Im not excited with announcement of the first grandchild

There's a switch in my perineum that switches off the caring and nurturing, and a soundtrack in my head that says " Put yourself first for once before it's too late".

I was saying the privileged people who own their own home, plenty of renters could have their accommodation pulled out from under them at any time, hardly reason to start aborting wanted first babies due to a temporary issue.

You wait till baby is here 😙 it's the best thing ever x

I just don’t know how mothers can turn off the caring nurturing part of them to their children even when they are adults and have made a mistake/choice you wouldn’t. Surely you just want to help your children? I would be delighted if this was me in the OPs situation. It’s a baby - not a bomb. I would let them stay for as long as they need, make the spare room into a nursery, and the rent they pay I would save up and give it to them as a lump sum when they are about to get their next place. I’d also be offering to buy prams/cots etc. For those who are thinking well when does the help stop? It should always be there whenever they need it. I’m so grateful this is our way as a family, and how my family is/were growing up. My husbands family are very much ‘you’ve made your bed go lie in it’ and it’s fractured with no real relationships/connections. That attitude is somewhat removed from the emotional attachment of a family. Perhaps that thinking is what you would apply to a stranger but not to your family? I honestly am shocked at what people are saying

It’s irresponsible and selfish to just bull ahead and have a child when you have no housing and no stability. Plenty of people who aren’t “privileged” manage to buy a house or have something to rent long term before conceiving . It’s ridiculous to assume that everyone who plans their family responsibly is “privileged “

My wit is wasted in this place.

I think the fact that the couple are excited about this baby unfortunately says it all.
They need a reality check.

The DD and her boyfriend could have tried that too or abstinence rather than expecting OP to house their new family that they are so excited about.

Absolutely. You see it on here all the time. Can't your mum help? Go stay with your mum. Mums are often the ones helping. A lot of men seem to have a free pass.

I have seen so many posts here where mothers or mothers in law are criticised because they will not help with DC while it appears the fathers do not even exist.

It's easy to be excited about a baby when you are expecting someone else to provide a basic need such as shelter. It's a reason why I'd be saying that plans have changed as the agreement didn't include me housing a baby.

Yeah, that's the OPs prerogative too. Women who have spent a life parenting are allowed to say no to supplying on the tap childcare.

But the grandma in this situation has no problem with both her daughter and her boyfriend staying, it's just the baby she objects to, the baby that her daughter is excited about.
Also, I don't see how their situation could be considered deeply damaging to them.

I don’t know anything about OP’s husband but have found in general mothers bear the brunt of their children’s decisions, however old they are. It’s beside the by but my NDN left her husband a couple of years ago and her mum initially was over pretty much daily for months. Now she still comes over and does her washing and cleaning a couple of times a week. If the DC is having a tantrum, she comes round to help. It isn’t a village, it’s just her mum who is probably mid-late 60s at a guess and might want to live her own life…

I see similar patterns here. The DD is pregnant and expecting to live with OP. You know what will likely happen. Unless they live in a mansion, the baby will be waking the whole house up every other hour so OP will be exhausted and also will inevitably and naturally go to help through the night… I just don’t think it’s fair when OP has raised her own children and was looking forward to having her independence back.

Nobody needs to be 'taught a lesson' but I don't want my kids' partners living in my house. That's my bottom line and I am entitled to draw it. Yes, that is what I will do to my kids. Ask their partners to leave. Why keep asking that in tones of deep shock?

I will take the chance of my kids deeply resenting me and never visiting me. I don't respond well to threats. Not that they have made any! The only threats are by posters here.

Enabling your kids up to make poor, life altering decisions is deeply damaging them. Anyway I already know my DD doesnt want any kids before she establishes herself in her career. She had a scare a few years ago while in uni, and immediately asked me for help. We discussed termination. Luckily it was just a late period.

But the absolute horror on her face- in contrast to the OP's delighted daughter- reassured me she won't be expecting me to house her babies. DS has no interest in having babies he can't raise either.

