To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

Which generation is entitled? Because there are parents and GP alike telling their stories here so OP’s feelings are not restricted to one generation.
What I do think is different across generations is that younger ones are more encouraged to voice their feelings rather than the put-up-shut-up approach boomers and even gen x seem to be used to. After all, people can feel how they feel and you can choose to ignore them. Sentiments of jealousy and hurt don’t have to be concealed to make others feel better.

Correct. Free childcare is a favour, no one is entitled to it.

Disagree completely.

I mean, given that the help OP’s SiL is receiving from her parents includes them both driving a considerable distance to her house, looking after her children, cleaning her house and cooking - which leaves both ILs too tired to see their family next door on their days off -, I assumed it was a joint effort rather than MiL alone?

@CyanDreamer but there is nothing to say the GPs don’t have a relationship with OP’s DC, she mentions family holidays, going to events together.

I would much rather GPs had this sort of relationship with grandchildren than expecting them to provide childcare. I would want GPs to have retirement where they could be spontaneous not tied to my working patterns, school hours, our holidays.

I think a lot of people take advantage of GPs providing childcare, and GPs don’t feel able to say no to some of their children. This might be the case here, they don’t feel able to tell SIL they want to change days.

If one set of GPs were already providing 3 days a week childcare I wouldn’t be expecting them to take on more DC if I then had a child. I also wouldn’t expect them to change what they are doing.

I wonder how many posters here will be offering as much childcare when it comes to their time to be GPs

I believe my Mum did more for my kids than my brother's children because she said she felt more allowed to do it. I think it was a Mother/daughter thing. She definitely doesn't like my brother or his wife any less, she just felt she had more freedom.
If I'm honest, I also don't have as much money as my brother so I asked for help a lot more, or she could see I needed it more often.
Please don't take it personally - it's really not. xx

What a nasty post, don't be so ridiculous and stop projecting. It's so nasty it's even funny 😂

of course it's unfair to treat your grand-children unfairly! Literally the definition of unfair - or treating your daughter and son unfairly, which is the same.

Look. After. Your. Own. Children
She is. She is also being a good mother and a good wife to be unpleasantly surprised by in-laws favouriting other grand-children and daughter over son.

It's always a bit sad when your children don't have a relationship with their grand-parents because the grand-parents only care about their cousin.

On the plus side, in-laws can jog on if they ever need help or suddenly wake up that they're missing out on an entire set of grand-children. MIL owes nothing, fine, but no-one owes her anything either.

Wait until the daughter is not interested in helping elderly parents and everyone expect son and his wife to step in. We'll see who the real "chancers' are

What she's getting is an afterthought and pushback, so no she doesn't have to feel grateful for that, whether it's owed or not.

All I mean is there’s a difference between the sil getting childcare to work and the op if she was asking for childcare to go for a spa day. And the op hasn’t explained.

we don’t know if the sil has two or three or four or one or eleven kids and we don’t know how many the op is asking for to be minded. Nor do we know what age the kids are. I might keep a 3 and a 5 year old with no bother, but two 1 year olds and a three year old I’d find much more difficult.

we also don’t know what age the parents are and how long they’ve been doing childcare for.

and really, all of that is for the ops husband to ask and discuss with his family. Not the op. Because families are strange and families that aren’t yours are really strange and you never understand the relationships fully even when you think you do.

By using this logic the daughter isn’t entitled either

Whilst I agree the husband should be taking a lot of the blame for this, it is not how you framed your comment at all.

@ruethewhirli think maybe OP phrased it badly at first with the use of ‘expect’ and acknowledged that. No-one is owed anything, but don’t you think grandparents should try to be fair with the amount of time they spend with each set of grandchildren? She did say ‘time and effort’ in the OP, and it probably stings even more that she lives next to her PIL and sees the disparity in treatment up close

Erm, no, ungrateful for what she does get. They don’t owe her any.

She’s ungrateful about the lack of childcare? 🤨

What a silly and pointless thing to say!

Ah ok. I don’t think I was quite awake 🤣🤣

I was agreeing with you that her DH hasn't spoken to/negotiated with his parents about the childcare situation. He told her that the support from his parents would be equal to what his sister receives, but it hasn't been and it doesn't seem as though he wants to do anything about it.

It isn't clear what OP's childcare needs are, whether she is working and paying for childcare or whether she just wants her PILs to look after her children to build a close relationship with them.

The op hasn’t explained what age the kids are or what the childcare is for. Or what the situation with her SIL is. And her husband has promised her all sorts on behalf of his parents but never spoken to them.

he’s the problem.

OP’s parents are not on the scene. She hasn’t wanted to say why, it appears to be a painful subject to her. It doesn’t appear that she has any family support at all.

it doesn’t matter if it’s a daughter or a daughter in law asking for help, the children are still grandchildren no mater from where they come from. Why is that so difficult to understand.

I think you’ve been getting a bit of a hard time on here OP. I don’t think you’re unreasonable in the theory that grandparents should want to support their adult children and grandchildren equally. It’s not just about support either - it’s about love, interest and care - those things don’t cost anything.
unfortunately it often doesn’t work out that way. I am in a similar situation to you - SIL had two of her children first (we’ve struggled with years of infertility) - she gets not only childcare support (multiple days/ week and at anytime she wants) but also financial support and paid for family holidays (for context she does not have money problems - she and her DH are the wealthiest out of all of us including her parents). My BIL’s (DH’s brother) family and our family don’t get any help of any type and the grandparents barely make an effort to see or keep in touch with their grandchildren from their sons. You wouldn’t even know they had grandchildren other than SILs kids - they never talk about BILs or our kids - yet they talk about SILs kids all the time and have their photos up all over their house (there’s none of the other kids). it’s really hurtful for the two brothers as they see their parents giving love and care to their sisters kids so they know their parents are capable of it yet they don’t want to show that to their children - whether this is a conscious choice of the grandparents or just ignorance we don’t know. When asked the grandparents just say ‘life isn’t tit for tat’ - they’ve never given a reason as to why they show more interest in their daughters children than their two sons children. It really is an awful situation to be in OP and for our family it has caused friction not just between the sons and their parents but between the sister and her brothers too - and now the cousins don’t have much of a relationship either - it’s just really sad. As the in law it is up to your DH and his family to sort this out - you just need to support your DH

He should be speaking to them though not her is the point of what I was saying?

what do you mean by no he hasn’t?

No he hasn't. He basically got her to move next door to his parents under false pretences by telling her that his parents would provide equal care but it appears that he has never raised this with them:

'This really causes some upset in our house, because we live next to his parents (which was his choice) and he always said the support would be equal but now doesn't ask for it'

I presume that if OP didn't have to live next door to her PILs, the inequality of treatment would be much less obvious.

I wouldn't be surprised if the expectation from her DH and her PILs is that OP will be expected to provide help and support to his parents as they age. If that is the case, OP should absolutely put her foot down and refuse.

We were lucky to have GP childcare on both sides with mine when they were little and they had them for sleepovers every few months from around age 2 until early teens. My SIL/ BIL had their kids 12yrs later than us and my PIL are now in their late 70s with lots of health issues and can't look after 2 energetic boys. They've never been able to go for a sleepover because the boys cosleep with their parents.

In our instance, we had 2 calm, easy to look after girls and the GPs had the health and energy to look after them but not in the case of my Nephews. It's a timing and health issue.

My mother in law does all our childcare (which isn't that frequent, maybe the odd night out every few months) as my own mother is useless. What's the situation with your own parents? Do you ask your in-laws for child care and then they refuse or do you just wait for them to offer?