To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

It’s not about you being an entitled brat. It is about expectation that you had vs reality. Many people simply don’t have those expectation in first place and see that having that expectation is a form of entitlement- ignore that.

It’s about communication between parents and kids wrt to what future holds. And that’s a conversation a lot of people don’t have. so, did you tlak to your ILs , you and dh, long before you planned to have children to understand what ILs position would be? What’d happen if there were other gc in mix?

I was never in any doubt that my parents wouldn’t offer childcare. Even if my mum hadn’t been unwell, and later dying. She’d been pretty upfront from when I started work and got engaged, before she was ever ill. And my dad was simply not cut out for it, he was barely there when we were kids! As for ILs they simply lived too far away, I didn’t take the hump, it was in keeping with what I knew about my mum and dad (and they were both teachers 🤣) , so expectations were always very clear. Sure, I used to be a tadge jealous of seeing other mums parents and ILs helping with childcare, but I knew before I had kids that was never an option for me.

This is about communication. You need to get dh to sit down with parents and ask they’re reasoning behind the lack of childcare….and be able to reset expectation over what they can and can’t help with.

Possibly, just possibly, the GP didn't think the arrangement would last this long and don't feel able to change it without damaging their relationship with their DD.

They may not wish to repeat the commitment as they are now older but cannot express this as if this gets back to their DD the relationship may be damaged.

On the surface it may look like a close relationship but it may in fact be fragile and highly dependent in them providing levels of childcare.

Perhaps, because they are actually closer or have a healthier relationship with their DS they believe the relationship can tolerate them having a less intense and more typical relationship with their GC from him. He seems to have a healthier understanding from what you had shared.

But you are having a little bit of a tantrum and your words, which you chose and had time to reconsider but didn't, relay that. So there is no need to be cross with responders who literally, took you at your word.

Equal doesn't mean the same.

So how many days a week would you side aside for potentially unborn grandchildren, who may or may not require childcare, at some undetermined point in the future?

OP, my husbands parents gave loads of childcare to his brothers' children. We had our kids later in life and, quite frankly, they would have found it exhausting. My dad and his wife had no interest in helping us with childcare although they did a lot for my step-siblings' children. Perhaps things would've been different if my mother was alive.

I totally understand why you feel put out but it could quite simply be that they committed to helping out your SIL's family first and don't have the time and energy to give more childcare. Perhaps they feel unable to cut the hours they do for her if they have already agreed to it. It does feel rubbish but try not to take it personally.

Yes that would probably break me too. I would not have agreed to do it if it meant that I couldn’t offer to help another child too.

Exact same situation here. Her DC and my first are weeks apart in age so not a case of ‘who got in first’.
SIL is divorced and has 50/50 with her ex - of the 3.5 days per week SIL has her child my MIL has him for one sleepover and does all nursery drop off/pick ups, even covers the Saturdays I’d say twice a month.
In school holidays MIL has him 3 days a week.
Meanwhile my kids see MIL perhaps once a fortnight for an hour or so. Last sleepover was 2 years ago for my eldest and never for youngest (although she’s only 2 and still breastfed so don’t expect her to have her overnight yet).
We live a 10 minute drive from MIL for context, she retired about 3 years ago ‘to help with childcare’, no grandparents on my side.
It’s crap but I’m learning that this is MIL choice and I need to accept that.

I think it does matter for the question of fairness though. My parents did holiday childcare for my sister and didn’t for mine. Her kids were 10 years older and my parents just couldn’t do it again physically. That may be not be fair but is totally reasonable.

I think it would be unfair if grandparents were doing 3 days of childcare for one 3 year old and doing 0 for an 2 year old. I don’t think it would necessarily be unfair if grandparents were doing childcare for school age kids (generally easier) but saying they couldn’t manage a day of a toddler. Number and ages of kids do really matter in judging fairness because capability can change (both for the grandparents themselves) but also in terms of what age of child they can manage safely.

On a tangental note - I used to believe one of my sisters benefitted hugely from "help" from my parents, to the point of being pretty incompetent or not doing much parenting.

Turned out I was being somewhat cognitively dissonant believing that information directly from my mother, given the fact that the one and only time she came to stay with me to "help" just after I'd had a baby (I live hundreds of miles from my parents) she drove me utterly insane making unreasonable demands, trying to boss me around, interfering without being any help and criticising anything I wasn't doing the way she would have done it, that I refused to let her stay after the next baby came along and insisted on putting her up in a hotel and treating her as a visitor.

