AIBU to expect parents to balance support between adult children?

So they give loads more time, effort and help to your brother and SIL and yet still expect you to be the more caring and loving child because you are their daughter and that is what daughters should do? That is completely unfair.

Realistically - parents can never treat children (or grandchildren) the same. Even if you go for detailed tracking to maintain parity on one metric, it’ll be out on another.

Financial help matched to the £. Almost certainly makes a bigger difference to one than another.

Child care time matched to the minute - but how does 1–2pm with a 10 yr old compare to 5-6am with a 6 month old. How does regular compare to emergency.

How does DIY compare to phone suppprt. How does a meal cooked at home compare to a meal out?

You hope for equal love, but that won’t look the same in how it shows up. It cant.

But surely if one child is massively favoured where childcare is concerned while the other child receives no parental help at all, it will have an impact on the relationships that each child has with their parents.

It is inevitable that OP will feel resentful that all the available parental help goes to her brother and his wife, while she needs to rely on paid-for child care. Having grandparents doing childcare also means that they will probably stillcare for the kids even when the kids are sick, whereas in OP's case, she or her partner will need to take annual leave when their child is too ill to go to nursery.

OP would need to be a saint not to feel some resentment and this will have a negative impact on her relationship with her parents. Her parents could have kept doing one day's childcare for OP's brother and his wife and offered a day to OP. Instead, one side of the family receives all the help while the other gets nothing.

Ridiculous to say they are doing it doing it for SIL and not your brother. They are doing it for both of them, we’ll never move forward if we don’t address men still getting away with doing very little because they’ve got big important jobs.

Was your brother always put ahead of you OP? Because it sounds like a classic golden child situation. The fact they picked SIL up at Easter and not you says it all! Why are allowing them to treat you like this? In your situation I would be asking directly NOW if they can do whatever day/s you need and if they say no then you’ll know where you stand. I would then be distancing myself and making my own life. At some point, probably when they are older and need help your brother and his wife will probably be nowhere to be seen, in your situation neither should you be. They can reap what they sow.

Have they shown an interest in your pregnancy?

This type of inequality in support is endemic in my family. Whole family is a dysfunctional mess. One brother was given thousands of hours of free childcare, kids taken on holiday and gifted a 200k house. Me and other sibling got nothing. Why? Because my parents can only deal with people they see as projects and are weaker than them. The brother who got the help is a complete fuck up and the more help he got the worse it got. Dare to point this out to my mother and she justifies it by saying I’m so competent I don’t need help. Before I even had children she told me she wouldn’t look after them so at least I knew where I stood. Suffice to say I don’t have any relationship with that brother, a very distant relationship with the other one and an increasingly distant relationship with my 80+ mother who cannot fathom why I will not drop everything to help her. Accept the situation OP and move on - they won’t change.

sounds like your mum favours your brother to you, simple as that. but, to be 100% positive, ask her to provide the same childcare she does for your brother.. her reaction will tell you everything you need to know. if she wont agree to help you in the same way as she does your brother, then you have a year to sort out childcare. it hurts when your own mum favours one sibling, but, i honestly dont think theres anything you can do about it - they will always find a way to justify it. she will also most likely do the same re. the grandchildren..

It would have been nice for your mum to offer one day to you and your child rather than increasing the days she looks after SIL's child. Your SIL will get four free days of childcare and you get none. That doesn't sound fair.

Has your mum always favoured your brother?

@Mirrormirroronthewal that is really sly. They are just getting in there so you can’t ask for help.

I don’t see how both parents can work such long hours & it will be hard once they start primary school.

Your Mum is basically saying you can’t factor her in with nursery pick ups.

If you didn’t expect anything, you wouldn’t be disappointed not to get it. Be honest with yourself at least. You’re having a kid, it’s your responsibility to look after it. Being disappointed that your mother isn’t going to either reduce what she already does for her existing grandchild in order to accommodate your new kid, or over-extend herself by offering you 2 days a week because “that’s fair”, is not very grown up.

It is because you're all scared they'll have nothing to do with you if you're not at their beck and call 24/7. THAT'S what I take from the responses to these interminable threads about how PPs parents aren't subsuming their entire lives for their disgustingly entitled kids.

I get really annoyed with this attitude of 'people get older so often can' t do as much for subsequent grandchildren' - ageing isn't exactly something that takes us by surprise!!! You should know you are going to get older and less able to do as much and factor that in when offering help to the first!!

My parents very much took the attitude they would only offer as much help to the first as they would likely be able to continue offering for subsequent grandchildren allowing for them ageing. They were very aware they didn't want to exhaust themselves offering multiple days per week for the first grandchild leaving themselves unable to do anything for later grandchildren. They were careful to balance things and have also offered alternative support to try and ensure they were being fair - eg where one family lived further away and offering help directly with childcare wasn't possible, they've offered other support eg financial support to pay for childcare /help with school holiday childcare instead.

