Niece's baby girl and childcare

You could offer to e back up emergency child care IF you aren't working, but you don't have to do regular childcare if you don't want to.

No, no, no, NO!

• you are already stretched to full capacity with your elderlies
• Any spare time you have would be spent bringing some more money into the house to improve your finances
• No offer of payment has been made
• You are being expected to go to their house to child mind, thus losing an entire day being able to do your own chores
• You have your own children who may also need help
• whats in it for you?

I suspect you are known in the family as a lovely, all round helper, and quite frankly these CFs are abusing that and your good nature.

@Kiki880 happily admit to a bit of projection on this topic.

My SIL felt subtle pressure to commit to provide childcare to her high flying daughter, after retiring from her great career.
Money was not the issue at all.
More about the best of care and she adored her grandchildren.

Her husband died very suddenly at 69 and she is now 69, grieving, the grandchildren now at school, and privately deeply regretting thinking she would have endless time with beloved husband to travel freely.

She can only voice her regret and grief quietly to her sisters-in-law.

Like other posters I think it is a massive ask from your own child but unfathomable from a niece.

Absolutely don't be honoured she's basically asking anyone who will look after the child for free!! They havnt even said they will pay you CF!! And you have to drive there using your petrol. Why can't the child go to a child minder or a nursery ?

I think the comment “ you can’t be moving far as you have childcare duties” solved the issue for me.
Its a no.

I think its cheeky not to offer to drop off and pick up also. I think you would be expected to do full wrap around flexing to that family's hours and not be able to be at home. It would be tiring and demanding. I never expected regular childcare from family and if they were to help I would do the ferrying around if at all possible. I agree on nipping this expectation in the bud promptly

If she is not prepared to drop the baby off and pick it up, but expects you to incur travel costs and not be in your home shows how much she is treating you with a lack of respect,

at least in your home, you can put on your washing, do jobs whilst little one naps.

a polite, thanks for asking but no due to need to earn money, not incur costs! To be available for elderly father and the flexibility to go to job interviews.

if you start now, when you go on holiday will be tricky as she will have no replacement.

Gosh OP, don't do it and don't feel beholden or guilty about it.

You have your own life going on, looking for work and with your dad with dementia. My mum had it and it is so so hard. 7 years.

when I budgeted for this a decade ago, a day of childcare a week was 5 grand a year. Would you give her 5 grand if you had it? If no, don't give her that in time.

This is a good way of looking at it. Plus the to-ing and fro-ing. Stressful and you'd be needing to put petrol in the car.
Just tell them that you have too many responsibilities already.

So sorry to quote a whole long post again!

Providing free childcare is a huge imposition and one a lot of women balk at providing for their own children, such is the enormity of how restrictive it is.

Mic-dropping sentence here.

Also a huge responsibility. I constantly checked my own baby was breathing. I cannot imagine how much more anxious I’d be caring for someone else’s.

Just say no, that you are unable to. If they get funny over it then that shows how much they really care about you.

Childcare is their responsibility not yours. So don't be wishy washy and give them false hope as that is leading them on, be honest and straight from the start.

Your niece is assuming that you'll do childcare for her. Did she actually ask you or has it been assumptions via remarks such as the one about moving house?
You have your hands full with your dad, and that's got to be your priority. Please make sure he's getting all the benefits he is entitled to, and if you are his carer, claim carers allowance. He might just about be okay living on his own, but at 90, how much longer before you need to be round there every day? Hopefully not for a few years but you can't stress yourself out adding childcare for your in-laws grandchild into the mix.

I'm not sure you can commit to a full-time job either the way things are with your dad.

How presumptuous of your niece and her mother!! I would absolutely say no. I've already made it clear to my own adult kids that I will not be committing to regular childcare when I've retired, even though there's no prospect of any gc atm!!

This is just the start of it. You wouldn't even have a regular length of a day and the sheer audacity of them expecting you to collect and drop the child off is just beyond the pale!! Never mind expecting you to do it for nothing!!

The day may well creep into more days. Your SIL will be too busy to do it some days. Then there will be another baby and that will be landed on you too. What if you do want to help out your own kids and they start having babies too? Are you going to run a whole creche? Go back to doing the school runs and the after school activities??? Just no, no, no!!

Let them pay for their childcare the same as so many of us had to!! I had no relatives near at hand but I would never, ever have asked anyone.

My mum did do ad hoc minding for her sister's gc but I know my aunt would never have returned that favour had it been possible. Jeez I cannot imagine!!!

I see my cousins now. One retired from teaching saying firmly that she wasn't going to be retiring to mind children. She now does 3 days a week for her own gc. Another retired in her late 50s. She does most of the care for their elderly DM - she doesn't have extreme care needs but it's still time-consuming. She minds one gc (will be two soon) 2 days a week, and drives a round trip of 30 miles to mind another one 2 days a week (1 day is an overlap), and she does a care role on the remaining day. Fuck that for a life!!! Wonders why her bp has got so high...

DO NOT DO IT!! And if they are stroppy about it then they're not worth having in your life. Takers!

You sound so lovely with so much on your plate.

You would be out of your mind to take this on.

This is not about being honoured.

This is about free childcare and you being seen as a soft touch.

Your SIL wouldn't dream of doing it for YOUR children and good on her.

Providing free childcare is a huge imposition and one a lot of women balk at providing for their own children, such is the enormity of how restrictive it is.

It is absolutely thankless too.

I wouldn't dream of involving myself in my wider family's childcare needs.

