THE mother of Michael Jackson’s two eldest children has indicated that she will not fight their grandmother for custody.

Rejecting reports that she intended to snatch back her son and daughter, Debbie Rowe let it be known that she would be satisfied with more access to them than she has had in recent years.

The star’s family had threatened to fight her “tooth and nail” if she resisted plans by his mother, Katherine Jackson, 79, to look after them.

Sources close to Rowe, 50, said yesterday she did not want to add to the distress of her son, Michael Joseph, 12, known as Prince, and daughter, Paris Michael Katherine, 11, with a battle over their future.

She would not exercise her legal right to settle the children at her horse ranch in Palmdale, 65 miles north of Los Angeles, they said. Instead, she would try to negotiate a peaceful settlement that would allow her to see them more often.

The two children and their seven-year-old brother Prince Michael II, also known as Blanket, who was conceived with a European surrogate mother, were in the house when their father collapsed and died on Thursday, a family source said.

This weekend they were believed to be with their grandmother. “They were in a safe environment then, and they are in a safe environment now,” the source said.

An unconfirmed report quoting sources close to the family claimed last night that the children, who were healthy but “miss their daddy”, had said they wanted to stay with their grandparents.

Rowe, a former nurse and assistant to Jackson’s dermatologist, married the star in 1996 and received a large settlement when they divorced three years later. They remained “occasional friends”. When Jackson was accused of child molestation in 2005, prosecutors called her to testify against him. But she broke down on the witness stand and said he was a better parent than she was.

Stephen Lachs, a retired judge, who presided over the custody agreement between Jackson and Rowe, said she had not given up her parental rights. Unless there were strong reasons to the contrary, she was now the “presumed parent and guardian” of Michael and Paris.

However, Rowe does not apparently see herself as a full-time parent. She recently told friends that she regarded looking after her horses and dogs as a full-time job, and although she loved her children she did not really know them. She would, however, like to get to know them.

Katherine Jackson, the energetic matriarch, is believed to want all three children to move into her home in Encino, 50 miles from Palmdale, where she can raise them as young Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Born Kattie Screws, she limps after a childhood battle with polio and is famously tough, having routinely confronted and scared off women who approached her husband, Joe, when they were touring with the Jackson 5. The couple had 10 children, of which Michael was the seventh.

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