AIBU to feel unable to take in partner’s nephew right now?

[Flossyrocks]

Little bit of back story - we’ve been together 3 years and I have 2 children from a previous relationship. I’m pregnant with our first baby and we are renovating a house which only has 2 bedrooms and are relying on planning permission being accepted. Which I know in itself is not the wisest decision. My DPs sister is probably going to lose custody of her DS(10) and my partner is the only one who can take him in without him going in to care. Of course I am not advocating for him to be put into care. And I want my DP to have a clear conscious so I have put no pressure on the situation. Just been there and supported him best I can. The nephew is a really difficult child through no fault of his own but this does effect my children. He can be really malicious amongst other things and causes a lot of stress. I really don’t feel like I can take him on. Especially being pregnant, with my 2 DCs and the bedroom situation in the new house. Am I a total bitch? I would never ever expect him to put his nephew into care, in my current state of mind I feel like we are going to have to separate. I know resentment is a killer and either way this would be an extremely difficult situation

Not at all. Where did I suggest he should stay with his mother

i also never suggested that the 100,000’s of children were plucked from loving homes…

I stated that according to studies it’s the taking away of a parental unit that is good or bad that is the cause of the damage. Not the care system like you suggested.

I'm wondering if you could source one of those newborn fake doll babies for your fiance to take care of for a week while he has your nephew to stay at his for the same length of time to give him a better understanding of what he'll be taking on.

That 10 year old is going to need so much attention and your fiance needs to have a realistic idea of the stress he'll be under when he has a screaming newborn (having had eff all sleep) while the 10 year old will also be demanding attention at the same time (much more than an average 10 year old due to trauma).

No and I'm not telling her what she should do.

I am asking her to think how she would feel if it was her nephew.

How about, if she died tomorrow, abd she had no other family, how would she feel about her child(ren) going in care?

He is a 10 year old child who has been failed, and if you feel it's okay to just dump kids into care then you can quite frankly chuff off.

His nephew should be more important to him than your older kids. Especially seeing as your older kids have two parents and are not vulnerable.

I bet you're complaining about him taking on yours for the majority of the time.

if you posted this and said it was your sister and no one else to take him, you would get a very different response because he ‘is your family’

MN is very weird about what counts as family but at the end of the day you & DP are having a baby, he is step dad to your children & you are moving in together & see this as long term as can be.

I think it would be wrong to not take him him in, he is family he sounds like he has been through a lot. The challenging behaviour sounds like a side effect of this and probably feeling very unwanted. The lads at a cross roads. be taken in by you both, loved & made to feel wanted & part of a loving family even if you are all squished in a bit. Or you can send him into care where he will feel even more unwanted by his family, behaviours will likey get worse, he is a 10yr old boy, the stats say he will get lost in the system will end up with worse behaviour and down a bad path.

I think you are right about the resentment, certainly will cause a strain either way & new borns can be a stress-full times for a couple. Being a true partnership & working together will work out better than fostering resentment

the question should be have I got enough love in me to show this young lad who needs it? Like I said if it was your sister MN would be shouting how could you think not to

This is incredibly difficult for you, has the wider/ extended family discussed the situation? Have they come up with any ideas or plans moving forward? I feel for you and your DP, but i agree it is not realistic for you to take on DP's nephew. The house+space+new baby+ own children= pressure ++++. I wish you all well

@Flossyrocks
I posted earlier about the needs of your existing children. But I’ve been thinking all day about this little boy. And honestly I think your DP is being selfish. He is acting emotionally and making this boy’s situation about himself and his history not the child’s needs.

It sounds like his DN has been abused and neglected for a long time, possibly all his life. His life is now being upended again. He is extremely vulnerable and now finally there is a chance that professionals will provide him with the much needed support and care he needs. This is his opportunity! He is only 10, still very young. There’s a chance that with the right support he will develop into a healthy happy teen and young man.

In a few years he will be at secondary school, nearly a teen. This is a much harder age to effectively intervene in a child’s life. If your DP gives it a go and fails, his DN will suffer much more than if he allowed the professionals to take the lead now.