I've no idea why I believed my mother's accounts on the telephone of gow much she helped my sister - she wasn't lying but definitely viewed interfering, sitting about being waited on while cuddling a child, and ignoring crying babies while watching TV and eating takeaway in the same house as said baby, as helping. She and my father expected quite a lot in terms of heavy garden work, DIY and pet care in return too.

Sometimes being helped requires the patience of a saint AND comes with strings as well. I wasn't in much direct contact with the sister who seemed quite dependent at the time (we'd drifted apart and I have several other siblings, some of whom I have more in common with) but circumstances meant we started visiting one another and being in touch more and I kicked myself when I realised thatof course my mother's version of reality and my sister's didn't tie up.

Your SIL might be doing more for your pil emotionally and in terms of generally hosting and hanging out with them than you and your husband would want to, in return for the childcare (which they might not be doing as much of solo as you think).

I’m not surprised you are resentful that your DH persuaded you to move next door and he assured you their would be the benefit of help from the in-laws.

I would be asking to move away before they expect you to care for them as you’re ‘next door’.

That’s exactly what we’ve done. It will be up to our siblings to manage any care requirements they may have.

To give some perspective from a grandparent...

I currently have one grandchild from my eldest dc. Last year I was looking after dgc 3 days a week, for 50 weeks straight. It nearly broke me, I was absolutely knackered. Don't get me wrong, I loved having that time with my dgc, but it is so much harder when you are older than when in your 20's/30's/40's. (I still look after dgc, but for less days.)

You seem to think your mil should be using all 7 of the days in a week so that she can help you equally, rather than have some days for rest - let alone catch up with any housework etc.

Your mil needs time for herself, to do her own thing, to rest and recharge. It does sounds like your sil is taking advantage - but you still feel she should be doing exactly the same for you.

Your entitlement is off the scale.

Well surely it doesn't work like that. In my family SIL1 and bro got the most child care, I got next most as daughter. Bro 2 got none and bro 3 got limited. Due to needs and location. All things are never equal.

This sounds a very sensible and considered appraoch by that one granny - one I may keep up my sleeve if my DS ever do have kids ..not hopeful 🙄🤣

Imho, it may be as simple as who requested first.
im looking after my great niece as emergency cover from time to time. It means I have to drop my other activities those days/weeks, and frankly it’s harder work for me now aged 60 plus than when I was mum to 2ds

so if one of my own sons has a child, (they’re a while off to pint great niece will be in pre school by then) and I agreed to child mind regularly, it’d be first come first served . If then other gc came along, I’d have to really think if I’d take an extra child on . Siblings ? Probably as they’re used to each other …and parents want younger one looked after same as older one and I’d be used to parenteral preferences and rules. But adding a new child, of my second son, jeez I’d be bloody exhausted in trying to remember which child needed what, should have this, as well as trying to handle 2 plus kids that weren’t siblings.

im not a trained childminder. Plus I’m not exactly overwhelmed by babies….give me a 2.5-9 year ld and I’m far happier and a much better “parent”. I find babies really hard and frankly a lot of drudge work . Love them as I do when they’re my great niece, or my own DS.

and I certainly not be offering up more different days to the second family..I’d be exhausted, and not have time to do things I wanted. When childminding for the gc or that next generation becomes something exhausting and not enjoyable, I’d offer to pay towards childcare tbh. I wouldn’t be stepping up to do more hours to be “fair”.

The only other way would to be negotiate with both families to agree to split the same amount of time between them, or first family send their older kids to nursery. But heck, that’s very disruptive and needs a lot of advanced warning for them to get child care sorted almost as soon as you became pregnant etc.

so, please don’t read this as being unfair, favoured daughter vs unflavoured DIL. That may play a small part, as mums and daughters generally are closer, but it may just be they cannot take on any more and it was first come first served.

Has your husband actually asked his parents as to why ?

I'm aware of that, but it's still their child's child!! Why does it make a difference which parent asked?!

