To think this is cruel on the children?

[Phillipconnarthy]

I know it's not my business, my children etc. But I'm just sharing an opinion.

A friend has two children, a boy aged 5 and a girl aged 9. Every summer, they're shipped off to their grandparents for the majority of the school holidays.
Their grandparents live 300 miles away. Obviously they get updates, facetimes etc. But I think that's pretty cruel, particularly on the 5 year old.

A week or so I could be totally on board with, but nearly 6 weeks? Anyway it's up to them, just wondered what people thought.

Bloody hell, my parents won’t even have my kids overnight (they’re too busy apparently) so I’m a bit envious!

My niece 8 comes to mine for school holidays she traveled back home today for school tomorrow.
She will be back again for the May holiday and most of the 6 weeks holiday.
She prefers to come and stay with me instead of going to holiday club.
My nephew doesn't come most holidays because he prefers to go to the holiday club.

Some cultures do this or similar as a matter of course. I have never heard of it having a negative impact on the kids. It's time for them to enjoy gran stories, be indulged, connect. If kids are happy then great.

My kids have been to stay with grandparents for a bit of each school holiday, this Easter they didn’t need to go because it coincided with DH having time off - but both the kids and the grandparents requested it 🤷🏼‍♀️

This is the mindset that’s the issue.

We all need our villages. I’m sure the children arnt just “shipped off” - they travel to their grandparents.

It’s funny because you have people that complain when children don’t get to travel enough and arnt cultured enough.

Some of my best childhood memories were spending the whole of the summer holidays with family - no parents - they would obviously call and check in , but sometimes family is family.

My cousins used to fly over with my auntie from USA every summer and she’d stay for a week then leave cousins with family - they’d stay with our nanna, our auntie gill, and my parents/me over the course of the 6 week holiday. As adults, despite them living in Wisconsin and Minnesota, we’re really close and have a wonderful friendship. They don’t seem harmed. (USA annual leave was truly shite back then). Staying with loving grandparents is completely fine.

loved my summers being shipped off to my grandparents in a …………different country. My grandparents spoiled me rotten. Didn’t miss home at all.

I don’t see how it’s cruel, especially when they face time etc.

If I was the grandparents I would be exhausted but I assume they love it just as much as the kids.

god forbid children have strong relationships with anyone other than their biological parents

I bet you caption photos on facebook "Our little family" don't you, OP?

My SIL couldn’t be bothered to look after her own child so mostly left child with Parents in law. When child was 9yrs old MIL died and child was shipped back to her mother/SIL as FIL couldn’t cope.
Child mostly lived with her dad after that and now aged 25 lives 100s of miles away and SIL barely sees her. SIL is lonely and child has a good life away from her mother. When I have seen her around here and there she’s with her dad.

My mum used to send me and my brother off up to our grandparents for the 6 weeks summer holidays. I used to get homesick but grandparents did their best by us all.
Took us to the park for picnics and let us set hammocks etc up in the garden. Occasionally would be an exciting trip to Pizza Hut!
But really I was very bored, no friends around and didn’t have much of my own ‘stuff’. Was quite lonely really as my brother had our cousin who was also a boy of the same age and they used to hang out together but I didn’t have anyone else my own age.
However my mum needed to be able to work and couldn’t afford the alternative childcare arrangements so it had to be like this.
I was really glad when I got older and didn’t have to go for the whole 6 weeks.
i remember she would come up for a weekend halfway through and I used to cry when I saw the car drive off back home, not because I missed her (I didn’t really, she was super strict and stressed a lot!) but because I just wanted to be going back to my own house.
Looking back there was nothing ‘cruel’ about it. Yes it was hard for me as a small kid but it was very much needed and our grandparents (old school Caribbean grandparents, loved us hugely but could also be quite the disciplinarians!) did their best to make sure we had good experiences.
The alternative would have been my brother and I left home alone for long days way younger than would be acceptable or appropriate.

I spent every school holiday with my gran from 7 to 15. I only stopped then because I got a Saturday job so couldn't be away for 6 weeks at a time.