You could say all the exact same about the mother 🙄
Like I said, they need to be taught a lesson right? For daring to conceive before owning their own house and not being at least 35 with the business well established and private pensions in place.
People can and do do well on less than all that. Since when did the criteria for reproduction only extend to the privileged few?
And are you advocating abortion like so many others on this tread for an much wanted child or just the lesson of forcing the young family because in your opinion they don't deserve to be parents together for not meeting your list of rules?
Talk about trying to damage a young family, is that what you would do to your own kids?

OP doesn’t. She said so in her first post.

All of this. It is NOT her job to fix their problems, and she can help them without rolling over and doing something she explicitly says she does not want.

They have hatched a plan to have a baby and it is their job to sort out the circumstances surrounding that - she's not in any way ethically, morally or legally responsible for letting them live with her. She agreed to them moving in before they sprung a baby on her.

If she doesn't want to live with a baby that's just fine.

Good luck to the OP, hope she manages for her own sake to do the right thing and let them clearly know they won't be staying in her home with their baby.

If they make that demand and try to emotionally blackmail her or deny her access to the child on that basis alone then the relationship is absolutely doomed anyway. Decent people don't demand to live in somebody's home with a baby and if they do behave like this (as others have suggested) all the more reason to draw boundaries early on.

Helping them doesn't mean making herself miserable and giving up her peace and doing something against her will. There are other options.

I'm still failing to understand why this is OP's problem to solve. They are making things more difficult for themselves by having a baby, it is their choice but they need to accept responsibility for that choice.

Maybe it would mean a shorter maternity leave than she would like or maybe then would be the time for UC if they would be so short they wouldn't be able to cover the rent. It's never going to be ideal when you decide to have a baby at a less than ideal time.

@Newyearawaits@Youshouldbestrongerthanme
@Poetnojo

No, it would be a separation designed to focus the pair of them on the reality of their situation, a way of growing them up very fast ahead of the arrival of their baby.

It would be especially designed to focus the budding entrepreneur on the financial reality he has been allowed to ignore up to now.

If he wants to live with his partner and start a family, then he will need to knuckle down, get a steady income, find a place to live - in short, to grow up.

He has been allowed to get ideas about his status that are not backed up by his earnings or his level of responsibility or maturity.

Boys who think they're entitled to the privileges of adulthood without any reference to the responsibility that goes with those privileges are a menace to women and children and to wider society.

You don't want to live with a baby. So do not do that. You can help them in other ways.

It's not their decision to make. It's yours. And there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with not wanting to live with a baby. Does not make you selfish, wrong, unkind or uncaring.

They are adults having a baby, so they will have to do the hard lifting themselves. That is their choice. You are helping them, just not keen on making your life miserable to do so. Which is your choice, and the right one for you.

You need to stop spiralling and thinking of the worse case scenarios, if they move in yeah it will take some adjusting to and possible compromises but it won’t be forever they will want their own space. I guarantee that having a grandchild in your life you’re family becomes such a blessing being Nannie and Grandad is wonderful the best title we’ve ever had and to have them live with you for even the shortest time is amazing opportunity to bond and should be cherished xx

But again what happens when she's on stat mat allowance if they can't afford the property on one salary? They go into debt and squat in the property? They are temporarily housed in separate hostels? They end up at ops at that point? It feels a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face going down that path unless they know they can afford it on one wage on top of all the things they'll need to buy for a new baby.

Yep. It is not what she agreed to and I would not be letting them live in my house with a baby either.

There are other ways to help them.

I would love to have my son and his partner living with me when they had a child!

I never said it would be a decent property or even in an area they want but it would be a chance at their own place and they could take it or leave it. It's true that they may not be eligible for UC, fair enough.

It isn't just wanting help though in your scenario, it's demanding the exact help that they want and nothing else would be good enough and it would be everyone else's fault but not their own for making that decision in the first place. I wouldn't want to help someone with that attitude, no.