To not be prepared to drive all this way?

[Absolutelynocluee]

My sil and her dh are going away in the Easter holidays for a caravan holiday. They have offered to take my 8yo ds, on the condition that I drive him there and pick him up. This is because it’s their holiday so they only want to have him for a few nights in the middle. So let’s say that they are going away for 7 nights, they only want to have him for 3. It’s a 3 hour drive. So for me I’d be driving for 6 hours twice. With going there and back.

It’s caused a falling out because I have said that I don’t want to drive.

I haven’t asked them to take him away, we go on holiday ourselves at least once or twice a year so it’s not like it would be his only chance to have a holiday.

There wouldn’t be enough room for me to stay too and to be honest I wouldn’t want to go and haven’t been invited.

Dh can’t do the drive because he will be working.

Aibu to simply not be prepared to do this?

He’s 8 years old!

YANBU - and you are right to say no.

Tell SIL that this simply doesn't work for you. Say that if they would like to take him away another time that fits in with your plans then they are welcome, to make it clear its not about them.

They can't expect you to accept something that is so inconvenient to you just because it suits them to have him in the middle. If your DH disagrees with you, then he can take him and pick him up.

I wouldn't be driving 6 hours twice just because they thought it was a good idea

SIL was 100% wrong to say anything to your DS before asking you

Travel with the kid

I wouldn't do all that driving...just say no

Well then what’s the point of the aibu forum at all?

Say no thanks, you can't manage to bring and collect him. No point her insisting that you can.

I personally would if my child really wanted to go.

Haha, no! Been here 20+ years.

She was underhand telling your DS about it before getting your permission.
There is too much manipulation and disregard for you as his parent here, too much insisting for it too be ok.

How old is she?

I haven’t fallen out age has fallen out with me.

Do you work and do you have other children to look after?

If not, and it was me, I would do it once and probably stay over night somewhere en route to have an interesting trip myself.

You're not unreasonable to not want to drive 12h to fit around their plans.

If they want him in the middle of their holiday, and they are so desperate to give their nephew a lovely time, they can come and collect him.

No?

Why not?

Is it because it’s a ridiculously long drive to expect someone to do twice in the space of 3 days?

If they had offered to have him for the whole holiday and your DS was keen to go, I would probably say yes. Expecting you to do 12 hours driving over two days to fit in with their exact requirements so that they have a holiday with your son but only for three days is unreasonable and annoying.

Don't feel bad about saying no. They shouldn't have spoken to your DS about the holiday without speaking to you first.

It's 12 hours in total

3 hours to drive ds to sil but then OP has to drive 3 hours home = 6 hours
then 3 days later OP has to go back 3 hours to collect ds = another 6 hours

It's not even as though SIL will compromise to take him or bring him home to save OP one journey

she told ds about it before even checking out the me and dh first

Bang out of order.

I'd do a halfway thing: Meet somewhere half the distance and swap him over. Or you do the drop off and they do the drop back. See how eager she is to have him then.

I’d do it if he really wanted to go. We sometimes have to do these things as parents.

But I do like driving so this wouldn’t bother me … line up some podcasts, lovely. And then enjoy a couple of nights out with DH.

If MIL rhinks it's such a great idea maybe she should do the driving instead.

Hell no

You can do this you know. It’s happened in the past.

Kids his age got trains in the past. Not ideal but.

If this is your DH's sister I would leave him to deal with her now. You've said thank you for the offer, but we won't take you up on it as I won't be able to spend 2 days driving 2 x 6 hour round trips. That should be the end of it.

In itself, that's borderline unsafe - I've done London to Scotland a few times and I was pretty burned out by the end and definitely not at my best driving.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, basically.

@Absolutelynoclueewell I certainly would not want to spend 6 hours in one day driving and then have to do it again 3 days later. Your SIL is being ridiculous.

I’d do it. But if you don’t want to that’s fair enough.

She doesn’t get to borrow your child at her convenience whilst putting you through 6 hours of driving, that’s just a mad waste of your time.