Do you parents/in laws help you or your children out financially or with childcare

[Warmsunnyevenings]

Just a nosy post really more than anything.

Almost everyone I know gets help from their parents or in laws.

Either through free, regular childcare. Or chipping in for the grandchildren's hobbies or things they need. Or giving grandchildren pocket money. Paying for giving money towards home renovations or paying for weddings, holidays etc.

Interested to know what help others get.

My parents live in a different country an hour flight away! So no day to day help here. But if we are visiting or they are visiting us - we get loads of help (they get up early with kids or deal with toddler bed time / night wakes !

they take the kids for days out or let us have a night out or whatever

we leave the kids with them for a week in the summer and will likely do 2 weeks of the summer holidays when oldest starts school!

my mum will take the kids if we wanted to go to say a music festival or something in the summer either at our house or hers

when my oldest broke her arm my dad flew straight over and looked after her while she couldn’t go to nursery so we could go back to work

they pay for things for us as birthday and Xmas gists - like Merlin pass was a birthday gift this year!

we also have had a zoo pass before and they’ve paid for swim lessons.

feel very lucky to have them in my life.

No regular expenses or covering. They have in the past paid to take all their kids+partners+grandkids on holidays though, which is very nice and very expensive (and would definitely be unaffordable for us). My grandparents did the same one generation earlier, and I hope to pass that on.

Well you could probably guess. We don't get any help.

I never really thought anything of it.

But nearly all of my friends, other relatives and work colleagues get an absolute load of help and support.

Yes, my in laws do/did childcare for both DDs before they went to school. Currently just DD2 as DD1 is now in school, and it saves us about £600 a month (£75 a day x 2 days a week x 4 weeks a month). Nursery fees have gone up since DD1 started, and with her they just did one day, then moved up to two days when she started school and they just had DD2, but over the years it will save us probably over £20k.

We're incredibly grateful. We could afford the additional costs but it would be significant increase in our outgoings. I also really love the relationship my DDs have with my in laws, they're very close.

We have both ends of the spectrum - my parents live 2.5 hours away but do so much for my son when they can... when my son was in hospital recently my mum did alternate nights staying over on the ward with me. They adore him so much.

My in laws on the other hand didn't even txt us when they heard our son had been in and out of hospital for 8 weeks 😳

Zero, absolutely nothing and in fact inlaws could cost us money. My mil has been on benefits all her life and has no house of her own and absolutely no plans /money for old age 🤷‍♀️ My family are exceptionally hands off with kids even with us there doing everything, they have done 0 seconds of help.
My dh and I are literally surrounded my people who have fantastic practical support, have had help with house deposits , inheritance and we have none of anything, not even emotional support . Such is life and there’s people in the world a lot worse..

My parents give about £30 a month to my sons savings account but other than that neither side give any financial assistance. I appreciate my parents' time and effort more than money though

Mine had house deposits and one had a wedding paid for. The other had a contribution towards it, because they wanted to pay for their wedding. One had university fees paid, the other didn’t want to go.

There was regular babysitting, overnight, weekend and longer stays and I’d collect them from school when I worked part time.

Grandchildren have a small monthly contribution towards their savings, as well as cash several times a year and more for the one at university. There’s much less spare cash now we’re retired, so it can’t be as much or as regular as we’d like.

No help here.

No, normal birthday and Christmas gifts, gave each dc a £1000 before starting university. They did pay for a holiday we all went on twice, but equally I paid for them other times!

My dc are grown and I paid for one DD's wedding dress plus a meal for close family £559), other dd not married

We’ve never had any DP or PIL assistance either with childcare or financially.

Both sets of parents are very well off but don’t see it as their duty to help us despite living locally.

It is of course up to them what they do with their money although I don’t find it a bit strange that they appear happy to pay huge sums in IHT rather than benefiting the intended recipients of their wills earlier in a far more tax efficient manner.

DS starts school in September and we still haven’t worked out how we’ll manage with that and work. The idea that GP would assist isn’t in anyway realistic.

My parents are dead so no. ILs are dependents - we care for them daily. And pay towards their expenses. So the opposite there.

My mother-in-law lives 4 hours away, and she sends us £250 per month to spend on activities and holiday clubs for the children because she feels guilty she can't give more practical support. She does also come to stay 3-4 times a year (usually the first half of every half term, plus sometimes another school holiday) and provides childcare then.

My parents are 5 miles away and help loads - they don't do a set day a week, but if we want childcare for a work meeting, or if we want a date night, my parents would almost always help. They buy plenty of toys and clothes for the children too.

