Sisters children and step child and our holiday

[FallingDream]

My parents moved back to my dad’s home country in March. We plan to visit them in October in the school holidays.

My sister has asked us if we will take her children and step child with us so that they get to see our parents but mainly to help with childcare as she and her partner have to work. Her partner is away with work that week and the week after.

My parents are ok with us bringing them all but I know it would end up with us looking after the youngest. Our children are 16 and 14 so we are at the stage where we can relax on holidays. My sisters kids are 15 and 13, step child is 7 so she still need looking after and more supervising.

Are we unreasonable not to take them with us or only take the older 2? We haven’t had a summer holiday this year so we were looking forward to relaxing holiday. We suggested just taking our nieces but got the usual stuff about treating them all the same. She’s not the same because she is 7 and needs looking after, and yes, also, she isn’t our niece so it is different.

DS can’t take the week off as she is too busy at work with a project at that time apparently. My husband says we may as well stay home if we aren’t going to be able to relax properly and it’s gone from something we were all looking forward to, to something that we don’t want to do. We are all reasonable happy to take our nieces as they don’t need looking after as such and they won’t change the vibe of the holiday.

My sister insists step child is ‘easy’ so we will be able to relax. That won’t be the case as I will feel very responsible for her and obviously she may miss her dad, my sister and her mum. She lives 50/50 between her mum and dad. Her mum is on holiday and this is her dad’s time. He’s away with work which annoys me more. I also find it strange that the little girls mum is fine with her coming away with us when we have only met her mum twice. I feel sorry for the little girl quite honestly, but we really want a break.

Sorry if it’s all a bit jumbled but hope I’ve explained it all. What do you think?

If the step child is that easy then all 3 kids can stay home and they can pay / bribe the older 2 kids to look after her then can't they?

Also it's in no way reasonable to say that the children need to be treated the same by taking them all on holiday for a week when they've met the 7 year old twice and presumably have a life long relationship with the older 2. Never mind the fact that a having a 7 year old there will totally change the holiday.

It's a hard FUCK NO from me

It’s a shame for our nieces and parents to miss out on seeing each other when taking them isn’t a problem at all. It’s only taking the younger one that brings issues.

7 year olds are still very young and need a lot of looking after . They are not self sufficient and I wouldn't say that most are easy to look after either. It's a huge responsibility to take someone else's child to a different country too and there may be issues at passport control (I was behind someone in a queue who has issues because one of the children had a different name on their passport) .
Also she may miss her mum and dad, she is being taken to visit people she probably doesn't know well by OP and her husband who she also might not know well. Poor child.
OP I think you would be reasonable to say you can't take any of the children. It's your holiday you want a break and you want to spend quality time with your parents not be an unpaid childminder

The absolute cheek of it! Your sister wants you to take 3 extra children with you on holiday, while she gets the house to herself at home. No way!

I hate things like this. Now you're in that damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and being the bad guys for preventing the kids seeing their grandparents.

I would say no to taking any, or even bail out on going at all. Next time you plan to visit "book it last minute" and avoid telling your sister.

No I wouldn't be taking the 7 year old.

I would say I was happy to escort the 13 and 15 yr old on the journey if sis wanted to pay for them to go and visit Grandparents, but obviously any 7 yr old would completely change the dynamic, so I wouldn't be doing that.

The 7 yr old's parents need to sort school holiday care between them, not try to emotionally blackmail you (and your parents) into looking after this little girl because they haven't sorted the childcare.

We are told that the youngest doesn’t like going to holiday clubs and wants to be with the older two. We have been told for years that we should treat them the same. I think it’s a shame that my nieces don’t get to see my parents because otherwise she will say we are favouring them but maybe it will cause less trouble to say no. It won’t solve her issue though.

I agree with some PP that you should drop the step-child part of the explanation and focus on the ages. Also, your DSis definitely knows that her SD does need looking after because I very much doubt she'd be thinking about childcare for the oldest two. They'd be fine to leave at home while she works in the holidays and the 7 year old wouldn't because she does require more supervision. YANBU

Your Dsis's partner is an arse, btw!

