'Dad's side of the family'...is it really a thing?

I married my husband not his family!
He can get his mum, brother and SIL a present/card… it isn’t my job! I do the same for my family, don’t expect him to get my mum a present etc.
Why should your DIL keep in touch if your DS doesn’t?

My daughter and her partner live in the same house as me, so I cannot compare. And I don't have a son.
Or a grandchild.

But my daughter's partner always buys me a card for daughter's birthday as I'm largely housebound.
And I can compare this with my sister who has a son and daughter of adult age. Sisters son lives close by, they (sister and brother in law) care for their grandchildren on a regular basis. So they are very close to them. Their daughter lives further away, but sister and brother in law pay for the same amount of child care for their daughter and are the baby sitters of choice of niece and husband need one.

I've no idea who buys and sends cards and such to who, in their niece and nephew situation. But I do know that my nephews wife and my nieces husband realise the sacrifices my sister and brother in law make for them.

I disagree with the idea that the woman should shoulder the emotional load. I'd not let anyone go without an acknowledgement of any significant day for them.

OP if my husband was like your son (which he isn't) and I liked my PILs (which I do) then I might throw a reminder at him now and again to contact/see/think of his side of the family and if he was still shit at it then I would foster and nurture my own relationship with them.
At the end of the day they are my childrens grandparents, they are the parents of the man I love and live with and by extension of that, part of our family.
I want my children to have a relationship with both sides of our family - aunts, uncles. cousins as well as their grandparents.
He sorts most of the present/card buying for his side as do I for mine, but occasionally we come together or even swap.
We both love spending time with extended family, sometimes he organises it (after running it by me) and sometimes I organise it (after running it by him.

If he didn't keep in touch with his Mum or Dad I know for a fact they would be so hurt - as you are - and as I'm really fond of them I would be doing it, not just for them or my children, but for me too.

But it's not by default a woman's responsibility to keep in touch with the grandparents! This is absurd! I have 3 brothers and they all contact my parents more than I do. I literally never contact my PILs. My DH chooses how much he wants his parents to be involved, it's absolutely nothing to do with me! Why would it be? Because I have a vagina?
Honestly, this seems to be an issue of your own making. You've set the bar very low for your son because of your sexism and now it's biting you. That's sad of course but it's all on him, not his wife!!

When I was a young mum (who worked full time and had the same responsibilities that young working mums have now), I knew that if I didn't do the communication thing with my in laws, it'd just fall apart.

Do we grandmothers just have to suck it up and conclude, as someone said, it's actually my fault for not bringing up my son better?

OP - these two statements of yours - the first shows why the second is sadly true.

You took on the mental load of being The One Who Does The Communicating. (because you think men can't do it! ) and - hey presto - that's what your son learned. From you. And now he doesn't do it.

Sorry, but it's dead simple. And it's a cycle we need to break.

I think it’s a bit harsh to say you should have brought your son up better.
I think differently is fairer.
We do better when we know better!
You’ve said that you took on responsibility for your in-laws. That’s what you modelled for your son. Whether you think he saw it or not, he will have absorbed at least some of that. You taught him that he doesn’t have to bother.
Well done to your DIL not getting sucked into doing things he doesn’t want to!

I would be open with him - tell him you’d like to see more of him and the kids, and you don’t expect her to make that happen. You’ve got nothing to lose if you don’t see them much anyway. People are busy, so don’t expect huge amounts of time… but maybe there’s an activity you could do regularly with the kids?

Fancy shifting the blame on to DIL rather than your own son

I wouldn't take on the responsibility of managing a partner's relationship with his family.

But I also wouldn't choose a partner that was so careless towards his mum (unless they had good reason to choose low/no contact).

I think you should stop blaming your DIL and let your son know how hurtful he's being by not making time for you.

I am so sorry you have such an uncaring son. Sounds like if he can’t be bothered to speak to his mum, he can’t be bothered to do a lot of things so you can’t blame his wife for not taking any shit anymore.

My husband has a great relationship with his parents, he sends cards, arranges get togethers, calls them regularly. My brother is the same with my parents.

I think if you have modelled the behaviour that the wife deals with all the family relationships, Christmas cards, birthdays etc., you can’t be surprised when your son does the same.

This argument falls down really quickly when you realise it only goes one way. Nobody is up in arms about the nation's men "loathing" their in-laws because they don't unilaterally take responsibility for remembering their birthdays and buying them flowers on mothers' day. My DH loves my dad, but he wouldn't see it as his responsibility to send him a fathers' day card from me. Why is that, do you think?