But it is absolutely shit @Warmsunnyevenings , it really is and makes me think so much less of my family . I would offer help to a stranger in my situation easily and I think in honesty they are a disgrace .
I’ve had all three dcs in a+e, I’ve had illnesses with three tiny kids (dh is fantastic but sometimes was away for work and when the dcs were small I had a few absolutely horrendous times dealing with me having flu and having to mind 3 under 6) , been to dentist with babies and toddlers and I get messages with “hope you are resting up there “😂.
They absolutely can’t be inconvenienced in any way , they love the talk but are no action . Now my kids are older and one has a slight ld they don’t bother with me at all… My dh is my absolute rock and we are actually really resilient and strong together, we even manage to spend time together during school, we both have miraculously kept our good jobs , everything we have achieved is from us alone, every single penny. We are a really strong family unit and we adore our dcs even if our families can’t be bothered.

I hate these threads, so sad. I could not have worked if my dps never babysat my boys.
What are families for if they don't help each other out.

My mum had my daughter one day a week from being 13 months old, she dropped her hours to do this and she still has her one day a week in every school holiday and sleepovers when needed. She’s 5 now and last year she started taking her on a 5 night holiday in August.

We are VERY grateful and do not take her for granted. We host her and take out for dinners, brunches etc and I pay her the difference she lost in wages. She openly admits she’s saving that money for my daughter but it’s there if she needs it.

It’s lovely that you are, and are able to be, so very generous, both financially and with your time. And that it gives you so much pleasure. But can I insert another view here.

Many women have been at the childcare coalface for much of their lives, and some have also had to care for their own aged parents/inlaws. For them then to be expected to take on a sizeable burden of grandchild care is a bit unfair, I can’t help feeling.

There was research that showed that grandfathers were less enthusiastic than their wives/partners to take the grandchildren for significant chunks of time, wanting to spend their retirement travelling, having fun, being spontaneous etc. The grandfathers also did significantly less of the caring work.

It just feels unfair to me that women should do their time, then be expected to do it again, to pick up their children’s pieces, because childcare is so ruinously expensive.

Many of course adore it, love the closeness that it creates within their families, the bond that it creates with the little ones. But sometimes there’s a tone of entitlement (as can be seen even here in the comments) from the young families, a sense that grandparents (ie grandmothers) should do it.

Nope, though when my eldest was in nursery, family did give us cash for birthday and Christmas presents, which we used towards nursery payments (before funded hours was a thing).

But no, never had any regular childcare and family have helped with maybe a handful of overnights in 12 years, but never otherwise spent any time alone with either of our dc, never taken them for a day out. My youngest is 7 and has never even been to MIL’s house (she has a controlling partner who doesn’t allow visitors, though she does come to ours every couple months). I am NC with my own family, but before I was, my dc were never invited to visit them either.

I think it must skip a generation! My grandparents and dh’s grandparents were very involved. My grandparents had me 8-6 M-F from 3 months old until I started school. Then they did all the school runs, had me after school til 6pm, fed me dinner every night, had me every school holiday and some weekends until I was in secondary school. I probably spent more time with them than my own parents. I hope I can be around to be that sort of grandparent for my dc if they have children and they want the support. I would be tripping over myself to spend time with my grandchildren.

No, they live about 300 miles away. And despite being legitimate millionaires refused to help us out when our heating broke so we lived 2 years with no heating from 2009-2011.

Once leant us £300 as we were broke and couldn't feed the kids, but made us pay it back the following month in full so ended up even more broke.

But, tbh, FIL is an abusive arse so I'm glad we don't have anything he can hold over us.

We’re close to both sets of our parents and they were happy to offer us child care anytime we needed it and we were very grateful for it.

Now that our children are teenagers it works the other way, we are helping support both sets to a certain extent and that will only increase as they age.

The DC have lovely relationships with both sets of their GPs and often pop round to see them or help them with something.

We’re all very fortunate that it’s worked out so well.

My parents did one day a week childcare from when I went back to work. And MIL did school pickup 3 days a week while DS was at primary school.

My side gave (and still do) DS pocket money and give generous presents at Christmas and Birthday.

I do get the feeling of being surrounded by people that have help from their kids grandparents and feelings like the only one that doesn't.

My mother has this awful trait of asking siblings if they have no money and then ranting about them hinting for her to give them money. She’s quiet obsessed with it actually but I don’t think any of us would ask even if we were desperate with that attitude.

My grandma gave me a house deposit.

My mum paid for half my wedding.

My mum and dad came down and did childcare for a week each year when my terms were not the same as my kids. (Teacher)

I have given both my kids a house deposit. Neither are married yet.

Nothing for us.

my parents are at least fair in that they don’t help either me or my brother out 😂

in laws are too busy helping sil with her kids. They help out financially and practically, to the extent of providing all childcare, paying for private school, for her house repairs, kids hobbies etc. they’ve never given us a penny and often cancel visits when sil or a child needs something.