OP of course YANBU. We have always tried to treat our children exactly the same. We also try and treat our grandchildren the same.
We started by saying that we would provide one day of childcare to each of our 2 children. We also do some babysitting as well. We are lucky that our children had their own children around the same time but when I offered for the first child I made sure I didn’t offer what I couldn’t do for the second child.
Now our grandchildren are getting older, it is school pick ups and holiday stays.
Our children get on well and help each other out too.
I think the problem might be your husband. He should bring it up with his parents. You should not think of your ILs as doing something for you but doing something for your husband.
As much as I love and get on with my children. I know for a fact that my children would not want to live next door to me!!
Is this a cultural thing?

Going against the grain here. Most grandparents I know at least try to be fair, regardless of who had kids first.

one granny I know has 4 kids so she was aware she’d likely have lots of GC. Instead of looking after only the first couple of kids to come along, she said she’d do a day a week for each child who was age 1 (so when their mum had gone back to work after mat leave) but then she expected the parents to use nursery/ other childcare for that day once the child turned 2. For the first year that meant doing 2 days a week and then a few years later she did 2 kids together on one day (she was a pro granny by then lol) but otherwise she just had one day per week every year for 8 years! Different kid each year! She wanted a close relationship with all GC, not just the eldest.

my own parents have my DC once a week but live 3 hours away from my sibling, so not practical to offer the same to them. But they get first dibs on weekend childcare for fun reasons like going on holiday, to a wedding etc.

my ILs said they couldn’t manage regular childcare for any GC but they make sure to offer a couple of weekends a year to both us and BIL/SIL, regardless of who lives closer or is older etc.

Unfortunately I don't necessarily think it's a daughter/son thing but perhaps a golden child thing. But yeah we have a totally unbalanced relationship with my in laws compared to my SIL. My SIL doesn't pay for any childcare. All school holidays are covered by both sets of grandparents. And the shared grandparents with us don't do any for us at all. Despite only being 6 months difference. What's even more frustrating is because all half terms and most of the Easter/summer is doing childcare, it also means they are too busy to see us and our kids during school holidays (not for childcare just spending time together unless our children share their time with the cousins whilst they are being looked after).

We've given up expecting and over time contact is just reducing and reducing. My oldest is noticing massively his cousin's are favoured and is beginning to ask questions as to why. It is sad and frustrating.

In regards to why your DH may not speak up, my DH doesn't (although he has moments where he has) because they always become defensive, whole family back each other up and he is rejected again. And after time and time of being rejected and never being the priority he finds it easier I think to just bury his head in the sand.

There are a few key questions you’ve not answered

1. how old are your sister in law’s children and what childcare was/is provided?
2. how old are your children and what are you hoping for?

I can’t really judge whether you’re being unreasonable or not without that info. You may also find you benefit a lot from being next door when your children are older eg school pick ups or shorter stints that really help you.

I think it's unreasonable and entitled to expect anything. You are the parents,so parent. They did their child rearing. They can pick and choose who they went to help, when and how.

My mum had my eldest brothers child 3 days a week for years. She also had my youngest brothers child 2- 3 days a week Fri -Sun. I have 2 children. She has them for birthdays, date nights snd hospital appointments. I works out to once or twice a month. I don't think it's unfair. She has aged in that time and doesn't have the capacity she once did. I think she also learned from it that it's not appreciated but expected.. instead of kissing her arse for the amount of money she saved them they would kick off if she was going on holiday or wanted to do something because she was letting them down even with plenty of notice and pre warning.

I’m not sure fairness is always possible. For one thing, changing a young child’s care routine isn’t always straightforward. For another, if your SIL has “had years of care already” then perhaps her kids are now a bit less intensive than a baby or toddler, and as the grandparents get older that becomes a factor. You can’t know how it would have gone had you and your husband had children before his sister. You also can’t know how many children (if any) each of your children will have, so you can’t save up childcare slots just in case, and tell the existing grandkids they can only have x hours just in case these imaginary future grandkids arrive and need the same number.

Finally, I have to say I’d be well pissed off if I started by offering 2 mornings to grandkids and ended up feeling obliged to give up 4 mornings! When I retire I want to do the things and have the holidays I can’t do at the moment with a school-aged child (plus I’ll be old because I was a bit older as a FTM), so my dc already expects nothing from me in terms of childcare 😂

I am in the same situation. I have made it clear to both sets of parents that they will need to lean on on those children who have had the majority of their time in good health.

Regardless of being next door do not be the carer - your sister in law has got that duty!

I completely sympathise i have a high expectation on fairness unfortunately life is not fair, however i make peace with it by making them aware that they are not to have expectations on my time in the future.