MossW5405

This!!! 💯
Supervised visits only after that!

The keeping secrets is the deal breaker for me. Even missing school doesn’t cause irreparable harm (although it does seem concerningly negligent), but a home in which you’re taught to keep secrets is a home where abuse can happen. And it also means that you can’t necessarily trust the grown ups you’re leaving your child with; even if you make an agreement, you can’t trust the grandparents to be honest with you or do what they say they are doing right? For me, that is the potential irreparable harm in the situation. The sugar, the screen time, the late bedtime, even school could be vacation worthy. But the keeping secrets? Really horrible things happen in a house where children are told to keep secrets.

Also, what about friends? We have several friends we’ve left our kiddo with over the years for an overnight, probably just once each so it’s not a burden but I wish for all of you to have parent friends in your lives who you trust that way! It can be a swap and it’s free and relationship building and good for everyone! Having a village shouldn’t be a privilege. It should be baseline. Our society has organized things to isolate us and that sucks! It’s not our fault as parents, but I do wonder about “this is our only option” because probably if I was you I would be saying “I have no options” or I would be looking to make more friends!

I would have nightmares the whole vacation about that secrets thing.