from support and familiarity seems a risk, to be honest. Is there any way she could wait until the weather improves and then try it for a month to begin with? She would also be better off finding a friendly site to park up where she would have access to some facilities.

Totally understand her point of view, though: it can't be fun feeling trapped in a house where you tolerate one another and not really having your own space. She wouldn't be the first person to try this as a solution.

Oh God my DM did this to us when we were a bit older. It was absolute hell, especially in winter. Freezing cold whenever the "woodburner" wasn't going (e.g. first thing in the morning it was so cold that we didn't want to get out of bed). The noise from outside made it impossible to do "homework" in most of the stupid places we ended up. We were exposed to heroin addicts, alcoholics, an ex-con who had murdered someone and other dodgy people. We didn't get medical care when we needed it.

She tapped out and got a council house eventually after a particularly traumatic incident, but the damage was done. My GCSEs were totally trashed from being out of school for so long. We both ended up in care in the end. Some people are very chaotic and this sort of lifestyle enables the chaos. It's great for functional people who have their shit together but your DSis doesn't sound like she is functional in the first place.

Secondly, with benefits, you need a home address to keep claiming them. DM's disability and unemployment benefits were constantly getting cut off because we'd moved again. If DM had put half as much effort into actually getting a job and providing for her children as she did into this silly idea she could have done quite well for herself.

YouTube is making it look like a good idea with all these vanlife people but you don't know how many of them have social services involvement or who really lives in a van full time and who says they do for clicks but really lives at their mum's house.

A better plan would be for your sister to buy the van as something to use for weekends/little breaks/a bit more space while it's parked on your parents' drive (if room) and keep your parents' home as a base, permanent address, and a place to apply for schools for her DS when he's old enough. He might "learn a lot" but nothing fixes loneliness for small children except being around other little children.

Having MH issues and a child myself I was actually referred for social services for much less than this (changing sons school and homeschooling for 2 weeks in between). There are risks to her son from the isolation. If you think she is serious then you could fill his current preschool in and they may do a referral. You could ask for your name to be kept out of it.

The best outcome would be for her to try it, find out the downsides for herself after a short time and then change her mind and go back to your parents without losing face. It doesn’t sound like telling her it’s a terrible idea would be helpful at this point.

It could be a really good thing for her to go off just for weekends and holidays to give everyone space but not live in it full time.

'@Agix

You might want to point out thst receipt of PIP is based on the care you need from another person to live normally. I.e you need someone around you help you washed and bathe, cook and eat, get dressed, etc all sorts. Even for mental health issues, the criteria doesn't change.
If she's independent and capable enough to go live on the road, in a van, with a child, mo one to help her, and work for her stay, I cannot imagine where her eligibility for PIP is considering the criteria.'

That's incorrect.

Even if you leave alone, and by definition don't have anyone to support you, you can still get PIP. PIP helps with the extra costs of disability and that could be anything from transport costs, physical therapy, buying equipment, that allows you to be more independent...

Also, many people on PIP work. I have received PIP for a while now and mine goes on transport costs as I can't use public transport to go to things like hospital appointments, weekly physical therapy and equipment that allows me to stay in work.

OP, it sounds like your sister has had enough of leaving with your parents and is trying to be more independent.

Really the ideal is for her to make sure she is on the council housing waiting list and to press them for her own social housing flat so her child's schooling is not disrupted. If she has mental health issues and is a single parent about to be homeless, surely she would be high on their priority.

She can keep the van for weekend and holiday trips with her child.

I think your parents are right.

Stay on her side, make it easy for them to return sooner than feel like she has to stick out a bad situation to prove you wrong.

OP,
I would be worried she may already becoming unwell.
To just uproot your child, buy a random camper van, "live on the road", making all these plans.
I say this as someone who has bipolar and BPD.
She sounds as if she has all these ideas going through her mind,
I don't know it's just another viewpoint to consider

Contact social services and get some advice. It might be in everyone’s best interest if you or your DP get custody of DS for a while

I think your parents are quite right - it will be a short lived venture. It sounds such a romantic lifestyle but the reality will be evident very quickly. She’ll be back within a very short time.

The reality is that unless the van has solar she’ll need hookup. If the van doesn’t have insulation it will be wringing wet with condensation. She’ll need water, gas, somewhere to dump waste from the toilet and shower, etc, etc. If she intends to work who will look after her 3 yr old. She has totally unworkable plans.

I hate the thought of no access to a flushing toilet at night, and where do you shower.

My mum is bipolar and has come up with similar plans while elated. Thankfully she hasn’t followed through with most of them(she usually ends up in hospital first) but she has made some very bad decisions and regretted them later on. I think you’re right to do whatever you have to do to dissuade or prevent her from doing this. If it was just herself I would probably say leave her at it, it’s her life, but this is not fair on her child.

I have professional acquaintances (he's a scientist, she's a nurse) who, when their children were around the age of your sister's, let out their house and bought a van and have lived the kind of lifestyle you describe for around 10 years — WWOOFing in the UK and abroad, travelling around Spain and Portugal and southern France, teaching the children as they went. The children aren't allowed access to the internet unless under supervision and don't have phones. They are as close to 1960s children as you can get: they play together a lot (there are three of them), they help with chores, they cook, they speak four or five languages and they are the brightest, politest, most mature-seeming children I have ever met. But they come back to the UK for 3-4 months each winter and live either in their own home if there are no tenants or with relatives and friends because life on the road, even in southern Spain, is tough in the winter. And now their children are approaching GCSE age, they will be moving back here permanently next year to ensure they get their exams. So it can be done if you put your mind to it.

Your sister will be back home with her child within a month: the cold and the difficulties and the lack of work will deter her. My biggest fear would be that she could meet some dodgy bloke also living the lifestyle (it attracts a lot of mentally ill or alcoholic or substance-addicted people) and end up pregnant or exploited and abused. But she's an adult. Would you or your parents be prepared to offer to look after her child for a few months so that she can go on the road, throw herself into any work that comes her way and, hopefully, get this out of her system? How was she planning on working when she has a three-year-old to look after?

Some families do successfully 'roadschool' their children. There is quite a large community of people who do this.

I think your parents are right that you can't talk her out of it. If she has committed to the idea by taking the step of buying the van then she is not going to be talked down. It will either work or it won't.

Home education is a perfectly valid education choice.

I don't think she's thought through the practicalities of working with B in tow. I think she has some romantic notion of picking flowers on someone's small holding while B plays at her feet. It's deeply unrealistic in my opinion. I think he'll be cold and muddy and lonely and whinging.

Oh, and just to add that the father somehow managed to work as a freelance consultant/analyst while living in the van, so they had enough income coming in not to have to rely on working on farms as they travelled — though they have done a lot of that. They have recently been away for three weeks in East Anglia, helping on a small farm there.

What flowers? It's going to be a few months before the early daffodils are blooming. I guess there's always cabbage cutting and Brussels-sprout picking, but she'll be expected to work fast and efficiently and no one should be allowing a three-year-old to run around where there's farm machinery/ equipment in use.