Absolutely adored my gran and all the other family nearby. Phone calls were expensive so barely talked to my parents during holidays.

I wouldn't change a thing looking back. That house felt like home and I have nothing but good memories of it.

Mine just won't go to holiday club so my parents abroad have them. I take a week at the start and also end of the school holidays to spend time with them. My parents see it the same as if they were helping out with childcare each week and lived nearby-just condensed.

It's only what I did as a child
I absolutely loved it!
Also went every November for two weeks while mum and dad went to Spain.

Parents do what works for them 🤷‍♀️ And presumably everyone prefers this to holiday clubs which can be very expensive anyway. I think it will be harder on the kids as they get older though and it becomes more important to them to have time with friends in the holidays. (Saw this with a custody arrangement in my family.. mum and dad at opposite ends of the country so the dc was with one parent term time and the other the majority of the holidays.)

I wonder if it possibly depends on the age gap between generations?

I suppose if the age gap is 18 years, then when the kids are 8, the grandparents are 44 and that woule obviously be great.

If the age gap is 35 as in my family then it would mean sending an 8 year old to stay with grandparents and who are 78, and have rapidly advancing dementia and deafness. That clearly wouldn't be quite so good.

Several friends had their first babies at 48. I do not think that it would be a good idea for them to ship the kids off to the grandparents for 6 weeks. (102 years old?)

It's also probably a bit dependent on where the grandparents live. If they run a farm out in the country then it's great. If they live alone in a studio flat at the rough end of a big city and there are 6 grandchildren, then that might not be so good.

So I think it probably varies a great deal from one family to another.

As an Eastern European, this is true. I spent probably 95% of my holidays away at my grandparents summer house with them, and lots of weekends with various relatives. I had an absolutely brilliant time, and have the fondest memories of it. I don’t remember missing my parents as we called them often from the pay phone and they usually joined us for a week. Happiest of times.

Mine go to my parents for the majority of every school holiday. They refuse to go to holiday club now having been over the years and there is simply not enough annual leave to cover all the holidays. They enjoy spending time with their grandparents and extended family while they are away

I spent the majority of school holidays with my childless aunt and uncle up until I was around 17. Their home was a farm only around 15 miles away from home and my DPs and siblings would visit. I absolutely loved it and them. We are still very close though they are very elderly now and aunt is terminally ill. I will miss them so much. My DP’s are both now gone and they were such a support through those times.

I know a fair number of children who went to India and China every year for summer holidays with grandparents and extended family while their parents stayed to work in the UK. It’s very much the norm for expats and the children seemed to enjoy themselves hugely. I know they were missed but the benefit (and expectation) of maintaining close family ties ‘at home’ played a big part in their parents’ decision. It doesn’t seem to have had any ill effects on the children.

DF and his sister have wonderful memories of being shipped off to their grandparents and maiden aunts who lived in the country every summer until high school, when they took summer jobs. The setting is magical and I have no doubt they were spoiled rotten!

TBF part of their mum’s thinking may have been that summer was polio season, and this was before the vaccine.

None of this changes the fact that their mum was utterly devoted and the most important person in their lives as they grew up. (Their DF was a good but slightly removed father as he was frequently at sea). Perhaps that’s why she didn’t worry about being usurped.

It really is not your business and actually quite something if you are supposed to be their friend.

I was thinking the same thing.

I was shipped off with my sister (we're the eldest) while my two younger siblings stayed home with my parents. Mum didn't work so it wasn't a childcare issue. Although I loved going it's also left me feeling resentful towards my mum for not wanting to spend time with me, for letting her mother bring me up, and for not really knowing me all that well. She cried when I went to uni and I was like, why? You couldn't wait to get rid of me most of the time! So yes, even if the kids are spending time with loved ones, it can be cruel and I wouldn't do it to my own children. Funnily enough she's not a hands-on grandparent either.

I think boarding school would be far more detrimental to a child's wellbeing.