To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

Is it possible your DH isn't asking because he sees the toll that caring for his sister's kids takes on his parents and doesn't want to burden them further? I ask because of all my siblings I seem to be the only one aware that my mother has become frailer with age and so I try not to ask her for too many favours.

Given the tone of your posts, personally I’m finding it hard not to wonder if the reason you don’t get what you ‘expect’ is that your sense of entitlement is coming across to your ILs and they’re not inclined to do more for you for that reason.

I think your husband has let you down and he’s a bit of a cheeky bastard promising you other people’s labour.

why hasn’t he asked them for help? Why didn’t he talk to them when you were on maternity leave? (I’m assuming you need to go back to work)

I don’t think you sound entitled at all. Did your husband promise that his parents would help out but has done nothing h to address this with them? Was this part of the agreement when you moved next door? Grandchildren are grandchildren and it shouldn’t matter from which child they come. In an ideal world your in-laws would recognise this and come to some sort of compromise with all of you .

Her and her husband discussed it before they had kids is how I read it - the op says:

“and I was over promised by DH.”

You don’t know if she got her husband to promise it at all. He could have offered it off his own back and not followed through by discussing it with his parents

You can’t make this judgement when you have no idea why the OP’s parents aren’t involved. It could be a myriad of reasons. The inlaws have two sets of grandchildren regardless if they have come from the son or daughter.

That being said the OP husband needs to take ownership of this especially if he has promised her something but is refusing to act upon it.

Also I don’t understand why she would have placed so much store on getting “equal” childcare but her DH hasn’t even spoken to the in laws. He sounds like a completely cheeky fucker to have volunteered his mother for childcare and not asked her!!

and if the op was so sure she needed this support that she got her husband to promise it before they had kids, that just seems weird to me. What if the in laws die or become unwell?

I don't think people are necessarily missing the point about the inequality. Some of us have chosen to make a separate point of how entitled OP sounds because it really is ringing out so loudly from most of her posts.

This is so exactly our experience that I could have written it myself. Everything my child achieves my fil resents as his favourite grandchild hasn't got it. I now don't share the achievements as it is embarrassing and weird. For him.

See I don’t get that from some of the posters. It has to be fair is what they’re saying. And it’s fair according to them - not taking into account age or health or anything.

doesn’t help that the op hasn’t been specific.

I am having a hard time understanding how the point of this conversation is going so far over some people’s heads. If you care for one grandchild when you’re in your sixties and then, fifteen years later, a new baby grandchild arrives and you find yourself unable to do the same amount you did with the first, no reasonable person would fault you. If you are currently, as in today, able and willing to provide four days a week of care for grandchildren, it is absolutely not fair or reasonable that you should allocate all four days to your grandchildren from one child’s family, leaving zero days for grandchildren from your other child’s family.

You are, of course, legally free to choose to do that, but the child and their spouse who aren’t benefiting from your capacity for care are also legally (and morally) free to adjust how far out of their way they are willing to go to accommodate the grandparents, both now and in the future.

Grandmother here. It's tricky to be fully 'fair' in this situation. My stepdaughter (her mother died, and my DH, her father is also now dead) had children first, and probably got the bulk of the childcare, simply because I was available for some days and had the energy. My DS had children later and though I do help out, I help a lot less than I did with SD's children. I didn't want to change an established routine and I didn't have the energy to take on more days.

My DS and DIL understood this, and there were no issues. They know I am there to help in any emergency and I have, on occasion, and all four GDs together when just such an emergency came up. These days, the need is less as the grandchildren are older, but though I was fit and healthy, I didn't have the energy (ot, tbh, the inclination) to use up all my time in childcare. I'm glad I spent a lot of the time with my late DH while I still could.

I never felt there was any expectation on the part of my DS, my DSD or their partners to offer childcare. I did what I could, and that was enough. 'Fairness' doesn't really come into it.

Op Can you share what sort
of childcare you are looking for from your in laws?

is it one or two days a week to give you a break? Is it two mornings so you can work? Is it holiday childcare?

also why hasn’t your husband actually asked his parents for the help?

is your father in law still alive? There seems to be quite a lot of focus on MILs but I’m wondering if your fil is still on the scene?

I think no matter how people try to phrase it it is an entitled behaviour, whether or not you use the word expect or deserve instead.

People feel they are entitled to the same treatment on the basis that it was given to another family member.

So here is a question, if the help had not been given to the other family member, would they still feel entitled to it ?

And from then on it becomes a question of whether or not another family member (grandparent) is entitled to have a relationship with or do something for another relative without it being anyone else's in the families business or without inherently promising that same thing to anyone else in the family in the process ?

Comparison is the thief of joy here.

My mum is scrupulously fair when it comes to presents. But my three year old has cried about hearing how Nanny took his cousins to days out, hearing how they’re around her house, going to the park etc. She has the others every evening after school and all school holidays, so if we drop in, it’s very clear they’re there all the time and it makes him a bit sad. We brush it off and I take days off work during the school holidays and plan things with my mum that he and my one year old can go along to as well with his cousins. It’s tricky though, I’ve just asked my mum not to mention the fun stuff with his cousins in front of him. But obviously his cousins do, because they’re just small.

Not really sure what to advise, but just mentioning that they did notice it earlier than I expected

They probably will notice as you're living so close.
Are the cousins close in age.
I'd have an honest chat with MIL, you're protecting your DC's future feelings, if things don't change, I'd move away.

Why, @Nearly50omg the GP's probably aren't as entitled as the OP is.
@Notyourproblem I don't know why your husband promised other people's labour instead of his own in looking after the kids you had together.

If you can I'd move, Its not going to change.

Can you imagine ushering your kids out the door to kids club, while their cousins are getting dropped off next door to be pampered by grandparents?

Or GPs collect them from school while yours go to afterschool.

And thats not even taking into account the financial stuff.
Or the fact your next door so easy to rely on you to provide elderly care when required.

Make it clear to them now that as SIL has had so much help with childcare and everything else that of course SHE will be the one to help the inlaws when they need it and when it comes to the reverse caring needs as despite living next door you aren’t their daughter and she is and caring goes both ways. Otherwise not just your SIL but your DH will expect you to take on their caring 24/7 and you will be next door washing them and changing pads and washing wet bedding etc while the SIL is “too busy” and your DH is “working” this is a tale as old as time and maybe if they are made to think hang on then they might start helping you a bit but if not then at least SIL is prepared as you have made it very clear well in advance that as they are her parents and she’s had all this help for her children of course she will be the one giving back to them not you!!!

This is a good comment. It’s also sad when the children start to notice themselves, and they will. Living right next to them can’t help with that, as they (and you) will see the very different treatment.

If it isn’t too expensive and this isn’t your forever home, I’d probably look to move a little bit further away

It's not right op, but it is families. When there is unfairness like this for your own sanity you have to suck it up.

We've had similar with one relative contributing far more financially and practically to another relative but you have to learn to live with it or else the resentment becomes the overriding problem.

The sil and ils will absolutely know what is going on is not fair or right.