And it seems highly likely your DP will fail.

His plan is nonsense.

Lying to SS.
Pulling the child out of education.
Giving him a sofa to sleep on.
Taking him to work every day rather than school.
Isolating him from his friends.
Chucking him into a chaotic blended family with a new baby and hoping he’ll cope.
Your DP is neither teacher nor psychologist.

Madness and cruel.

Hopefully the school safeguarding lead will not allow him to be off/rolled in this situation. Because it would not be in his best interests.

If your DP tries to execute this plan he is a risk of being assessed as an unsafe influence and being allowed no contact with the boy.

Much better for everyone if you and your DP allow the authorities to do their thing. Then once DN is settled and you are all settled, look at how you can be a loving uncle and aunt with visits, events, celebrations on an ongoing basis.

It sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate already, especially with your two children to care for and being pregnant. I wonder if it might help to take a step back and think about what feels realistic for you day to day.

When your partner is at work and you’re already busy with your own children, who would be looking after the other child? especially when you have a new born in the mix....What would that actually look like in practice? This child willneed a lot of attention and emotional support is your partner ready to be there 24/7 as well as support you with baby? How will that work with his working hours?

It’s really important to think about what your own children need from you as well, and whether you have the capacity to take on anything more right now. Trust your gut feelings on this—if something doesn’t feel right or feels like too much, that’s important to listen to. It wont be fair on this child to just take him in and expect him to assimilate, he won't he will require 1-1 time. If it doesnt work then uproot him again? Which is even worse for him in the long run.
would an open foster be possible so you have contact and can ensure heswell cared for? We had several of these cases in primary school I worked in.

It’s also okay to be a bit selfish sometimes, especially when it comes to protecting your peace and your children’s wellbeing. Putting boundaries in place isn’t a bad thing, it’s about making sure you’re not stretched too thin, which helps nobody.

We are currently going through this process with my partner’s little brother who we will be likely fostering later this year. We’ve only had an initial viability assessment with the local authority today but the whole kinship fostering process can take 5-6 months and involves quite a lot of training and background checks including a full medical and potentially reaching out to previous partners and also vetting anyone in your support network. It will include both of you and any other adults in the home. Kinship.org.uk has some good info about the process and what it involves so you can weigh up your options. We have a four month old baby but not sure how I’d feel if I was still pregnant. It’s a very tough decision so hopefully you can sit down with your partner and chat it through as a team.

If it agreed as an open foster situation, yes. We had several in our primary school, where nan was to old/ ill to take in child but still had contact and legal rights etc

You didn't quote anyone though.
That's what has caused the confusion.

You are being very sensible OP. Your own kids have big challenges ahead - new school, new house, new baby, new stepdad. It is likely that they will need a lot of support themselves. Adding a traumatised older child to the mix would be very unfair to your DC and also DN. Especially since your family might not be able to meet his needs.

Can you stay in your current rented house or have you already given notice?

The difference is the women would be doing all the work in 99.9% of cases. So of course the reaction would be different.
This manchild is a fantasist

if you posted this and said it was your sister and no one else to take him, you would get a very different response because he ‘is your family’

OP and her partner are not married, are not going to be living together and OP thinks they might even split up.

The nephew of an ex-boyfriend is not 'family'.

He is having a child with OP but happy to turn his back on the baby.

Actually there was a thread recently where a woman was in that situation, and she was supported in not offering to take her nephew in.

Not that anyone should feel pressured, and certainly not by mumsnet, into agreeing to something they are against.

Someone being family does not mean they are also your responsibility.

It was literally directly after a post sarcastically calling another poster a saint.

Don’t forget the OP is carrying his baby - where does this child fit into the pecking order? Surely he/she should get higher priority than the nephew?

Unfortunately there just isn’t any other family. DPs has some uncles/aunts a couple of hours away but they are a funny bunch.

