To let my niece stay when she refuses to see her mum?

[ShadowShapes]

My sister has 2 children, my niece is 20 and my nephew is only 10 months, so a huge age gap. They have different fathers.

My niece is at university and since my sister had the baby, my niece has refused to spend holidays at home, preferring to stay in her uni city with friends. My sister isn’t happy with this but has had to accept it. My niece has told her that she doesn’t want anything to do with her or the baby. She thinks her mum is mad for having another child. My sister and partner have been together for 5 years and he moved in when my niece was 17. My niece got on ok with him but didn’t like him living with them.

My niece planned to stay in her uni city for summer but asked if she can spend the summer with us a couple of weeks ago. I said she could but that she should tell her mum. She did and my sister said we shouldn’t let her stay with us and we will make things worse.

My niece came to us last week and my sister is angry. I said that I am being neutral but that I will speak to my niece about how she’s feeling and try to help them sort out their relationship. My sister thinks I should tell her that she can’t stay with us but I’ve said she will always be welcome here. My niece is such a nice person but she is adamant she wants nothing to do with her mum, her partner or the new baby.

I feel really in the middle but my niece is still really young and I wasn’t going to turn her away. I’ve tried to put myself in my sisters shoes but it’s difficult as I can’t imagine having another child now and how my children would feel about that.

I’m going to let her stay but going forward what would you do? I’ve suggested to my niece that her mum comes for a coffee or to meet for a walk with or without the baby to try to sort things out but my niece isn’t interested. She just seems to be getting on with her life and seems happy without her mum in it. She helps around the house, gets on well with my children who are also home from uni, goes out with friends and is working. It’s like she has just wiped her mum out of her life, They had a good relationship until her mums partner moved in. She says she feels her mum put him first and although her partner is ok, she didn’t like living with another person.

this.

Not really, if she doesn't normally stay status quo is maintained. Having her stay over the holidays is new and actively choosing a side. Not judging picking a side if you believe the sister is in the wrong, but it's not a neutral action.

Without knowing the ins and outs of the situation, I think you’re being harsh here.

She’s a young adult wanting to enjoy her life and she’s suddenly surrounded by a man she barely knows and a baby who will control the entire house. Whilst she may grow to view the baby as a sibling once it’s older and is its own independent person, but whilst it can’t do that then nice would just be a default babysitter and “extra pair of hands”, what independent 20 year old wants that?

Mum has chosen this path in life, and I have no doubt that nice would have made her feelings about the partner etc way before a baby came along. Mum made the decision to have another baby knowing this, and is now living with the consequences of that decision

I disagree. Having a friendly ear to talk to is sometimes much needed. I think refusing to talk at all about the issue may be a bit harsh. But the OP shouldn't take sides, that's different.

You absolutely made the right decision. Both parties are grown adults free to live their lives as they choose. Your sister is thinking emotionally and from her perspective. In truth, if you were to push your niece away and in effect distance her from wider family too who knows what that would do to her mental health.

Your sister has the right to a personal life, to remarry and have a late life baby. However, that was obviously going to have a huge impact on her young adult daughter, and your sister ignored that.

The natural consequence is that her daughter, having been sidelined and effectively replaced by a shiny new relationship and baby, wants nothing to do with any of it. Her mother's choices have hurt her deeply, and that's perfectly understandable.

I know several people with 20 year sibling age gaps including my dad and his siblings. Not one of them has anything more substantial than a vague relationship and they certainly aren't siblings in anything beyond genetics. Their upbringings were too different.

I'm glad you're having your niece to stay. I think your sister was naïve not to expect this fallout from her choices.

I can't imagine any grown adult policing a sibling and telling them who they can and can't have to stay. Utterly bizzare behaviour on OP's sisters part, particularly when she has no relationship with her daughter - through her own actions including moving a strange man into the home she shared with her daughter within 'weeks.'

OP's sister is utterly unreasonable to try and force OP's niece out of OPs life - because that's effectively what she is trying to do.

OP's sister as good as signed away her parental rights the day she chose to effectively move a strange man, she had known for a few weeks, into a house with her child (DNiece was 15 at the time, based on the information OP has given). Personally, I couldn't look at a sibling the same way if they did this.

