Stick your fundraiser - the hardest test will be leaving my children for so long

[LifeIsAMeatball]

I’m yet again avoiding a community fundraiser for a man’s ego. He’s cycling Africa with some friends. It’ll be tough but the hardest bit “will be not seeing his kids for three or four months.”

Give me strength. I’ve already had to endure years of the group of school dads who spent every summer on the lads “fundraising trips” - Lands End to John O’Groats, London to Paris, Africa (yeah, it’s been done already), cross Europe, some of Europe that’s a bit vague but conveniently ends in Ibiza during party season.

I’m assertive enough to say no but these things get the whole community behind them. You can’t go to the pub, shop, hairdressers or even the bloody dog groomers without someone rattling a tin for the local hero.

Meanwhile, there’s yet another woman at home about to solo parent with no plaudits - and would she even dare to argue her lot given the whole community thinks he is amazing?

This particular fine specimen enjoys free drinks at the pub to celebrate him before he leaves in 3 weeks. His wife is at home with a four week old, a 3 year old with additional needs and a six year old.

He sounds a right twat but more fool her for tolerating this level of nonsense.

Yanbu in so far as it's clearly a hobby holiday that he is asking other people to fund. I certainly don't think he's a hero and I agree that the whole thing is selfish.

But I'm somewhat uncomfortable with your characterisation of the poor downtrodden wife left at home with the children, with no agency over anything and doesn't even dare to voice her objections. I mean, I'm sure that kind of woman does exist, but we're in the 21st century now...we do actually have options other than to just put up and shut up?

I was saying g similar around th London Marathon. There was a guy who’d ran a marathon every day for a year, and I just felt sorry for his wife having to put her life on hold for a year while he went out running for a few hours every day.

I mean if he drove a Waitrose I might consider it…

Yes, of course I feel the same, perhaps even more so. Why wouldn’t I?

When we choose to have children we take on responsibility for them and their wellbeing. The most basic part of this responsibility is trying to remain alive in order to be a parent to them. We may also need to postpone self-actualisation in order to be available for them as a parent. Again, we have chosen to do this.

I had a big ‘thing’ (taking up my spare time for several years) that I wanted to do when my DC was five, but I realised that it would consume far too much time away from them at that crucial stage. I am doing it now they are a teenager and their needs have evolved.

TBH if this man's wife is looking forward to a break from her DP for a few weeks when she has a new baby and a child with additional needs, he must also be a dreadful husband and father in other ways.

I wonder if this guy gets paid paternity leave and is using it not to care for his new arrival but to abandon them, his post partum wife and other young children to avoid family life?

If they are determined to do it then it really comes down to putting up with it as you phrase it or ending the marriage, and I can quite see that with three very young children and one a newborn you might not be in the right frame of mind to consider doing that.

@MrsShawnHatosy i don’t know, to be honest. Life doesn’t have to stop when you have children; however pretending that it can just carry on much as it ever did as long as you have a supportive partner is a bit of a stretch to say the least.

Maybe it is possible if you have a lot of money or if you have supportive family as well as your partner. But with multiple children it’s always going to be a challenge. Of course, we have passions and interests and they don’t change when we have children but they can’t be forefront, they just can’t, no matter how much some insist they can.

Rattle a tin yourself for abandoned single mothers with disabled children.

(With her approval of course.)

P.s. many charities have banned rattling/shaking buckets as you can technically shake a bucket, but you can't annoy people. Might be worth looking at the Fundraising Regulator guidance if you'd like them to be less present in the village https://www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/code/standards-which-apply-specific-fundraising-methods/public-fundraising

I was literally about to say the same thing. Who the heck leaves kids of those ages for that amount of time?? How confusing for the 3 year old! The baby will probably think he's gone forever and forget about him. Its madness.

What about parents in the army or navy they get posted to other places some times do they really forget their parents?

At four months old? Probably yes. Im not sure of the inner workings of a small babys mind but they're not that bright are they? The military is at least a bit more understandable than a bike ride.

See, I don’t mind this as much. It’s nice when teens do something so out of their normal experience and if that means they’re baking cakes and babysitting kids to fund it, I can live with it.

Adults asking others to fund a cycle or their Kilimanjaro trek while leaving their kids and spouses at home? Not so much.

It could be that he is an otherwise fantastic partner and father, and that his partner enjoys lots of leisure time at other times.

Unlikely though.

But the point was if a child is away from their parent for a length of time they would forget their parent, so it wouldnt matter if a parent find finding themselves in tibet by building a yurt, flying to the moon or staring at their navel in Bali so the reason behind it wont change anything

Even if the wife was in favour of this, it's still massively selfish and irresponsible to leave young children for this length of time, to pursue a hobby.

We bring children into the world and we owe it to them to actually be present and parent!

Women very rarely abandon their newborns and small dc in order to go on extended holidays. Any woman who did, would rightly receive criticism for being a crappy parent.
If my h did this, I'd tell him to not come back. If the wife is supporting this, then she's also supporting the abandonment of her children by their father. In 4 months time the newborn will have changed so much!

And wanting other people to finance this ego trip is massively entitled. If people must do these things, they should at least self finance.

There will also be colleagues at work who have to pick up his work while he's gone - I wonder if they mind. Or maybe they consider it to be a price worth paying so they get a break from him banging on about how wonderful he is!

Ive never got why people do this other than for ego!! The amount that has to be raised/paid to cover vists etc must means that the actual profit to the charity has to be so reduced.
These mountain climbs etc are so expensive to do and agree with most people here saying that its a self indulgent hobby holiday!!
And with small kids at home you are a dick of a 'D'H

There was a very recent report about the negative impact on Armed Forces families children, called ‘Thriving Lives’.

It is a big ask to be in the armed forces precisely because it expects and compels parents to make this kind of decision. I have a lot of regard for any scheme or proposal to improve support for armed forces families.

It makes it even more bizarre that someone would choose to do so voluntarily.

It is also a known academic phenomenon whereby male anthropologists freely go off to remote places and immerse themselves in observing people without outside contact for months at a time, whereas female anthropologists cannot always do the same. Yes of course there are exceptional female anthropologists, but it is still a recognised issue.

Couldn’t agree with you more.
His poor wife.

So children do forget their parents? Because that is what was being discussed

Glad you are so special to know better.

I don’t know about forgetting as such but the report talks about the impact of sustained separation.

3-4 months!

Same. If you want to go cycle round Africa just go and do it - there’s no need to make such a big song and dance about it. If you can afford to take the time off work, buy yourself a £5k bike, a grands worth of cycling gear, and another three grands worth of flights and subsistence for a couple of months, you can afford to chuck a few grand at the charity yourself.

And I hope your wife has a few weeks holiday booked for when you return and can pick up the reins again.

Ughh this is infuriating. Leaving her with a newborn as well!

I bet in three years time he’ll be telling the other men on the school run that the divorce came “out of nowhere”.