To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

I think, yes, quite often parents do favour their daughters over their sons. I see it quite often.

And if you favour your daughter consistently and put more into the relationship, they are then closer to you which gives you an excuse to continue that to the next generation.

None of our family, or that of my husband, have a history of fallings out though! And plenty of intergenerational childcare.

But none of that expecting the women to care because the men promised.

wow. And they wonder why families fall out with their in-laws with attitudes like this.

My mum feels the same way about my kids versus my brother's kids.

Waw, that was a very bratty reply about equality indeed.

The fact that this is a discussion about DIL, SIL and MIL says it all. She would not be helping her son. She would be helping you.

Now YOU can say that that is inequality, but it's not like you have set the stage for equality or for requesting DF or DFIL to help.

I would give equal help to my own kids to the extent that they are doing equal amounts of caring for their own children.

Helping a different woman who expects it from me for my gender while pulling the equality card would not go down well at all.

What do you mean not entitled to feel resentful? That’s not how resentment works!

Yep, that's what I will be doing as well. If I can't offer it all I won't offer it to one, or I will say I will do it until circumstances change and then we will need to revisit to make it fair. But I feel the next generation of grandparents will be working so late that childcare won't be an option anyway.

Absolutely not unfair at all. Circumstances will always differ in terms of timing, relationships, financial backgrounds etc. Childcare should not be expected. For grandparents to have to distribute their time equally could put them under too great a burden.

This is so bratty.

My brother and his wife get huge amounts of childcare from my parents, and huge amounts of money. I get nothing. My mum has his 5 kids most days at some point so the wife can work or mostly go out with friends. My parents brought them a house; and brought her a workshop and machinery for her business; which is actually really successful and she’s awesome for that. Meanwhile I can’t afford groceries

And idc they can expect less help from their son and you .... which will be interesting since you live nearer to them than their daughter.

If the OP's PILs point of view is that they have done loads of childcare for their daughter's children when they were young and they now want to enjoy the older children and to nurture those relationships which means that they don't really have any time to be bothered with their son's children, it is pretty unreasonable to expect OP to be happy with that situation.

If I were OP, I would want to move away from living next door to her PILs, where the inequality of treatment of the two sets of grandchildren is so stark and hurtful because she is witnessing this every day.

Are her kids nicer or easier than yours? And what is the girl/boy split?

I think the problem is that you are seeing it all from your point of view.

If you think of it from the gp's point of view, gc came along. They helped with them when they were little, which was tough but means they now have a great relationship with them and caring for them is fun and easy. They want to nurture that existing relationship. They don't want to have to put it on the back burner and miss out on them as they grow older because more babies came along.

Sure, more babies are nice, but they've been there done that with the hands on care, and now want to get to enjoy the older children. So they're happy to see then new babies as and when, but don't want to miss out on the older gc to set up fixed childcare days.

On my side things have been as equal as they can be. Difference in the age of the children and fitness of grandparents.

ILs clear preference for the SILs kids. Despite the kids all being similar ages and circumstances being similar.
I try not to let it get me down but they'll reap what they sow.

yes, you should do that. Do people not have open discussions with their family? If you offer to one you need to find a way to be equal to your other children. It doesn’t need to be the same though as it isn’t always practical. If I give regular childcare to one child to save them childcare costs but can’t for the other I shall be paying to towards the other’s nursery fees to make it equitable. I will absolutely be factoring this in at the start

Jeez I missed that you moved next door though, that must make it a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, just make sure that when they get older and ill you split THAT work fairly too, don't get roped into it all just because you're right there.

Living next door it does seem like they could make a bit more effort. Could you start asking them for more casual help, like I need to pop to the shops for half an hour could you watch DC, and see what happens? That kind of ad hoc cover can be so useful.

