Sorry a bit long
My mum has come to stay for several days, as my husband has been away. We have a 4.5 month old baby. She last visited 2.5 months ago.
The first days I cooked lunch (for her dietary requirements) saw other relatives with her / took her and our baby to a museum, paid for lunch / have promised to go for lunch with her, our baby, my husband tomorrow.
Today I said we could go to a park, but if ok, I would really appreciate some help, if she could spend some time watching/playing with our baby etc. I very much need to clean, particularly the kitchen. She agreed. I’ve also told her I’ve been up very late recently batch cooking for the freezer to try to save money and other house tasks.. so she knows how busy its been with a baby.
It didn’t work well.. as our baby was crying and rather than comforting or distracting, she would just tell him to ‘sheesh’ ie be quiet.. and the baby got very upset. I had to keep coming in which was fine. Eventually I took him back, fed him and he fell asleep on me. Due to how upset he has been with teething, I let him sleep where he was. My mum was nowhere to be seen and I didn’t have my phone and couldn’t move. Two hours past. I presumed she must be cleaning the kitchen. When our baby finally woke up, I found she had just been sat in the dining room, not doing anything. The place was exactly as messy as before. She said she didn’t know what to clean.
I was upset.. not so much about the cleaning, but that she doesn’t offer to help clean, cook, she is not nurturing of me as her daughter at all. I try to do nice things for her, but it’s not reciprocated.
I decided to bring it up. She said it’s like this for everyone, and that my grandparents never helped her.. but this is absolutely not true. From 6 months I lived with them and she collected me on the weekend or sometimes every other weekend. My dad wasn’t well and they agreed this. My grandparents fed me, took me to school, potty trained me, taught me to ride a bike.
I said to her, no one helps my dh and I. (My husband’s family are out of the country.) We don’t even have an hour or 2 help. She insists it’s normal to not have help. And everyone ‘just has to get on with it.’ She is nice on a surface level, but emotionally she doesn’t seem to have nurturing in her. I feel I deserve a bit of help like everyone and there is something wrong with society that we seem to have forgotten we all need this. My grandparents unfortunately aren’t here anymore. She’ll go tomorrow and that was my opportunity for a bit of help, gone.
YABU - she is right and we should just ‘get on with it’ without help.
YANBU - to deserve support and help for a few hours.