Family and childcare?

I get that all the time as well. Once at the school I was saying DH and myself had never had a childfree night away and some of the mums were absolutely incredulous . They were all “oh you need to go away just yourselves”. They couldn’t get their heads around not having anyone to do overnights (we luckily have a great babysitter that we pay for evenings out) .

I get this too. I’ve been asked by the mum of a young baby when I first had a night away from my 3 year old, as if she was sure that I must have done several times. Was horrified when I said never unless you count when I was giving birth to his sister. I think it is shocking for some people who rely on family support to hear that some don’t get any.

To be honest, I think it's kind of weird when grandparents don't want to help at all. I'm not saying they should be regularly putting themselves out or sacrificing loads of their free time. And if there is ill health or not possible because of age that's one thing. But to never, ever offer to help seems a little harsh. Im a long way from being a grand parent but I can't imagine never wanting to help my kids out if they have their own. My parents live quite far and are older so I only ask every so often so we can go on a date or to a special occasion but they are always happy to help if they can. But then my parents had loads of help with us, much more than they give me.

I did have my DM quite handy and she would come and stay over. We invited her to various school events and days out. Holidays together were too long - we discovered this didn’t work. I didn’t expect her to babysit and it was not every week and not planned as child minding. Just nice things to do together and she could see dc participate in they’d lives, eg see nativity plays and that sort of thing.

I always had her to stay in my house. DDs never stayed at hers but we have a lot more space and she said it was like a mini holiday coming to us, so it worked for us all. I just asked if she’d like to come over but never made it her job to look after dc.

Same for me. My parents didn't live near where they grew up and nor did most of my friends parents.

I suspect that there is a regional element to this but when I was at school the families that did have a lot of grandparent help were struggling families, like a single mum who'd had her kids very young or a family where one parent had a chronic illness. I wouldn't say say I've judged families with grandparent help in a moral sense but I've been guilty of making assumptions that the family is troubled in some way because it was more unusual to me.

I get that reaction. Some people seem genuinely horrified and say that they couldn't imagine. My DM didn't have a lot of family help either so I grew up seeing it as normal.

I have no help either. I just want them to enjoy life. I obviously do let my parents look after my DC if they specifically ask to, but I'd never ask them unless it was an emergency.