AIBU to think our current grandparent visits are fair?

If I was the GP seeing the DC every summer holiday, every Christmas plus extra weeks I would be telling my DC that it wasn’t fair on the other GPs, matter how much I missed DC and grandchildren. Do your parents ever say anything @Pinkmondays

I answered the wrong post. Sorry.

So you see your parents for the equivalent of 6 days a month or thereabouts, and MiL for 1 day a month, and FiL a couple of times a month.

That's a substantial disparity. How would you feel if your son went on to do the same, and you're the MiL?

If GP2 contains your children’s real grandmother I would swap the frequency of GP1 and GP2 visits. An hour really isn’t a long drive — see them every other week and see your husband’s dad once a month. She’ll be happier then & I’m sure your husband’s dad wouldn’t mind

I personally think spending every holiday with your parents is overkill — you’re basically living with them for part of the year at this point. Ask them to come to you, share Christmases and summers.

Yes this happens to me with my mum. I see her once a month maybe once every 6 weeks when we’re busy. But we have weekends away, holidays together etc. She never asks to pop over to see me. But she still makes comments about how she never sees me and I find it infuriating and think well I can’t win anyway, so maybe I won’t make as much of an effort

They should’ve raised sons who wanted to see them more then 🤷‍♀️

Why is it whenever there is a thread about MILs you are on it and always in defence of the MIL. I recognise your username from so many threads over the years. Are you a grandparent and so find it easy to place yourself in the GP position because you deffo could be leading the MIL defence society 😂

Or, his parents: 38 days. Hers: 70 days.
it’s still more, but surely up to DH if he wants to see his parents more? Once the children are older, the week long visits will be less possible, I’d go while you can.

I don't think relationships are something that needs to be "fair" and I think it depends how each of your families worked before children. So if you were used to visiting your parents that continued, and he didn't visit his mum that often. Especially since you moved from your country to his, you aren't just visiting parents but also home, and allowing your son to experience too.

You sound like my SIL OP. It causes a lot of upset here. My FIL makes every effort but comes second fiddle to my SIL family.

It’s pretty crap when you see an 80 year old man upset, but it is my BIL that lacks backbone to stick up for his family.

If someone started moaning that I didn't see them often enough it would make me want to see them even less.

Does it make you feel the same?

Like it's not really polite to demand more of people's time. You can invite them to stuff and then accept it if they decline and that's about it. And be happy for the times you do spend together.

A full day once a month isn't unreasonable on it's own, but it does seem harsh if they never get an overnight stay (e.g.: an actual full day in your company from morning to evening, including adult conversation with their child after the kids are in bed).

Good lord - there’s enough visiting going on without throwing overnights into the mix!

I think you are doing amazingly well to spend approximately a third of your life with one or other of the grandparents. That's just a huge amount and I bet most people on here criticizing you are not spending anything like that amount with them.

I spend vastly different time though with my own parents, I enjoy spending time with one of them, the other not so much, I wouldn't dream of spending large chunks of time with people I didn't get on with.

If your husband's parents aren't happy then they will have to come more, or he has to take the children to stay occasionally on weekends.

I think you already spend probably too much time with grandparents, and I suspect that's because your own parents, your mum and dad, tend to do childcare and help so much that staying with them is tempting, people visiting occasionally is a different dynamic and that's just the way it is.

Does your dh also spend those weeks with your parents or do you go on your own with your dc for some of the weeks?

Is there anything stopping him visiting his mum without you?

I think you are doing a great job to see them all regularly, despite distances, and dh not pushing for more time with his parents.

I was continuing to respond to the poster who said if OP's ds copied her dh it wouldn't be her fault, as if that made it all OK, and just making the point that sitting back and watching that happen might not work out well for her long term. I'm not suggesting she should force it, just that she perhaps shouldn't just shrug and say not my problem, not my fault (even though it isn't, whether that's due to less effort from her dh or him just being less close to his parents). Like a PP said, it's worth modelling what you would like to see when you're the gp.

Re the OP's split of time, one thing to consider could be that in years to come going to another country for the whole summer may not always be what's best for her ds. There's a lot to be said for good chunks of summer playing out with friends, even from primary school age. Maybe the time with gp3 will be front-loaded to the baby/infant school years and have to happen a bit less later on, so it will even out eventually.

but honestly this is a lot of time. How old are your kids? When do they see their friends, play sports, go to birthday parties and spend time in their own house?

This. So much to-ing and fro-ing, you can’t get much time to yourselves?

Surely it’s up to the ops dh if he isn’t happy with the time split.

It's not surprising they are fantastic with him you are giving them huge huge amounts of time with him to build that relationship while giving his other grandparents a fraction of that time.

Sorry OP but you are massively selfishly prioritising your own parents because they are important to you, to the exclusion of his other grandparents getting a look in
Be very careful what you model to your child - is your child a boy? You are modelling to them that it's ok for grandparents on the paternal side to be ignored and may find yourself as the grandparent who is ignored in years to come as your son dutifully agrees to spend a load of time with his wifes parents and none with you, because that is what you modelled to him!!!

You see gp2 12 days total in a year & gp3 for at least 77 days. While 1 day a month isn’t unreasonable, life can b busy, I can see why’d gp2 would be unhappy with that when gp3 are getting much more quality time. You say in your comments that you like gp2 so why is there such a big difference?

@SunnyRedSnail you have conveniently looked at times, not number of days. No GPs lived locally to us (similar number of sets of GPs due to divorced in-laws). My parents lived closer, so could visit for the day, so would visit for a Sunday lunch and then come home. In-laws were other side of country so visits involved a stay of a few days, usually at ours (younger GPs) So if you looked at actual length of visits it worked out reasonably fair

It's obvious that you are spending a lot of time with your parents. This is probably why MIL is being upset about it as she will know that.

However, you should be able to spend your time with whoever you want to spend your time with. MIL can always call and invite you round or organise a lunch or something. I do think it's a bit of a shame that they don't get to see you over Christmas at all though. I'm not a massive one for focusing on 25th Dec as being 'Christmas' but I would want to organise a special Christmas get together with the other GPs either before or after Christmas either at yours or theirs.

I mean it's usually women who like visiting family and keeping family ties so to speak, so is it surprising that a daughter visits her parents often?
I used to visit my mum daily, and my brother who also lived 5 min away used to visit perhaps every month for 5 minutes lol.
Now imagine being surprised that he doesn't visit after having kids?
Like, he never used to, so why would he now?
so it's like they're acting like dil are same as actual daughters 😏

I don't think it sounds "fair" in terms of the GPs getting equal time with you at all. You very much favour GP 3. But I don't think your time with family is about being fair. It's about the relationships you have and what works.

If you, DH and DC enjoy spending time with one set of GPs more than others then you absolutely should spend more time with them. And it sounds like DH maybe finds visiting his parents to be somewhat more obligation and balancing act than uplifting family time.

How do they even know? Probably because they leave the country! So aren’t around if they call/ring. Or say “we won’t be around for the next seven weeks/Christmas…etc”

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