DH looks after his mum, she doesn’t like either of us but is marginally less rude to him.

DHs brother and sister moved away (wonder why) but she tolerates her daughter and idolises the other son.

I stayed in contact when FIL was alive, but she’s a hateful person.

She could have a lovely life but chooses to be a harridan instead.

That's your son's fault not your DIL. Talk to him.

Do you call and message him? Do you call and message your DIL?

When I met dh I made a lot of effort with my mil and was met with at best bemusement and at worst nastiness. I kept trying then after about 10 years I thought why am i bothering. So I stopped ringing, left it to dh to do cards and pressies and to arrange visits.

And actually mil has improved , I genuinely think she didn't want to talk to me she wanted to talk to her son.

We see them less (every month or so rather than every couple weeks) but both mil and I are happier.

Are you all saying that you loathe half of your family?

Genuinely, would you assume a man who didn't buy his MIL/FIL/SIL/BIL a birthday present loathed them?

I love my MIL, I think she's great. My DH gets on with my parents. But he's the "main contact" for his family I guess, and I'm the main contact for mine. And we don't buy the presents for each others family because we don't know them as well. I don't know what my FIL would like, but would choose a better present for my own dad than DH would.
If DH expected me to buy presents for his family because he couldn't be arsed, I wouldn't have married him.

No fault of your own?

You clearly have low standards for men and you believe women should pick up the slack for them. And it seems you’ve raised your son to think the same way. That’s your fault.

Your misogyny really is showing, and it’s hard to follow why you haven’t picked up on it despite all of these replies.

I would expect any partner to keep in touch with their own family. I wouldn't do it for them. I don't think it's a new thing. I send my ex MIL cards but only because we're not together anymore.
Your son should be keeping in better touch with you - if he was my son I would have a word about it and say I was upset.

If you feel you are missing out then you need to take it up with your son

I posted a thread about this today.

I did all this wife work for years to help DH out, but ultimately his mother was extremely nasty to me so I’ve now stopped. I’m sure she blames me for this too as you seem to blame your DIL but in reality it’s your son/my husband who are to blame for not keeping in contact.

or potentially you,
if you’ve done something to upset them!

Well, yes. And I say that as the mother of a son.

My DS is 16 and I expect him to remember his grandparents birthdays, etc. Not just use the excuse of well he's a boy so he shouldn't be expected to remember.

''Their men are useless at this sort of thing''

I don't know where to start!

''Their men'' are perfectly capable people when it comes to carrying out tasks at work, though. Funny that.

Could it be because at work they know that there there is no women running around behind them saying ''Oh don't worry that, I'll do it ha ha ha you men are so useless! .....''

🙄🙄

Please OP - see that it's cause and effect. If you're not expected to be capable of managing a thing for generations and generations because you're apparently hilariously ''useless'' at it and someone else always trots along picking up the slack, what do you think is going to happen? They're quite happy being ''useless''!!

And you're here asking why women are stopping the madness !

My parents in law started just contacting me about getting together when we married and I shut it down immediately just saying "that would be lovely to see you, chat to hubby and let's gets together" it worked. We see lots of them. But arranged by my partner.

Are you all saying that you loathe half of your family?

I don't loathe DH's family. I do hate spending my little free time on present shopping though, and when the day is finally done the last thing I want to do is pick up the phone and talk to anyone.

If DH was doing none of that work and I was doing twice what I do now, I would resent him and stop.

How can you say it's through no fault of your own when you enable and excuse his behaviour?

You've set your rock bottom standards and he's meeting them. The pair of you are in this together. Stop trying to blame a third party.

Cherchez la femme indeed.

Why don't you spend some time working on your own internalised misogyny instead of projecting it on to your DIL?

It's not shunning them at all. It's expecting the men to pull their weight, which they are perfectly capable of doing.

We never shunned my in-laws. DH was forgetful at times like birthdays etc. but they were under no illusions about what he was like and never blamed me. We still saw them a fair bit anyway. We didn't ignore them at all. DH had to learn his lesson, and he largely did.

100% it’s actually very tone deaf to come onto a forum where the majority of posters are women and make comments like this.

‘Women, I know your husband’s are thoughtless and don’t give a fuck about their family so why aren’t you stepping up and doing what needs to be done’ even though there’s nothing stopping the husband from doing said thing. The sexism is crazy