Eccentric SIL

[ProbablybeingU]

SIL has a very eccentric personality and parenting approach. She is a spiritual person who reads tarot, loves yoga/pilates and is vegan. She has always been a bit “hippy dippy” - although doesn’t look remotely like the stereotypes you’d imagine, she is just a normal woman.

She is very lovely but has a bit of an eccentric approach to parenting. DN is being raised vegan, she used elimination communication from being newborn, doesn’t allow sleepovers or quite frankly anyone to babysit. Niece is 3 years old and as far as I’m aware her Mum has watched her twice over night and that was by staying at BIL and SIL house. Niece has never been in nursery and SIL has just announced plans to home educate.

From what I’m aware all of her friendship group all have children a similar age so niece does socialise a lot with kids of similar age but none of her friends share similar beliefs to SIL and all of their kids attend nursery/school etc.

AIBU to think she’s setting DN up for failure here/perhaps to be singled out? I’m aware kids can be quite nasty.

She doesn't sound eccentric at ALL.
Why does any of that bother you?

Sounds like she's living her best life and wants to pass her joy onto her daughter 🥰 nothing to see here imo.

She isn't eccentric. She just has different values and a different parenting approach to what you would choose. If she is your SIL, surely your sibling is her partner, where are they in all this? Presumably also making/supporting these parenting choices?

You can’t predict the future. The kids in her friendship group might all go to different schools anyway. Not sure why you’re interested, there’s nothing you can do about it.

I bet your SIL isn't judgemental

Eccentric? None of this is noteworthy surely?

You are coming across as being really narrow minded.

I get your concerns about home schooling as it needs to be set up well to benefit the child. But there's a lot more groups/support for families doing home schooling to access a great variety of educational subjects, have a great social experience. And sounds like your SIL would be really into getting the best out of home education.

If the child isn't in school, then the chsmces of being bullied are reduced. Most bullying occurs in schools.

I meet alot of children through my work who have experienced home schooling. Some have gone into mainstream at secondary or 6th form/college.

The ones who struggle were home schooled with little structure/interest from the parent. They just didn't want their child to go to school and offered no great alternative.

what exactly do you think is going to cause this "failing"?

AIBU to think she’s setting DN up for failure here/perhaps to be singled out? I’m aware kids can be quite nasty.

she's 3. Right now the only person drawing attention to what sounds like a lovely mum, is you.

None of that seems particularly off the wall to me either. DD has several vegan school friends, lots of parents don’t leave their children until they’re older and there’s millions of families that use elimination communication - just not usually in the west.

All your language is negative and you are the judgemental one who is singleing someone out. HTH.

I’m not using eccentric as an insult but surely this is unconventional? I don’t know another person who parents like this. She is from a large city and we do live slightly rural- BIL and SIL moved here to settle down and have kids. So maybe this is more normal there?

Kids can be mean though, they pick up on slight differences and surely these are all different choices. I’m worried about the lack of socialisation for niece when she’s school aged too. We aren’t even allowed to take her over night and we have accepted that as ours are older and boisterous but when asked about sleepovers with friends she said she doesn’t see that happening. So how is she going to learn any life skills?

I'm not a fan of home-schooling and obviously parents following a vegan diet with their children usually have to put more effort in to ensure that it's properly nutritious, but the rest sounds vaguely within the realms of 'normal'.

There are some very weird people out there who sound totally normal on paper, so I'd not be in a rush to judge.

Why do you want to have this little girl overnight? You sound a bit weird tbh

I’m not judging her as a parent. She is a very good, very loving parent.

Niece is a very lovely little girl. She’s very well mannered, her speech is very developed for her age and she doesn’t do screen time (unlike mine!). I’m just concerned about the knock on effects of her growing up.

Not understanding why sleepovers are essential. Don’t see why that’s weird.

I’m not mad about home education because I think it can result in social loss, but plenty of people do it very successfully. If you have children yourself, you may find that seeing the social benefits they get from school changes SIL’s mind. Or she may just be a successful home educator!

I’m also not mad about bringing a child up as a vegan purely because - having been brought up as a vegan myself and remained one till my 40s - I have osteopenia which I suspect is related to this. (Hence my user name; I’m making up for lost time.) But SIL may be much more nutritionally aware than my mother was- certainly a healthy vegan diet is entirely possible, it just requires thought & effort (like any healthy diet in fact).

Apart from that nothing sounds odd at all about SIL. Yoga is hardly radical you know!

Since when was yoga eccentric?…

Because she’s my niece and we love her? And we love family?

Sleepovers have always been the done thing in our family, we offer childcare to support each other. There’s been loads of things they’ve been invited to as a couple and have chosen not to go as they’re adult only events. I was just highlighting that unless it’s something extremely important they don’t even attempt to get childcare because they won’t leave her.

She is not DNs only parent.

You are not DN's parent.

You are judging her choices and dressing it up as concern.

You need to travel more OP. Britain isn't the only culture in the world. There are lots of alternative cultures that raise children in different ways and those children become beautiful humans.

So she's well adjusted, developing above her age, and has interests beyond screens, and you think this is a problem because...?

The issue here is your narrow mindedness. Your niece will be just fine.

Your kids are more likely to have a negative impact with the screen time than hers.

if she doesn’t want sleepovers, then that’s fine! My DS8 has only stayed away from home a couple of times. People don’t generally have their kids stay elsewhere frequently, so that’s not weird at all.

I’m not using eccentric as an insult

I’m not judging her as a parent

😂to both of these!

She's 3! Why on earth would she be going to sleepovers with other people?! I don't know many people who allow tiny children to have sleepovers if not for necessity.

How will her child grow up 'different'? By being vegan? Very common now. By not having used nappies? By being home educated? That's not massively unusual now, and they sound like parents who are prepared to put the work in to do it properly...it isn't a cop out.

I presume she has a partner? Why is she the one copping the flack here?