This is good advice too - writing letters. But of course is niece isn’t interested she might just say no. You could present it as a therapeutic exercise - an opportunity to say everything she wants to say, clearly and calmly and without interruption.

I have to say this echos my thoughts on the matter entirely. I think people judging this are being very harsh on a situation that must feel very painful to the niece

ps love the username!

Of course it is. If niece had said "Can i come and stay with you because it's closer to my summer job/it's on a better bus route/I don't want to wake the baby up coming in late after socialising/it's a quieter environment to study - but I'll of course still be going over to see my mum and sibling all the time and going on days out with them" then OP would not be starting a thread and niece would just move in with OP.

That's the comparator.

This exactly

I also like to think that no matter how badly my relationship with my DC might deteriorate that I'd never try to cut them off from another source of support. That's a horrible thing for your sister to do.

A friendly ear is definitely needed - but OP is not the right person to be that friendly ear due to her split loyalties. It also puts her in the very difficult position that she might be told things in confidence by one person that she then has to actively not tell the other.

That is a really harsh interpretation - it seems that as soon as her mum met a new man when she was 14-15 the niece was basically not a priority for her mother and felt excluded

• the new man was sleeping over multiple nights a week in nieces home within weeks of meeting her mum
• He formally moved in around a year later when niece was 16
• niece was not allowed to have 1:1 time with her mum after new man moved in - he had to be present
• niece has to struggle with no parental financial support at Uni because mum is paying for IVF
• Mum wants the rest of the family to isolate niece and exclude her from their homes

According to OP the new man virtually moved in almost straight away - was sleeping over at nieces home several nights a week within weeks of meeting her mum

All of that might be true, but the issue seems to be since her mum had the baby - which is a different matter altogether. I would let her stay but saying that she wants nothing to do with her mum because she's had a baby and wants nothing to do with the baby either, makes her sound spoilt. She's an adult, your sister is entitled to a life of her own. Maybe she moved too fast at the beginning but that apparently has nothing to do with her behaviour now.

I couldn’t agree more!!!!!!!
DN was 17 she’s still a young person who needs guidance and needs her mum - DN’s mum sounds like she cared more about her own needs than her daughters and I personally don’t have time for people like that in my life.

He was sleeping over there several nights a week within weeks - OP wrote at 23.39 that he was virtually living there within weeks of meeting

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ShadowShapes · Yesterday 23:39
She isn’t at all. When my sister met her partner, she introduced him very quickly to my niece. He was staying over most nights within weeks so almost living there and then properly moved in after about 15 months.

Is there a chance the niece has exaggerated how her mum never had time for her? She may not have but you never know. Teens can be manipulative unfortunately. I have a daughter now the same age who moved out at 18. When I started work she started saying I never had time for her due to my work commitments, she even went as far as crying begging me to not go to work to the point I'd have to call out because she would have supposed panic attacks but then as soon as I'd be off work she'd sit in her room call her boyfriend invite him over then act like i wasn't even there. She moved out telling everyone I was the problem yet we would spend all the younger kids summer holidays dancing to her tune, she would refuse to come on days out yet didn't want to stay home without me there which would prevent the other kids from going out places. She told my sister I kept her prisoner in our home said I wouldn't allow her to go out yet the simplest thing like taking my kids to appointments she made difficult by kicking off and saying I couldn't go without her and I'd have to rearrange them due to her refusal to leave the house. Her mum shouldn't be telling the aunt not to have her round though the girl is an adult and can stay where she chooses.

This. This is not a teenage child, its two adults, three if you count the OP. They all have the right to make their own choices.

Yes of course you should let her stay and if I were your sister I would be grateful that my daughter had someone to talk to and that you were willing to let her stay with you.

not relevant. The whole point is that the OP should not be judging or trying to make decisions based on might haves or what ifs. The niece has made her decisions. From what the OP has told us she has made her own life and choices.

why is she spoilt because she has made life choices? Why should she want anything to do with a baby?

Your niece sees things quite clearly. I'm glad she has you. Your sister will just have to pay for a babysitter.

She doesn't sound spoiled to me. Just someone who for whatever reason doesn't feel at home in her mother's house anymore .
The sister sounds selfish to me and lacking in understanding.
Her daughter doesn't want to live in a house with her mother's new partner or child and she feels more at home with her aunt and her cousins who are more her age. I would be grateful to my sister for caring for my daughter.