AIBU to think paternal grandparents are treated as the spare option?

A lot depends on individual family circumstances of course, although perhaps women are more reliant on the continued support and close relationship with their parents if they have DC of their own.

In my personal experience, however, PIL can be less interested in the children of their son than their daughter. Neither my parents or my in-laws live particularly close but my parents have always made more effort to see us and be involved. DH's parents live over 100 miles away, so of course it's not that easy to see them regularly, but we have always tried to arrange things several times per year. When they do visit, they only stay a couple of hours before they want to leave. We offer to visit them more often as we know it's a long drive for them but they get stressed at having us visit the house as they feel the need to prepare a large meal (we have offered to take our own food or take them out for lunch).

They have previously offered to have our DC to stay for a few days in the holidays but when it comes down to actually arranging something, they never want to do it. However, they see a lot of their grandchildren on their DD's side. They are closer, only about 45 minutes away, so of course that makes it easier. But they provide childcare several times a week and have their DD and the DGC over every weekend. When DH speaks to them on the phone they spend all their time talking about the other grandchildren and barely ask about our DC.

DH has an otherwise good relationship with them and speaks to them regularly on the phone. I know it upsets him that they show so little interest in our DC though and only see them for a couple of hours twice a year.

Nope, not my experience

For me it's obvious, I am much closer to my mum than my MIL, and my DH doesn't make much effort to see his mum, therefore we don't see her very often. But also, she knows where we are, she doesn't message or pop in to see us or her grandkids 🤷
The kids from babies would usually be with me, so they would see whoever I was seeing

DH is really bad at organising to see MIL. She is lovely but I have enough to organise with DC so leave it him. Will say to him to invite her round for things but try to leave it to him to make the actual arrangements.

If he made more of an effort we would see her a lot more.

About 50:50 with us, although when they were younger, I would prefer my DM to look after DCs because MIL had a way of overstepping the mark that my DM never did. I always had the knowledge that she might well undermine me so I would much prefer my DM having them.

I think it depends which parent facilitates the relationships. I am naturally closer to my parents so will invite my mam over if DH is away, or drop by for a coffee or go shopping with her etc. therefore DS sees more of them. However, DH does also do similar with his parents, but not as often.

I do think my Mum struggles with the idea of other sides of the family (my ex ILS, my auntie’s ILs etc) as being equal though.

She’s ok with my brother’s ILs being seen as equal but they are from her cultural background so that helps (they from the country that her family originates from) plus my brother doesn’t have children.

When I was with my exh, I would say definitely not. I think the two sets were treated equally. Exh still sees a lot of his Mum with joint kids and his younger kids.

When I was a child definitely yes but that was partly due to my Dad being less close to his parents/ making less effort and partly due to them living 5/6 hours away as opposed to 2 hours to my Mum’s parents.

Completely depends on the family dynamic and how much effort people put in to the relationship.

I love this idea of men as peacekeepers.

Fairly evenly shared because DH organises stuff with his folks and I do the same with mine. Coordinating diaries.

I don't think it's as cut and dry as that. But I also get that it is more normal for maternal GPs to be more involved, due to the likelihood of things such as shared values, more open communication, more sense of entitlement etc. My parents are much more involved with our kids, than my husband's, because I just trust them more, and I don't feel awkward about asking them and if something happens that I'm unhappy about I feel I can talk to my parents and they will respect what I'm saying. They are more emotionally intelligent and reliable. Having said this, I can understand that if you are emotionally intelligent and respectful of parenting choices, and willing to help, it must be upsetting to feel like the back up.

It’s more to do with the kids dad than the paternal grandparents. If the mum is organising everything she will lean on her parents, if a dad is an active parent then he includes his parents. It’s not a woman’s responsibility to facilitate that relationship if the dad isn’t bothering

It varies. I'm far more involved in my GD's lives than DIL's mother. It's just the way it works out. It depends on families, proximity, a load of things.

My parents are dead and PIL are local and very involved.

I don’t know because the maternal grandparents have obviously been very very involved in the raising of their own daughter
They might have run out of steam by the time they get to the grandkids

I suppose when you're busy going on lots of world cruises then being involved with raising your DGC comes second fiddle 🤷‍♀️

I never did feel MIL wanted to be truly involved. DM has her health issues more these days so we hardly see them.

Another vote for PIL’s - my DH has amazing parents and I don’t. We moved hundreds of miles to be near them and our kids have a really close relationship with them.

Nope PIL are default here. They live an hour a way- hubby is disabled, and they are amazing (do DIY, childcare, and are generally amazing). My parents live further away but hubby will phone his parents to organise childcare before he would consider my parents....

Men shouldn’t really need to be raised to understand that family life isn’t “women’s work”. Most of them are perfectly capable of reaching that conclusion themselves. As a woman, I was taught that it was women’s work, and I still managed to work out on my own that it isn’t.

When people say that we should be teaching this to our sons, they’re still putting the burden back on women.

I saw my paternal grandparents every week. They were lovely people. My maternal grandparents weren't interested in us and I only saw them three or four times in my entire life. My own DC saw both sets of grandparents equally. It depends on the individuals, where they live, whether they work and so on.

You will obviously hear on this thread from the exceptions, but, yes, it's definitely a pattern with studies showing maternal grandparents are twice as likely to be the most involved. It stands to reason, assuming an equally good relationship with both sets, that mothers who are most likely to be primary carers of children and tend to take the lead in domestic arrangements are going to gravitate to their own family. Any parents of sons who wants to buck the trend need to raise them not to see family as women's work

I saw more of paternal grandparents than maternal ones. My DDs are good at ensuring they split time fairly between us and their pils. Eldest dd and her dh had breakfast with us and went out for tea with pils. Middle dd spent day with us her bf spent day with his family. Christmas they do tend to prioritise us but we have a young child but they still see their in-laws Xmas day evening

I do agree I think it’s natural when women turn to their own parents for support. However I don’t manage any of this stuff for my DH I couldn’t be arsed and why should I ? I also expect him to do 50 percent of the childcare as well because we both work and his parents are proactive and interested in their grandchildren so i guess im lucky in that respect .

Paternal grandparents are as useless as their bloody son 🙄 they’ve zero interest in their grandchildren, they are for Facebook or others

I honestly don’t think many would ever stop a truly genuine loving family member, who actually wants to spend time with their grandchild would.