People who want to be fair to their children are careful to consider this stuff before offering help to one child that they then aren't able to offer to another. Don't underestimate how much hurt it causes in families when adult children perceive themselves to be less favoured than others.

My dad is about to make a life-changing financial gift to my sibling for an 'investment opportunity', but refused to even discuss helping me out in a much much smaller way when I was in dire straights post-divorce a decade ago.

It's already causing huge resentment despite all their "yours will come in due course, siblings should stick together" nonsense.

That's pretty shitty of the lot of them OP. I'd accept that GPs will not be available to provide childcare. Play the long game - when they expect help, because you can bet your boots your DB and SIL won't be able/expected to provide any - be unavailable.

in your specific example, yes, that does seem unfair and can understand why you're unhappy.

But YABU to generalise the overall point. It's impossible for everything to always be completely fair in families, or indeed any other relationships.

As an example, there's a big age gap between my friend's dc and her siblings' - her parents helped her siblings out a lot with their childcare - but that was 15 years ago and there was a huge difference in being in your early sixties and running round after small kids and being nearly 80 and being expected to do the same thing. No it's not fair on my friend to not get the same help but it's also not fair on the parents for her to expect it when their circumstances have changed.

Sometimes life isn't fair.

In that particular case the parents paid for an extra nursery day to enable my friend to work because they weren't able to care for her dc themselves as they had with the older GC, but not everyone is in a position to do that.

Also, what should happen if there is a third child who didn't have DC at all? Should the parents give them £20,000 because they didn't benefit from the same savings as the 2 siblings would have had to pay out for nursery if the grandparents hadn't helped out? Either to spend on something completely different, or to go towards nursery in the future if they have kids after their parents have died? Then if they don't have kids is that fair on their siblings, who, if they'd had the choice between cash and GP help might have preferred the former?

There is probably an element of you mum thinking of the saying about a daughter for life and a son till he takes a wife. She is proactively picking up SIL because she thinks she won't visit if she doesn't. She assumes you'll always be there whenever she wants.
I would be distancing myself slightly from my DM at this point to see what she's like after you give birth.
Are your DHs parents in the picture?

Takes one to know one 😅

My bil (DHs bro) and sil are very happy to "be direct". They are happy to "take" and "ask"with little to no consideration for others.

Although childless currently this is 100% the sort of thing they'd do
they were bringing the increase forwards because “they didn’t know what commitments my parents might make in the coming months”

I am now blandly neutral we just try and get through with minimal thrash. (My DHs choice)

You are on a hiding to nothing with this...

my advice: make your own plans and if/when your mother comes knocking only agree to do what suits you / costs you nothing.

Bland neutrality for the win.

It's so shit for you though.

I agree. Tell your mum what bothers you.

Just say it to your mum. If it causes a rift so be it. The resentment eating you up is doing you no good whatsoever. Some people are arseholes. The whole lot of them are certainly acting like arseholes, call them out.

I think it’s really difficult. Sometimes things just gel better with one side of the family. Also I think it’s regularly the case that the first grandchild gets more grandparent care because the grandparents are younger and there’s only one child. Plus when the grandchild gets to 2/3 I can totally understand why the grandparents want to maintain the arrangement with that child who they are strongly bonded to and in a routine with, rather than take on childcare of another baby. Of course the relationship might not be the same with the younger grandchildren but then I think that the grandparents probably have taken that into account and made their peace with it.

I think that the best thing to do for your own sanity is to expect nothing from
them and not worry about what they’re doing for your brother. Plough your own path. But do pick them up if things are obviously a bit off like the lift thing and see what they say (what would she have said if you’d said “Mum I’d really love to come, could you not do a quick detour to get me this once”? I wonder if it was because they wanted to see their grandchild?).

And also assess your own behaviour -
if all you’re ever doing is asking for favours or money this can get tiring. Equally I’m always astonished by the rules some people want to impose on grandparents and then people are shocked that the grandparents say get lost!

But it sounds like they have suddenly asked for an extra day just before OPs baby arrives. To make sure OP doesn’t bagsy it by the sounds of things.

I think she is basically warning you not to expect them to do any pick ups. YANBU. My SIL & DB used to send their kids round Sunday & most Saturdays would be sent to sporting activity my Dad was watching. So I basically couldn’t see my parents on a weekend & if I tried to organise anything we had to have their children there too & SIL & DB made it clear they didn’t like the disruption. If my parents did an occasional visit then SIL would kick off. So my parents fell into line & hardly came on weekends. They admitted they were controlled but as SIL didn’t speak to her parents they said they had to help them out. They weren’t working on weekends. Just having days to relax.