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.

Well, that makes it your job as a parent to expose your children to different ways of living. Children are basically accepting. The entire world and other people’s way ways are new and strange to them a lot of the time. Even going on a play date to someone else’s house or a sleepover is a lesson in ‘other houses do things differently’. The times they’re unaccepting, it’s because they’re learned it from prejudiced, small-minded adults.

"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."

What exactly op is the issue with this? Could you explain?

My son is the same age and I feel no reason why he needs sleepovers away from me at a vulnerable age? When he's older then we'll look at it but right now I feel no need to be away from him overnight so it's not a 'help' I need and I certainly don't think it's anything to do with development?

Tbh you sound like you're the issue here.

SiL sounds like a great mum committed to providing DN with a full, social childhood.

I get what you are saying about kids in the country though, we live in the countryside & the conformity is astounding. Everyone is white & christian, or christian adjacent. My kids are 25, 22 & 16. The older two moved to our local city as soon as practicable & the 16 yo has been at school there since 11, they are not cookie cutter kids and city life suits them much better.

not being rude but that is grim and doesn't say much better about the people raising them either.

Your poor kids, being raised in some inbred backwater 😥

(That's exactly how you sound in your OP, by the way)

You just sound small minded. I have no intention of letting my small child have a sleepover at anyone’s house until she’s old enough to request one tbh. Doesn’t make me eccentric!

She sounds great like a great mum that wants to safegaurd her child .

My post is for genuine concern for DN and also SIL.

Is it really? Why don't you spend the same amount of energy sorting out your own kids?

Bluntly, OP, it's perfectly possible that lots of people live differently in their vicinity, but that you simply aren't aware, because, as you admit yourself, you lead a very sheltered life and only see people who behave in exactly the same way you do, which you think of as 'normal'.

I grew up in the country, and there were a lot of alternative types, from old school hippies living in benders to blow-in artists, foragers and people who kept goats and farmed artichokes. Who got on in the main perfectly well with people whose ancestors had been farming the same bit of land for generations.

And even when I lived in the most conformist place I've ever lived (a village in the Midlands where I was probably considered a hippy because I didn't drive and was a vegetarian), there was certainly a local homeschooling network, because I occasionally overlapped at the playground with some of the kids and parents, and others used to attend 'Messy Church' in the village hall.

Plus, vegans who read Tarot and like yoga don't give off some kind of coloured gas so that you can see them coming. They just look like other people.

Hopefully they’ll move then! Far away from you and the other judgemental numpties who live close by!

You’re just a sheep aren’t you?

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I am repeating what has been said.

Firstly, if DN is going to be home educated and mix with other home educated kids, who are these mythical other kids who are going to be bullying her?

Socialisation at school is often limited to 30 other kids who happen to be born at the same time. Socialisation for home school kids can be far greater and a much more diverse.

Kids learning in school is pretty much limited to the curriculum. Home school encompasses everything you want it to.

I think you you have a stereotypical and incorrect view of home schooling. When it's a life choice it can be far more educational and produce a much more rounded individual.

Nothing you have said about your SIL would concern me in the slightest.

This is what my worry is about. She currently drives to the city to socialise with her friends who have children. She doesn’t socialise where we are. Once those children go to school they won’t be socialising there and I imagine she will only be socialising in the village.

Unless you have lived in a rural small minded village then you don’t understand. Lots of people refuse to speak English around here and are very patriotic and I personally am frowned upon because I don’t know the language. It’s very insular.

People can call me names all they want but my worries are justified, and I personally think her type of parenting would thrive in the city and DN wouldn’t be singled out. Here she absolutely will be.

But by the sound of it so are you? Have you not lived there long? Why don't you know the language?

You seem determined to see your niece's future life in the blackest possible light, but given that you're now depicting yourself as a disapproved-of outsider to the village, are you just worried that your home-schooling vegan SIL is going to make you look even worse?

I’m from an hour away so not as rural as we are now. I went to an English speaking school. So I only learnt the language up to GCSE level and we never used it at home as my parents speak English. It’s only the rural towns that pass judgement if you can’t speak the language, never had an issue elsewhere. Obviously supermarket signs are mixed but everyone speaks English. I’m

No I’m wondering why they moved from the city to here and are going to make DN’s life as hard as possible! I’m definitely not a disapproved of outsider, no idea why you think that. What I’m saying is how much they pass judgement!

I get the feeling OP lives in rural Wales.

Which can be incredibly insular in my experience.

Don't take it too much to heart op.

And if you were just worried, then I think you don't need to be. Life has a funny way of making us feel the things we don't have are the things that make the difference. Perhaps just as you were envying her education and career opportunities, having them has given her the security that they are not the "be all and end all," and she wants to be a very hands-on mum.

There isn't anything wrong with that.

Rest assured I know lots of high flyers who took this route. They kind of proved themselves to themselves, then were ready to be very dedicated mums - perhaps BECAUSE they had been able to pursue other avenues first.

People talk more about regretting coming out of careers than I tend to see in reality.

If it’s rural Wales then my experience is directly relevant. No amount of assimilating will make you accepted in the way the locals are. So, pointless to try.

DN will not be at school with the children you are concerned about, so likely the children she does interact with will be a bit more open minded and tolerant of difference. Your DN and SIL are not the people in this scenario that anyone should be worried about!

Yes it’s rural wales. I’m not an outsider because I am welsh- however I’m judged because I’m Welsh and don’t speak it.

BIL was adamant DN was to go to a Welsh medium school so I’m not sure what’s changed since we last spoke about school.

Maybe they met some local school children and realised they were mostly intolerant bullies, as you describe!

I think you sound odd! Why would you think it strange for a three year old not to have been on sleepovers? Having read your op and responses I absolutely would not let you look after my child

Worry about your own boisterous kids.

Your SIL has it under control. She's intelligent and competent and if things go in a way that isn't healthy for her kid she can deal.

One of the great things about home ed is that kids learn to be self-assured and not sheep. When my friend’s daughter was a teenager, the same age as mine, I was envious of how little she cared about trends and what others were doing. Maybe your niece would be bullied if she went to school, from how you describe your village, but if she’s home edded she’ll escape that and grow up independent-minded.

Honestly sounds like homeschooling is the best option! Or just moving away… like hell would I want DS mixing with kids like that, or growing up to become a kid like that (major advantage of a very mixed London primary I suppose - nobody is seen as weird because there isn’t a “norm” to adhere to).

You sound like Petunia Dursley

Why are you worrying about your SIL's career? It sounds as if she has made thought very carefully about the kind of parenting she wants her child to have, and is doing it very well, and she has likely made her choices about her career in an equally careful way. She might decide to get back into work later, or perhaps not at all, since she is opting to home-school her daughter. It also seems that your BIL is completely in agreement. You say in a comment below that he is "besotted" with her, but it sounds as if they have a very good relationship. Do you feel envious and/or intimidated by your SIL?

You are probably right about having led a sheltered life, but the main thing is to parent your children in a way that you think is best for them, and leave your SIL and BIL to do things their way without being judgemental. That being said, there may be some lessons in your niece's parenting, particularly regarding screen-time. My great-nephew, who is three and a half, is not allowed to use any devices either and he is a very lively and happy little boy, with excellent speech, like your niece. His mother, my niece, is a speech therapist who specialises in young children, so there is method in her approach.