Your sister’s taking the piss. Be firm. You’re happy (I think) to take the older ones, but a youngster of 7 is a whole different kettle of fish and as you say, you’d want to put in more effort with her to ensure she’s comfortable. The older ones probably wouldn’t be thrilled either, given they’re similar ages. Plus, again, she barely knows you! Just tell her no, you’re not offering childcare.

Between your DS and her partner, they need to decide what to do, rather than palming the little girl off on people that she doesn't know really well, and spoiling your holiday OP. So in my opinion, they either book holiday club for the little one, pay someone else to look after her - does she have other grandparents, or if all else fails, then Daddy should take sick leave, regardless of whether he's supposed to be away on business, his child needs to come first, and he should have thought this through, not expected to dump her on his SIL and ruin her holiday.!

YANBU but I would just say you’re not in a position to take any of them- otherwise it just looks like favouritism to your blood relatives.

Having reached this position I would just say you’ve now realised you need to change the dates of the trip and then just book it and tell her once it’s done.

If your parents want to see their grandkids they’ll just have to arrange it separately.

I don’t want to be looking after a child though. It’s meant to be a holiday. My teens would refuse to look after her and I’d respect that. They will be on a break from school.

No way would I take a 7 year old I barely knew on holiday. 7 yr olds have completely different needs on holiday. She’ll be awake early and someone will have to get up with her, whilst you and the teens might want to sleep in until 10am. Day trips you might like to do with the teens will be completely different to trips a 7 yr old wants to do. Late, lazy dinners out which can be fab with teens, will be ruined with a tired 7 yr old. It’s completely different being on holiday with teens va young kids. And your DSis knows this full well.

Think about it from the child’s perspective. Very young . Away for a week in a strange country , different food etc with people she hardly knows responsible for her . Desperately homesick . No way would I do this.

Does the mum even know that you're being asked to take her child abroad without her dad or stepmother?
You know that you would need signed permission from both of her biological parents to take her out of the uk.
Tbh I'd refuse to take an unrelated 7 year old to a family holiday when its in a foreign country

Holidays are so precious. You were looking forward to the holiday and now you're not. Your sister has spoiled that for you already. Other people's children, blood related or not, on holiday, just no.
Stick to your original plans and let your sister sort out her family's holidays without involving you. Your parents have made a choice to move abroad. It is not up to you to compensate for that either.

It’s a shame for our nieces and parents to miss out on seeing each other when taking them isn’t a problem at all. It’s only taking the younger one that brings issues.

Your sister will just have to take them another time.

Just say no to taking any of them. It's your holiday, not your time to be general family facilitator. Have they ever offered to take your kids anywhere?

That poor wee 7 year old.

You are talking absolute rubbish

I would tell your sister straight up: I don’t want to go on holiday with a seven year old and I’m not prepared to take responsibility for her. It’s either the elder two, or none of them.

A seven year old you hardly know? On what planet?! That’s got all sorts of implications.

Your sister’s partner should have saved some annual leave to look after his child. Don’t take her because you will definitely be looking after her. Just tell your sister that you don’t want to look after her because of her age not because
she is a step. If the older kids can’t come then so be it but I am sure they will pressure their mother to let them go.

Absolutely. I have two grandchildren this age. They do require looking after.

I think if it was me I'd say no to taking any of them. It gets you out of the "treating them the same" thing for one thing, but also you are not childcare. I mean will your parents take over care for your sister's kids once they are there or will it be up to you to do it? Yes they are teens but they will still surely need some supervision and so on? Clothes laundering, curfews enforcing, some kind of knowledge about where they are and what they are doing?

Nope the 7 year old isn't your child, but more over she's MUCH younger. It's not about not wanting the responsibility even, it's that she is fundamentally a totally different age from all the other children. I have a 13 year old, and I have a goddaughter who's 6 and her sister is 8. When we do things as a group we do very different things from what we would do as a family or with other friends with kids our son's age. We have done a camping weekend with them last year and we are going to do Blackpool illuminations later this year and saying over there, but activities have to be very carefully planned and are largely different from what we'd do ourselves.