Yes I have read through the full thread now.

peoples answers are very black & white. Such as the housing situation. The OP & her partner have plans, DN being looked after by them/him has to change the plan. To think it wouldn’t is blinkered.

it does actually sound like OP’s partner really has his heart in the right place but needs a bit of help with the practicalities

OP said DP runs a business & can be flexible so probably having DN at school & in routine would actually be better for them both.

it needs a lot of plans being changed, instead of moving into Dp’s house (everyone). That can be delayed/changed. Just the same as if they had another baby, more space needed, its ultimately not a reason for DP to say no, plus telling a 10yr old you don’t have space for them like someone suggested is cruel and would cause him more trauma.

I think the OP is right to say lets hold off on the move. It doesn’t have to mean the end of the relationship, maybe it changes the timeline of when things happen

OP also seems level headed & practical & I think if she wanted to, would be able to find a way for it to work.

I have seen people suggest abortions & treating a traumatised boy with more cruelty & I think those posters should be really ashamed of themselves

No where has any of what you said been suggested by the OP.

she literally said they planned to marry in a few months. She also said she wasn’t moving in not completely ending the relationship

Not once has the OP suggested that her DP was going to turn his back on his own child. The very fact he wants to take his nephew on, has taken on two of the Op’s children, suggests that he is not afraid of the responsibility of looking after children. He might be a little air headed about the practicalities but no suggestion of him abandoning his child

He isn’t prioritizing his central family unit, by wanting to introduce upheaval to all their lives.

Wanting to take the child on, as an emotional reaction, doesn’t mean he is prepared for the responsibility of it. His nonsensical ‘plan’ suggests the exact opposite, in fact. He’s either stupid, or he was planning on OP being the one to take on the vast majority of responsibility.

Not once has the OP suggested that her DP was going to turn his back on his own child. The very fact he wants to take his nephew on, has taken on two of the Op’s children, suggests that he is not afraid of the responsibility of looking after children.

He can't take on a traumatized, difficult child and care for a newborn at the same time. That he thinks it would be ok to put his nephew on the sofa for months shows just how unprepared and unthinking he is of his responsibilities. His nephew would have no where to go to get away from, for instance, a crying baby. That his plan is to lie to Social Services about housing and take his nephew to work and someone? home school for 5 hours a week is ludicrous.

I'd be rethinking marriage both on the existing circumstances and that her partner doesn't have Clue 1 as how to manage a traumatized child whose adjustment to change is likely to be extreme and might have attachment issues. Throw a newborn and recovering post partum mom into that? Oh, hell no. Can you imagine OP's mental health in that setup?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

OP would be ending up with the bulk of any and all childcare and her kids would suffer.

she literally said they planned to marry in a few months

I definitely won’t be marrying him and moving house at this point don’t worry. I completely had taken it off the table

She also said she wasn’t moving in not completely ending the relationship

It looks like I am going to have to find somewhere new to rent anyway. If there is anything left to salvage by the time the extensions built then we could discuss that then.

Not once has the OP suggested that her DP was going to turn his back on his own child.

He is currently living with his pregnant partner. His plan is to move out to live with his nephew and leave his partner and newborn to live separately. He won't be there to help after work and overnight. He has no childcare plans for the nephew so will be very restricted in when he can visit his own baby. He is certainly not prioritising his own child in this scenario.

The OP has 2 young children and a third on the way. She knows this boy is very damaged. There's no room for him. Her partner has zero clue how to care for this child.

And you think this should make the OP upend her own children's lives and take on a child she's not - actually - related to?

If anyone should chuff off, it's people trying to guilt her into taking on the heavy lifting to the detriment of her own young children.

Question to people who know the system. Will SS be prepared to talk though with OP's partner, what will happen to DN if DP doesn't take him? So he can get a clearer sense of what he's "rescuing" him from?

Or will they not be happy to do that because they have a preference for kinship care (cheaper etc) and so won't actually have started developing a plan while DP is talking about taking him?

I think it's clear at this point that OP will not be involved with taking him. But it's not actually clear that it's in the boy's best interests for DP to take him. And he'll be personally sacrificing a lot if he does. So if SS can have a clear conversation about this, that would be very helpful for everyone.