Help me avoid a falling out with my sister in law

Did you read where she said if he did that they would not be allowed to see the boys?

Your charming SIL places no value on your parents or their time but your DB should do better, does he really feel the same or is he afraid to gainsay his wife? If he was my DB I'd be having a frank talk about why he's happy to treat his DPs like this

If they are so dependent on your DP for childcare that they are using them even when your dad is ill, how likely actually IS it that they will withhold the children? How long can they REALLY go with sole care of two small boys without looking for someone to help?

And if they do find additional childcare, I suspect that they will still want someone to take the boys in an ad hoc situation. So the 'withholding the children' might not go as well as they expect.

Agree this is perfect.

She sounds horrible. I’d reply in the group chat

‘sounds awful dad, you must be exhausted. Please don’t be worrying about any of us or childcare, we all just want you to feel better’

This is perfect @everytimeifall .

So rude. I would reply on group chat "so sorry you are unwell please let me know if i can help" and an eyeroll emoji to sil's post.

Yeah, this is a good response. What a couple of pricks OP. Your parents should tell them to piss off and pay for care.

I'm with @IamIfeel on this one. Yes, we all like to keep the peace, but neither you nor your Dad are feeling peaceful at the moment. The old Mumsnet classic, "Did you mean to be rude?" would work well in this situation.

I would agree. She is an arsehole and probably the rude aggressive type that’s why no one confronts her. Stick up for your dad op. If they fallout then that’s that.

I would totally do this, OP. The danger of the second message is that your brother and sister in law take umbrage and withhold the children and your parents blame you. Only you can know how likely that is and whether it is worth doing. I see no problem with the first message though.

Why doubt it. Just because it’s a woman?

She can be a bitch in the group chat, but you have to hold your tongue? Why?
Shit like this happens repeatedly because everyone else yields to the foolishness.

Your brother and sister in law sound horrible. They are weaponising your parents’ love for their grand kids into manipulating them into free childcare. Think how damaging suddenly withholding contact would have on the children too? And they obviously don’t care about your dad, or they wouldn’t be sending the kids there when they can pass on illnesses that will obviously heavily impact your father.

I’d be angry with my SIL, but I’d be FURIOUS with my brother. He bears the lion’s share of the responsibility to your parents within that relationship. What a dick.

I think I would have to play dumb and say ‘I agree with SIL Dad, you should have a break from the childcare on Friday and rest’

I mean, fuck her frankly. Fall out with her, who cares. She's an arsehole and so is your brother.

And yeah I know, nobody likes confrontation, but imagine how your poor Dad feels and stick up for him.

Why are your mum and brother so passive?

Of course you’re worried about your dad but I don’t think anyone would welcome your involvement. As it’s been going on for ages I’d be at the point of not caring about falling out with her.

“Mary, dad is clearly really ill, it’s so insensitive and rude of you to ignore what he’s said about xyz and focus on what he can do for you and DB for childcare”

and then

“Dad, it’s up to you and I know you’re worried they won’t let you see the kids unless you do the childcare they want but you’re running yourself into the ground putting other people first and it’s going to kill you. Please look after yourself!”

All in the group chat and see what happens…

I do get those saying stay out of it - but I have to agree with the poster that you have less to lose than your parents if you were to step in to defend them.

I would call them out about the potential weaponisation of the kids before they do it, which may possibly shame them into not doing it. Something along the lines of "I need to step in here, as <parents> are desperately scared that they may not get to see their grandchildren at all if they don't continue to look after them. We've reached the stage where regularly looking after the boys is having a detrimental effect on them, and in particular, Dad. He is elderly, ill and has already ended up in hospital due to catching an infection from one of the boys, Mum is caring for him and cannot be responsible for an adult and 2 young children. This simply cannot continue. I appreciate that you need regular and reliable childcare, but you need to be looking elsewhere for this."

This is between your SIL and your dad and you definitely shouldn't get involved directly. If your dad feels disrespected he's free to withdraw childcare services himself.

You can of course provide support to him and let him know it's OK if he does that...

If my SIL ‘spoke’ to my father like that I would take her on and happily fall out with her. I feel anger reading your post. We are African heritage and we just don’t speak to our elders like this, especially when they are helping us. My SIL is African too but if she were an English rose from Berkshire, I still wouldn’t hold back. You need to do the right thing and speak up politely but firmly.

I wouldn’t rely on my brother speaking up. Many men spinelessly follow their wives for an easy life and when they don’t, their approach is often viewed as evidence of not being properly independent from their birth family.

The SIL asked whether the child care would be going ahead.

Your parents should always answer honestly.
They need to say NO if they are not up to it.

Your parents need to speak up for themselves instead of being upset that your brother asks after their wellbeing but not his wife. (In the same on-line chat conversation it doesn't make sense that SIL would repeat her husband's question.)

The childcare problem is for your parents to sort.
They need to be brave and truthful.

Ultimately your mum and dad are going to have to grow a set of balls aren't they.

Noting to do with you.

This is between your brother, his wife and your parents.

What I'd do is collude with someone else in the chat, say your husband or your mum or someone, and when she asks that type of question, you all ignore her message and instead spam questions/information about his health issues. It might be stuff you already know from talking to your parents, but you pretend it is the first time you are hearing about what the doctor said, or when the scan might be.

We do something similar in our family group who can never let anyone else share an achievement without bringing her own kids or grandkids into it. Sibling shared nephews prom pics last summer, she shared her granddaughters prom pic from 4 years earlier!

Where is your brother in this?

People are all fundamentally selfish, you it’s how the species survives.

It sounds like your SIL first and foremost consideration is keeping her own household functioning. Which isn’t unreasonable, because that’s what then allows you to support others.

Some solutions might be:
Set up a health updates group for immediate family only. Keep that separate from childcare chat.
Suggest a reduction in the childcare commitment.
Find an easy back up plan so that there’s less pressure on parents to honour their commitment, and it’s less impact on brothers household when that’s not available.

It’s a challenge that comes with using grandparents for childcare. Most jobs expect reliable attendance from their staff. Last minute cancellations are a problem for working parents. When there are two parents it should be less of an issue because they should take half the hit each - but if that’s her reaction Im going to guess that’s not what’s happening.

In this circumstance you should say something because you have nothing to lose whereas your dp have to bite their tongue to see dgc