AIBU to expect parents to balance support between adult children?

my mother hasn’t worked since she went on maternity leave 40 years ago.

The resentment shows.

I feel like this is something for my parents to manage. If they don’t want to do more than two days a week in total.

So how does your dad manage to work and look after the children for your brother/SIL two days a week unless he does every weekend?

Have you asked him to use his annual leave to help you out with childcare?

The OP herself said this isn’t about childcare and who does it, it’s about ‘support going all in one direction’. The thing about being left alone at Easter because they wouldn’t pick her up wasn’t about childcare, but about support in general.

So @Mirrormirroronthewal have you spoken to them both directly about their favouring of your brother over you ? And is it both parents ? What are the dynamics between your mum and dad on this ?

where is your dad in this ? you’ve really only mentioned your mum.

The expectations are mostly not there for men. Women mostly get judged hard if they do not want to do childcare. When do you ever see posts that my DF/FIL won't help with childcare?

@Mirrormirroronthewal

have you had any direct conversations with your parents about the real issue here - that they favour your brother (and by extension his feeling) over you and yours?

where is your dad in this ? you’ve really only mentioned your mum.

I’m sorry they seem really bad whatever people say about “your child your responsibility “They are willing to help there son with finances and building a close relationship with his child and not willing to help with their daughter and her child it’s unequal and not fair.
I really feel for you it’s not nice to have your child rejected and another child being prioritised by your parents and it must really hurt.
Try to spend time with mil partner’s siblings so your little one has extended family who love her and hold yours at a distance they are clearly not kind or fair people. Your brother is also happy to accept this unfair treatment of you and your child. Being told to be kind to force you to accept unfair treatment is horrible of them. Your baby deserves better.

I think my Mum's tried to balance as night as she can. My brother couldn't afford to continue his choir so Mum paid his membership then offered to pay mine too. But I live two hours away from Mum whereas he is only 30 mins away so she can just hop in the car to visit/help him whereas it would take more planning for me, plus I have my husband whereas my brother lives alone. I understand that he needs more support than i do cos i have other people who can help me. Im teens if money i think my Mum would always try to give as much to me as to him but in terms of company and time my brother needs more.

My mum literally made a point of making sure my nursery choice would mean she didn’t have to do anything for me- whilst she goes out of her way to help my brother.

But the fact she went to look it up- not to see the ethos or the environment, but just to check the opening times- then before she was even asked set out that she wouldn’t be offering any help stung a bit

Seem to be judging your mum quite a lot here. What about your dad or do men not get judged as harshly? What is stopping your dad from helping you?

What do you actually want your parents to do? Do you want them to pick your child up after nursery 1-2 days a week and stay at your house until 8pm/9pm, as they do for your brother?

Yes of course it should, have you asked them about child care have your in-laws offered any help with childcare. I think it would definitely effect the relationship If they are helping your brothers family out and saving them money every month then not being prepared to help you out with your baby how old is brother’s child now? Is it possible that they are struggling with the situation and they are not willing to help again with subsequent children.
Strongly suggest you book a nursery place close to your house or work asap and talk to them about what they are prepared to help with.

I live near my brother, and my mum is always asking me to help out with his house, and when she visits, will spend hours working on his house and garden with my dad.

I don't begrudge him the practical support at all, however it boils my piss that she's always asking me to help out when I work full time and have a toddler. And whenever they visit, my dad would always like to hang out with his grandson more, but she's always fixed on spending several days going back and forth to his house constantly whilst we get half an afternoon.

My brother is a mixture of a nice person and someone who whines a bit about lack of money - except he went to university on a full grant, travelled the world, bummed around doing low paid work, then settled into a reasonable income whilst my parents gave us all a house deposit. His small mortgage is paid off and he's still paid a FT salary - and I'm paying for the jobs on my house that my parents are doing for him!

That’s not quite true. The posts have been more along the lines of ‘if you show no interest in us or your grandchildren…etc’. Being involved in the lives of your grandchildren and actually babysitting them are two different things.

@catchingup1the poster probably focussed on the sil because she's talking about the sil's parents and the disparity in treatment of their two children, who are the poster's husband and his sister (poster's sil).

Because you have focused on the SIL. You only mentioned the DH when I asked.

My parents have my children 2 days a week. In termtime my mum gets to our house very early as we both start by 7am and gets them up, dressed and walks them to school. In the holidays we try to cover one of the days a week ourselves or offer to put them in a holiday club so they have the same routine as when they are at school. She has all of our leave dates and if we are off work she obviously doesnt come over.

My mum also does one day a week for my DB and SIL but collects their kids from school. My SIL is a SAHM so doesnt 'need' the childcare but my mum insists on doing it so its fair.

Why are you so insistent that I’m only focusing on Sil? I’ve mentioned her dh too. The blame falls only on my in-laws. It was their decision to provide care. It was their decision to not have a close relationship with our dc. Not Sil or bil fault at all.

Really, that's what you take from that post?

as for those people calling the op entitled and saying it’s her mums choice, it is indeed. And choices have consequences. If you ghost a friend don’t expect them to be a support to you. If you regularly buy 3 of the 4 friends in your circle a drink or lunch and stare blankly at the 4th, expect them to think and say you’re a royal bitch.

Yes older women should be punished for not providing childcare. Meanwhile the grandfathers are enjoying themselves laughing they do not have these expectations.

Yet you still focus exclusively on the SIL who had all the lovely benefits of childcare not her DH.

People are so quick to point out another woman getting childcare with no mention of the father. It is like he does not exist or benefit from the arrangement.

No she was married. Nice dh. Both worked full time in good jobs. Sil liked living a certain way with nice things. They had a lovely life. And don’t get me wrong I love my Sil she’s great!. Without that full time childcare, and I’m talking 6am in-laws would go and collect gc then bring them home fed and bathed at 7pm, then Sil wouldn’t of been able to have the lovely life she had. Childcare would if meant needing a full time nanny. Dh worked away from Monday to Friday.

dh did bring it up with his parents, not childcare as such but the fact our dc hardly get to see them. Nothing changed. So we just took a step back and got on with being a family. i don’t have any family myself so it was pretty hard to see our dc not getting a relationship with grandparents.

it’s quite sad today as in-laws are very frail but my now adult dc just don’t want to know them. It’s their choice. And in-laws know they’ve messed up. Shame

I’ve read all of the OP’s posts and I don’t even know if this about “fairness” with childcare, or her perception of who her parents love more. The Easter thing is sad, and there’s likely more of that from childhood or maybe when the brother married SIL. The childcare issue may be what has OP finally realising the real imbalance?

And then the reality for so many families is that the daughter will be expected to care for the parents when they are elderly. A good sit down chat with the parents might be helpful but might not fix any issues. Or as others have said to just wait until baby arrives and see how the parents behave then.

I would talk to my mum about this extra day she's committing to your db and sil - put a spoke on that wheel if you can because your db and sil are being very sharp elbowed. I'd want to put a stop to that if I could. Sometimes a bit of frank conversation is helpful - your parents might be getting sucked into a situation almost accidentally - the boiled frog analogy springs to mind and it would clarify things if they heard how this is coming across to you. Don't just sit back and allow your brother to take everything.

Of course, if you do that and nothing changes, at least you know and can plan accordingly.

I don't think anyone decent would mind a parent giving more help to their child who was truly in more need. If my sibling was ill or in an unfortunate position I'd absolutely want my folks to focus on them . The problem occurs when it's the already advantaged sibling who is getting even more help or where the siblings equally need a bit of help and the parents only help one. Fairness is important. It's true that this doesn't always mean treating siblings exactly the same but it does mean not favouring one unnecessarily.