Your niece and husband need to find a better paying jobs and rely on THEIR parents more.

This is nothing to do with you.
Suggest your DP for the role🤨.

I would hesitate to even mention emergencies.

You have your own family and an infirm 90 year old father.

Your niece is a CF as is her mother.
They know well you have responsibilities but don't care.

What if a job comes up that suits you but conflicts with you providing free childcare that involves you driving to their house?🙄
You will undoubtedly be guilted for "letting them down"....

I may sound harsh but you sound too nice and too easily put upon by your family of presumptuous CF's.

Be firm on your NO.

You will bitterly regret giving an inch to family who will privately think you are a mug and wouldn't in a month of Sundays do the same for you.

Its a great trick when asked a BIG favour that you feel hesitant about, would they help me in such a way?

If not, then absolutely answer NO

Free childcare is a HUGE ask IMO.

With regards to your father, have you read Contented Dementia? It really helped us with caring for my grandfather and my father in law.

As far as your niece goes, a firm no. Out of interest, has she offered to pay you or is she expecting you to do it for free (worse than free given you’d be travelling to her house)?

No advice re the childcare to add to PPs but re your dad. My dad had dementia and in the early/ middle stages was also paranoid about theft. He lived with my brother and repeatedly accused bro’s friends of stealing, invariably the objects in question would be found, sometimes after I’d done a whole day’s round trip to his home to find them. He fixated on a Turkish sword his father had given him. The damn sword would be hidden by him, starting another cycle of accusations and searching. I realised there was no point arguing or explaining as the beliefs were so deep rooted. Line of least resistance and confrontation was best for everyone’s sanity.

Now you've made your stance stick to it.

My sister and I are very close and 20 odd years ago she asked me to look after her youngest I said no. She said she couldn't work if I didn't and I still said no as it was too big a commitment. It was really hard to say that, but she got over it and worked something else out and we stayed close. I reckon if I had said yes I would have resented it, there would have been hiccups or misunderstandings along the way and ultimately it would have spoilt our relationship.

So cheeky and entitled! Tell her you can’t afford to offer your time for free but if she wants to do the equivalent hours of cleaning at your house each week then you’ll consider a time swap 😁

Lol at it being an 'honour' to provide free childcare!

Why isn't the baby's father tapping up everyone he knows to do childcare?

If you think they'll be nasty when you say no then why on earth do you talk to them in the first place? Life's too short for shit friends/relatives.

As someone who has been where you are and actually taken on the role, say no. As harsh as it’s sounds their childcare issues aren’t your responsibility. It sounds like you have enough on your plate, you don’t need anymore.

Yeah you would think people would realise that doing childcare fo someone is a massive responsibility but people are cheeky and selfish. I think my sister is still annoyed at me years later because when she was pregnant she literally just assumed that I would have her baby, for free, because I was then a SAHM with my own baby. There would have been 7 months between them so can you imagine how hard that would have been. Almost as bad as twins! 😁We were totally skint, but we deliberately chose to take a hit to our household income/my pension etc so that I could be a SAHM for a couple of years, as DH worked ridiculously long hours, often working away all week. So rather than put all the house and childcare pressure onto me as well as a fulltime or even a part time job, it just made more sense for us as a family for me to be a SAHP for 3 years or so, even if we were skint. It did NOT include adding further stress to my life by minding someone else's young baby for free all week on top!

But yeah, apparently I wasn't a loving enough auntie. 🙄Instead my mum had her children 3 days a week for many years. They had all their breakfasts, lunches, evening meals at my parents' house and my mum bought all the nappies and other paraphernalia that they needed at her house too. As far as I know my sister didn't give her a penny. I thank god now that I wasn't soft enough to say yes to minding her kids as we would have been financially WORSE off having them as well as all the added stress of it.

Hold firm, OP. They are being hugely unreasonable to even ask you, especially in your circumstances. You are NOT responsible for their childcare arrangements and don't for one minute fall into the trap of being made to think that you should be.

DO NOT AGREE TO THIS MADNESS!

You have enough on your plate. You need to be thinking about retirement, not saddling yourself with a baby once a week. It's not even your Grandchild. They are massively taking the piss by even asking.

Send a text this evening :

"Hi neice,
Been pondering over your suggestion of me doing childcare once a week, and I've given it a lot of thought this week, thinking about the logistics, but sadly, I can't commit to this right now. I am caring for my parents two days a week (and they are only going to need more care going forward, not less), and actively looking for a job due to finances being a little bit tight. I wouldn't want to agree to a commitment and then have to withdraw in a few weeks, leaving you in the lurch! I hope you manage to sort something. Love Auntie"

Do not do this babysitting under any circumstances. This is not an honor. It's CFery. They want to save money and maybe to have family caregivers but the burden on you would be enormous, even for just one day a week. Your schedule would be so constricted, you'd be exhausted, if you wanted to end the agreement it would be difficult because they'd be able to say they were counting on you and couldn't get replacement childcare. You need to go back to work and this would distract you. Your parent already takes up your time and energy. And most of all, if your own children needed your help you might be unable to help them because you'd be committed to someone else. Don't even offer to help in emergencies because there'll magically be an emergency every other week. Years will pass by and you won't have had time or headspace to find a paying job and you'll wake up one day and find it's too late. If your own kids have kids you might even be too worn out to babysit them because you're worn out looking after someone else's baby.

Just don't do it.

Not sure what there is to feel honoured about, they clearly see you as a soft touch. Say no.

No, the neice is her husband’s brother’s daughter.