AIBU to move far away after years of free childcare from Mum?

I think your being selfish it looks like you ve just used your Mum for childcare , obviously if your Mum had never helped out that would be different

So you want to destroy the relationship your mum has with her grand children after all that's she's done for you. Moving thousand ofi miles away on a whim. What an ungrateful uncaring selfish person you must be be

If mum is going to be alone and heartbroken by this is there no way that Mum couldn't come along and het her own place near you? Is there a problem between your husband and your Mum?

She’d probably be glad to see the back of you. Incidentally, I hope you realise your kids are watching and learning from you.

Exactly. Clearly an American: mom,ocean,mountains. Is this post AI generated?

Yeah "mom",exactly. I also spotted OP was American from the use of 'ocean' rather than sea and we don't have mountains here. Classic abuse of poor "mom". Most mums would be so sad, but OP just doesn't care

That's been well established by now.

Reverse

So your children will never be poorly or you can have ad much time off work as you like? My son moved far away. While they were little he brought my 3DGSs down for a week every summer holidays until th eldest was about 10. At one time I dropped everything to look after them for 6 weeks because their au pair had to go home. I saw them again at wedding 3 years ago. Now they are 24,23 and 17. How do you think that feels?

How can 2 people who got 9 years of free childcare be so skint? It doesn't sound like they make very good decisions, generally. Your DD sounds disappointing, as a daughter and as a mother, as it doesn't sound like she prioritised her children's best interests in all this.

@Dovecare
Say there is a thread about the relationship between two people, person A and person B. Person A writes it but they don't do it from their (Person A) perspective. They reverse the roles and write it from the other perspective, of Person B.
Except that it often backfires. You can usually tell that it is really Person A and MN gets angry at being lied to..

In this case the mum/grandmother is Person A and the daughter is Person B.

What does reverse mean in MN speak?

Sure, that's reasonable. But before you leave, make sure you tally up all of the hours she worked for free and write her a check paying the same hourly rate as you would have had to pay a non-mom child care provider.

Sadly as much as we love our children and grand children, we dont own the. The love we give should never be transactional, but given freely with no strings attatched. Enjoy going for holidays - find a hobby socialise. Its your time now, try and think of it that way and wish them well.

I do think if it is true that your daughters response was so cold, maybe this is for the best and maybe she isnt that nice a person.

Wishing you well.

Give it a break. Yes, OP made a mistake in posting a reverse. But she basically parented those children five days a week if she had them from 7:30am - 7pm. Of course there was a huge bond between them and of course she'll be devastated at going from that, to them being 2,500 miles away.

It's entirely unfair of you to start making up back stories. If OP 's DD had issues with her, she'd hardly have left her children with her for 60 hours a week for about seven years.

We have mountains and sea in Scotland and it is often cool here

To be fair, I don't think that's your mother's fault. You could have moved but chose not to.

I'm glad your DD got to move and realise her dream. I've always lived near my parents. I wish I'd moved years ago, like my sibling did. Now my mum is on her own and I feel trapped where I am, as I feel guilty leaving her. She constantly tells me how lonely she is, but she never made an effort to have friends outside of our nuclear family when I was growing up, and the few friends she made later in life with my dad, she didn't maintain after he died. She has no hobbies or interests where she could meet other people. I'm in my sixties and she's 90. While she's still going strong, she's frail and needs some help. I love my mum but I also feel resentful, because the older I get the more I feel that my dream to move and enjoy somewhere else has passed me by.

Nope. People can do whatever the fuck they like with their own lives, at any age or stage. And that includes you, obviously.

Having a few dreams to pursue would do you good.

People of all ages have always pursued dreams, the problem begins when someone relies on the compliance of other people and tries to control their movements to make their own dreams come true.

I know you are upset that your daughter has moved away. I do feel some sympathy for you. But I can see why she moved tbh, all this nonsense about her not pursuing dreams and not having the right to move and your clear feelings that you have a right to her compliance because you babysat your grandchildren would have made me run for the hills too.

Dreams and circumstances can evolve and change. It is absolutely their right to move when the time was right for them. They have done nothing wrong. However, that was an unreasonable amount of childcare for them to ask of you or anyone. Other than weekends you were basically the parent. However, their not being able to afford childcare wasn't your problem to solve, so you didn't have to step up as much as you did. They should have thought of that before they had children they were barely going to parent.

Why? Are dreams, and the opportunities to realize them, supposed to stop when children appear?

My parents emigrated when my brother and I were kids, and I’m glad they did. It gave us a much better life than we otherwise would have had. Our grandparents were in full support of them doing so, but then emigration was hardly unusual.

Lol. Well that's because it WAS her right to do so 😂

You should have invoiced them or made it clear that your decision to babysit was based on them being at your beck and call forever and that they had to agree to only live where you decided they could live.

They'd quickly have asked you not to babysit, of course.

Still, how wonderful that your decision to babysit for your grandchildren allowed your daughter to pursue her lifelong dream and live somewhere she wants to live.

Any loving mother would be so happy they were able to help their child and grandchildren live a happy life.

Try being happy for them, if you can manage that, instead of wishing you could control them, because you will only make yourself more miserable doing so.

And in future, if you're only doing a "favour" for someone in order to gain control or make decisions about them make that clear from the outset so you are not disappointed when they behave as autonomous adults and make their own choices.

Well she was correct to feel that it was her right. It was, and is. Perhaps she didn’t share her dream because she knew full well how you’d react to it.

Was she aware that in providing childcare you thought you were buying a say in where she lived? I’d ask if you’d really prefer she stayed not because she wanted to, but because she had no other option, but obviously the answer is yes.