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

I understand what you are saying but the poster you are responding to is the kind of person not capable of understanding because if they were they would not have arrived at such weird conclusions. Entitled people usually expect you to do everything in charity without having to even give a little thought to the person who is helping them. And if you say that you are hurt for not ever being considered, you get such weird response. It’s a tactic to guilt trip the other person showing normal human emotions.

Reverse

Whatever happened, separation of grandparents from their grandchildren is incredibly sad.

They chose the move OP.... they chose to go to lesser jobs..... their choice as so many posters have said.... and yet they'll happily still take anything you offer?? I get that it's hard to see them struggling due to their ill considered move, but what would they do if you didn't buy them food? What do they do in between your visits?? It was THEIR choice to make a move that was to the detriment of their family.... maybe you should let them bear the consequences of THEIR choice rather than enable them to continue to take advantage of you.

I'm not sure if it's about filling time. She's spent more time with the children than their parents have. She must be very close to them and gutted they're moving away.

I feel for you, OP. But ultimately, you can't stop them moving.

You are making it up. HTH.

My advanced searches only come up with 3 threads - this one from today, one which is someone else's thread in which OP describes the childcare setup as exhausting, and one that seems unrelated about chores. How are you finding dozens and if you can post a handful of links that would help me understand the big picture.

What's stopping you from moving to california too @GentleHazelHelper ?

They chose to move somewhere which is, apparently, cool but where are "barely getting by". It was their decision which they need to stand by. They don't need help, it's not up to you to rescue them.
They took your childminding for granted and moved away. They are now taking your financial support for granted and are staying away.
The situation will not change if you keep enabling it.
You need to treat them like the adults they think they are, and let them stand on their own two feet.

This.
For what it’s worth, I find it unreasonable when people have kids which they feel entitled to have the grandparents raising for them 90% of the time.
That said, it sounds like this has been performative grandparenting on your part.
Now your daughter is moving away you are telling her she’s wrong because she owes you for looking after them, but weren’t you doing it out of the goodness of your heart then, OP, without any strings attached? Because, you know, they’re your grandchildren??
Absolutely it’s fine and completely understandable to feel sad they are now moving, but that’s very different from what you are feeling. You have no right to guilt trip your daughter for doing what’s best for her family and making it all about You and Your wants.

So your daughter used the words we don't need you anymore? As you've said what you wrote is exactly what happened

So they moved and are living in a flat and clearly struggling?! Why are they still there?! They could move back surely? I don’t agree with you paying for their food for your duration apart from a couple of meals. You’re not going to be able to spend 4,500 every time you visit! What happens when you feel too old to travel? They haven’t thought this through at all. Do they seem happier since moving?

It's a reverse

It sounds like you took advantage of your mother.

Sooner or later, she's going to require support as she ages. Which means you have three options if you choose to move:

1. Spend a lot of time and money traveling back and forth to help
2. Pay someone else a lot of money to do what you don't want to do
3. Do neither of these things but know that you have effectively used and abandoned your mother.

I'm not saying we should all live our lives around our parents, but intentionally moving that far away just for fun sounds...not very loving.

As for taking her with you, she probably has been in her community for a long time and it would be very disruptive to uproot her.

I personally think it’s really ungrateful. I have a friend who did this to both her own and her ILs, both helped out a great deal in those early years, then they moved abroad, which upset all the GPs and their own children, as they had built strong relationships. I wouldn’t do it to my mum, and felt really sorry for my friend’s parents.

Stupid post! Outted immediately!

What do they do for childcare in the school holidays and before and after school?

Wow, how does it feel to be used and dumped OP? This is so extractive and quite cruel really. If they had paid you all along it would be different, same if you had provided ad hoc but not constant childcare. Good luck to them when they need childcare in the future e.g school holidays, one kid is sick and they need to work etc.

In the OP she said they were thinking of moving. Why pretend it’s a future possible event if they moved ages ago. This is silly.

Is this Canada or Australia? Ocean rather than sea but distance in kilometres.
Children have built up a relationship, why break it? Would be better for them to all be close and allow development through teen years early adulthood..

GentleHazel, who is 'we', do you mean you and your husband, he is still around?

If your daughter and husband are struggling so badly now that they can barely afford food and only have a small flat, it doesn't sound like it was a good move. However they have made their beds.

How old are your grandchildren now, if they are still at home I wonder how they feel about living all on top of each other and being so poor.

I get how you must feel, many would feel the same but if you still have your husband you have a lot, Gentle, You'll get used to it.

This cannot be the UK because nowhere here is so far away. The distance from Land's End to John O'Groats is only 970 km as the crow flies.

I wouldn't have thought childcare is provided solely as a way to keep children living nearby. Your DC have the right to live wherever they want to, whether you like it or not. Thank goodness my DM would never have placed conditions on the favours she did for me.

I suspect your DC is moving to get away from being suffocated by you.

No, if she'd written that, she'd have received sympathy.

Instead she tried, sneakily, to paint her daughter as uncaring and unfeeling by specifically pretending that her daughter said: "we really don't need her anymore....Not really for better jobs---we just think it would be cool to live there. AIBU to think this is our right to do this, and that my Mum should approve?"

OP apparently is incapable of theory of mind, she can't in any way put herself in her daughter's shoes or try to imagine how her daughter thinks and feels, and instead she has centred herself in the narrative and tried to paint her daughter as a villain.

The daughter would have a completely different story to tell and there are undoubtedly excellent reasons for the move, that don't centre the OP. But we will never hear them, because she's attempting to manipulative the narrative and has from the very first post.

When someone behaves quite cunningly, as the OP has, in order to try to paint another person as a villain, that tells you a lot about them and nothing about the person they want to paint as a villain.

Perhaps there are very good reasons why the daughter has moved far away.