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.

Mine was 3 in the pandemic. He didn’t go to nursery or pre school. Never been away from me. No “socialising”. He’s in school and thriving now same with his peers.
Your niece will be fine. Well adjusted probably because she has a strong attachment to her main care giver.

She sounds like an amazing mum and you are just heavily judging her because it isn’t what you are doing. Why on earth is baby wearing and not wanting a three year old to sleep somewhere else overnight weird? She will have a very healthy attachment and be a very confident girl. Homeschooling is a really tricky one I am so torn but my gut is it is not the right decision long term for kids but also it’s none of my business

Presumably she's interested because she loves her!

Based on the tone of the OP’s posts, she’s primarily interested because she feels bizarrely unsettled by her SIL making different parenting decisions to her and everyone else she knows, and wanted everyone on the internet to agree that her SIL was batshit.

When the internet instead pointed out that veganism, home schooling and not sending a three-year-old on sleepovers are hardly in the realm of breatharianism and biting heads off bats, the OP has now decided to go down the route of being terrified that her niece will be bullied and lead a miserable life of ostracism and mockery, because there are no vegans or homeschoolers in rural Wales.

I agree she may be overly worried etc etc etc (and I'm not saying I necessarily agree with her point of view) however I do believe she's "interested" primary because she loves her

All sounds ok to me, depending on the child.

I have four children. One of them would have benefited enormously from this approach, two would have been fine with it, and one would probably have been better off in a more “normal” system.

As it was, I couldn’t make your SIL’s system work for our family, so all four kids have lived a more mainstream life. One has almost certainly been disadvantaged by that.

Each child is different, each family is different. If you think your niece starts to show that she is being disadvantaged or harmed by her parents approaches then by all means speak to her parents or raise it with safeguarding services. If your niece doesn’t show signs of being disadvantaged or harmed, then accept that different people do different things and can thrive in different circumstances.

Well, it's a very generous reading of the thread, @EvieBB -- but tbh, the thread is entirely about the SIL, her veganism, her plan to homeschool, her leaving her job, her using a babysling, her saying she doesn't need overnight childcare for her DD.

Her daughter, the OP's niece, barely gets a mention, until it became clear that the internet wasn't playing ball and didn't in fact think that being homeschooled by a vegan parent was going to doom the OP's niece to a life of mockery and loneliness. Then the OP's tack changed from 'My SIL is very eccentric' to 'I'm worried my niece will face bullying because children can be nasty and we live somewhere insular'.

So I don't think there's any particular evidence that the OP is devoted to this child. She may well be, but it doesn't particularly emerge on the thread.

She sounds to me as if she's one of those people who are irrationally bothered by someone making different choices to their own, even though those choices don't affect her at all.

When i was happily childfree, I occasionally encountered people like this, who seemed terribly perturbed by the fact that my life looked comparatively easy and pleasant to them. The same type of person was still not happy when I had one child by choice ('selfish', 'irresponsible', 'lonely only' etc). Again, I suspect that it was motivated, probably unconsciously, by an alarm that someone making different choices meant that they had also had those options, but chose not to take them. That 'normal' as they saw it, was also a choice.

At the end of the day, you need to accept that none of these decisions are your business.

Unconventional doesn't automatically equate to inferior. There are plenty of kids being failed by the education system and many of them probably could receive a better education from home, if parents can afford to. Online homeschooling sites provide the same curriculum as mainstream, to include testing and exam prep and there are homeschooling meetup groups that arrange activities and opportunities for kids to socialise weekly.

If the child's parents think this is the best way forward then that's that.

As for sleepovers, again, 100% their choice. I know a good handful of parents who don't allow them. It's not hugely unusual.

I think you need to have a think about why you automatically chose to parent in a manner that you deem 'the norm' and why you're so rattled by others questioning the system and choosing something different for their own child.

Your heart is in the right place, but you have to remember that this is not your business.

What on earth are you talking about “changed tack”? My original post literally says

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

I started this thread off being worried about her being bullied. I haven’t switched it in that direction at all.

Thank you OP. I literally switched off/gave up about 2 sentences into to HundredsandHundreds' reply to me....I really didn't have the energy/motivation when I have greater things to deal with at home at the moment (ill child). It's all very much conjecture on her part. At the end of the day, I felt that when all said and done, the reason you were 'interested' (and getting involved) is ultimately because she is your neice and that you love her. Whether you are worrying unnecessarily is another matter. x

I’d worry about any child in the environment you describe with the rates of bullying in school from the local children. Your DN won’t be exposed to those children thankfully, unlike your children who do have to put up with bullying attempts from the other locals.

For heaven’s sake, OP, the bulk of your OP was about what a weirdo your SIL is. You leaned far more into ‘We live in an insular, rural spot, and my niece will face a life of mockery because literally no one is homeschooled and vegan, or has a mother who does yoga and Pilates’, once people pointed out that there was nothing particularly eccentric about your SIL.

Sounds absolutely lovely. What a great idea. Im.sure she is capable. Different isnt necessarily bad.

My only concern about any of it is that they sound a bit helicoptery. If they continue like that as she gets older, they will deprive her of the opportunity to develop her independence and self-esteem without her parents hovering over her. But that might not happen - they might just be maximising the attention and security they can give her while she is small, which is a good thing.

Also, I hope they’re good at being vegan and are making sure they give her a complete diet.

Other than that, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being different. Pretty much all kids think they are weird in some way, and/or find things to torment other kids about, so you might as well actually be different.

Well Im totally judging her as a parent. Putting her principles before her progeny.
It doesn't do any good for kids to grow up in that kind of brainwashing isolation. Sure there's more than 1 kind of education but the bottom line is that kids need each other and support and to know what society is. You need to learn the rules before you break them. You need to be in the system before you can pivot from it. And most kids benefit hugely from being at school like every one else. I actually consider that to be child abuse.
And before you pile on no I totally get that some kids can't do school but you gotta try first

You might see it as 'throwing away years of hard work at university'... but she might view parenting as a new 'goal', so following a slightly different path, to be the best parent that she can be to her DD. After all, is it more important to leave this earth with thousands of pounds in your bank account, or knowing that you did the best job you could to parent your child?

Personally, I wouldn't raise my children in the same way that my niece and nephew are being raised... and that's OK, because my sibling and I are very different adults, with what I assume will be very different children when they are a bit more grown up.

To be fair, the local school OP describes sound totally unsuitable and I wouldn’t send my child there. It may be she is only homeschooling because OP has told her that her child will be completely ostracised for not being Welsh and there are no other local options.