No, YANBU - I definitely think this is a ‘thing’ and have had a similar experience. My DH has three sisters and his parents provide waaaaay more childcare to my SILs than they did for us. When one had her second they basically moved in with her for a few weeks, and the other is on three DC now and GP’s have both semi retired now to provide several days a week childcare for them. The talk of semi retirement started when I had my DS (I was the first) - I remember asking them if they might provide one day a week childcare between them and it was a flat no.
It has stung a bit, as I have no family support myself and it has highlighted the difference between the ‘real’ daughters and me. If things were different I might have been more keen to have a second myself - and their support has enabled my BIL to set up a hobby business and leave his job while I’m beavering away in a ‘safe’ but pretty soul destroying career while my DS is little. It took me a little while not to feel some resentment.
But at the end of the day I’m more independent, we have moved area and have no regrets about that. They do often have DS in the school holidays (though they have said having him there makes it’s easier to care for the little ones) - and I am grateful for the experiences DS has with his cousins/GPs at those times.

You lose a lot of credibility when you suggest people will only disagree with you because they are biased in an obvious way. It's silly.

I am the oldest daughter of a large family, none of us get much help because our dad is not well and our mum is still working extremely hard. My mum has babysat my nieces and nephews now and then, mine never. It just never worked out that way. The love for all of them is there and equal, what else really matters?

I think a GP's time is not like money or gifts. There's no right to equal treatment. They have a finite amount of life and it looks like they are at capacity with providing care for SIL. Maybe they went all in when hers arrived not knowing how many grandkids they'd have? Maybe they enjoy interacting with their daughter more in the way childcare makes happen at drop-offs etc? You'll drive yourself mad wondering why you haven't got what others have got.

Honestly, I think that your DH is the problem here. He raised your expectations of help and support for your children from his parents to make moving next door to your in-laws sound more attractive. Now that you are there, he hasn't actually asked his parents for any childcare for your children. I wonder whether he ever intended to do this.

You are now in the unenviable position of having no childcare from your PIL, but by living next door, their obvious preference for their daughter's children and the amount of help they give her are totally in your face and you can't avoid seeing it.

Also, based on your proximity to your in-laws, it is likely that the expectations of help and support for your PILs as they grow older will be on your DH and you, because you live next door. I would certainly push back on that expectation if I were you.

What about your parents @Notyourproblem I don't see them get a mention at all?! They are the grandparents too, yes? 🤔

But when they offer support for the first GC, are they supposed to factor in the possibility that there will be other GC in future? How would that work? 'I'll look after GC1 for 5 hours a week because there might be 3 more GC and can only give up 20 hours of my time every week'? No - when the first GC needs looking after, they'll offer what they can. They don't know how exhausting that might be. And when the next is born, they are older, wiser and already committed. It might seem unfair but nobody should expect support.

Yes, I personally think they should reduce the support to one if their other child also needs help, otherwise it's a weird first come first served set up. I wouldn't expect them to double their workload but if they're saying they're happy to do X amount of childcare to support their adult children, it seems bizarre to me that one person could monopolise all that support purely because they had their kids first. If circumstances are different (such as one is a single parent with no support network, or has a much lower income, or the grandparents are now significantly older etc) then I think that's fine, but in a situation where both adult children have very similar circumstances it seems unfair to give one lots of support and none to the other.

The answer to your question is no you shouldn’t expect the same level of support because you shouldn’t expect anything of grandparents. They are not responsible for bringing up your children. You are being totally unreasonable to expect them to change the arrangements they already have with their grandchildren to accommodate you. And your reluctance to tell us the ages of the children makes me think you already know it is relevant.
I have looked after my daughter’s children for ten years but explained to my DIL that I couldn’t start all over again with a young child when my son’s son was born even though I would have loved to see more of my youngest grandchild. I am ten years older than I was and my health wouldn’t stand up to the rigours of looking after a toddler for anything other than short visits. Fortunately my DIL understood.

A good friend once said she'd seen my mil and sil in the supermarket, adding, "I nearly tripped over the umbilical cord!"

There's always a more favoured child. MIL once didn't turn up without letting us know to dd1's end of year show because "I had to go to go to Bluewater with because she needed to change some slippers that were the wrong size." I kid you not. It made me realise my kids were not even in the pecking order!

We're now NC. Not because of this but because of far far worse things. We're happy and just get on with it. But at 61 with dh 65 we're knackered and both working. DCs have no babies yet, but know we'll do weekends and emergencies but never regular childcare.