How normal is it to have direct family support when you have young children?

[Awobabobob]

Dp and I have very little family help regarding our two preschool children. DPs parents are not involved and in fact have never done anything for him in his adult life. My parents live an hour away and have visited twice this year. If I was desperate they would help in an emergency, but they would have to be available (both retired).
Recently I’ve become more and more aware that we are the exception and far from the norm and it makes me feel quite sad. I’m suffering with my health and the moment and could really do with the kind of support that others enjoy. I can only think of one other family that has a similar set up, out of about 20 families I know.

What is normal amongst the young families you know?

I give dd whatever help she needs. I did childcare for dgs before he went to school. I provide childcare in school holidays. I babysit if she needs one. They come for food once or twice a week. I iron all dgs's uniform. She has been a single parent since dgs was born and I promised her she wouldn't do it alone when her dp left her when pregnant. I had little to no family help but managed. I've played a big part in dgs's life and it's been a huge privilege tbh,

My parents were 4 hours away and DH’s were 2 hours away.

my parents worked full time until dad got cancer and then he was ill and mum cared for him. So no real capacity for help there.

DH’s parents provided a load of free childcare for his sister who lived close, but none for us or his brother.

we got involved with various NCT groups and babysitting circles and the like.

We don’t have any. My parents are 600 miles away, and my in laws are 1.5 hours drive away. They have both babysat though when visiting, and have done a few overnights (one night each time). Even if nearby, I wouldn’t have expected childcare instead of nursery. They have done their time, and would find it too tiring having the kids all day regularly. I do miss having them nearby for babysitting though (eg for us to go out for an evening meal), as they would definitely do this.

I had children young and I have to say, one upside is that we have lots of grandparents (including step-grandparents). I think it’s so important for families in general to have those links because some days you’ll need it.

It is a bit depressing for parents to just be isolated vessels. And to then raise your own children to adulthood and have grandchildren but not have any involvement with them? Or wanting to be involved, but being too old to?

I agree with your sentiment completely.

We lived in SE London. Our parents were 4 and 6 hours away respectively. It was normal among the people we knew.

I’m 60….GC are 10, 7 and 6 ( DS has 1 and DD has2 )…..I have never offered regular childcare…..I wouldn’t want the commitment and I still work part time myself….however I pick them up a from school once a week, take them swimming, home for tea then they get picked up…..at least 1 of them will sleep over every week, sometimes all 3 of them….i can do the morning school run if needed …..I take them all away a few times a year ( camping mainly) j…………..and I take them to visit my mum overnight once a month……I will have them for sleepovers if parents want to go out ……..they aren’t little for long so I want to make the most of the time

I didn't have any really, just very occasional from my sister. It is what it is, the only thing that annoyed me about it was the fact that when I was pregnant I was told over and over how involved they were going to be and how loved my child would be blah blah blah. My mum visited my house probably 5 or 6 times in 10 years. Most people I know with children the same age as my daughter also have limited family support. When I was young everyone was always at their granny's house.

I had support from my parents once a week until.my youngest was 1, and then my mum died. My dad didnt really offer or want to to do childcare. PIL live 1.5 hrs away and told me on DC1 first birthday that "the novelty had worn off" for grandchildren. (SiL was local to them and they were fairly hands on with her kids, who are 10+ years older than mine, so age + previous involvement had worn them down. DC1 was their 7th gc although DC2 is the youngest gc and i do think they had a soft spot for the "last" one) By the time DC2 was 10 there was only 1 (elderly) GP left, anyway.

It was tough when they were little. We didnt go out very much, if we did we usually got babysitters or i swapped favours with another friend with no family available. It did seem lots of other people had family support.My work colleague recently talked about "having to get childcare" for something recently, when reality was it meant calling her family who are 10 min away....and i had to 🙄 yes, i am envious, but I also think a lot of people take family support for granted and dont realise how much of an issue (and cost!) Childcare is.

That sounds like pretty regular childcare to me 😊

Indeed it is. And you don't know what strings are attached to the support provided. What price would you be willing to pay? Would you be ok with an onslaught of "advice" about your parenting, lifestyle choices, housekeeping skills etc?

My friend lives with her dad and brother, they regularly look after her toddler but she in turn seems to run the house. Not sure I'd want to clean up after 2 grown men AND a toddler for the sake of going out every now and again.

My mum is desperate to help but is hopeless with boundaries and in denial about her health. I simply can't trust her with young children. I've chosen to only request her help once (overnight babysitting) in 3 years and that was quite enough.

My SIL lives at the opposite end of the country and has come to visit/help once. Locally she's made friends with other large families and they help each other out.

It's all so different.

I know what you mean, but I don’t say , eg, I can have them every Monday …..it’s when it’s convenient to me

It varies so much, I don’t know that there is a “normal”. I live in an area with a lot of immigrants so most don’t have extended family close by. But at the other end of the scale, I know one family where both parents have managed to build amazing careers solely due to never having to worry about childcare because of the grandparent help, and given that I know only one family in that situation (and maybe a second family who are similar but less extreme) that obviously isn’t normal.

Even in my own family it varies. I live in the same street as my mother so of course she helps me more than she helps my siblings. My sister is in the same city but a whole hour away, and my brother is in a different city several hours away. But they both made the choice to move away and I’m sure it’s something that they would have considered.

If you meant financial support, obviously I don’t know enough about other people’s finances to know what is “normal”. I have never had any financial support but my mother is very generous in other ways like will sometimes get us groceries etc.

We didn't have any support - parents 400 miles away, and PIL 4000 miles away, with no family closer.

You have to make an effort to build up a support network within your community - school parents, neighbours, church, NCT, etc.

This is not about childcare People, her parents live too far away for that, it's about money and constantly tapping her Dad for "loans" behind her mother's back because her mother refused her. Nothing to do with childcare.

It's not common at all amongst families at our school. The majority of them are from overseas or other parts of the UK, and most of them don't have gps living nearby (we are in London, fairly central). Most families use nannies and babysitters although we don't, and can manage between me and DH. I work v pt from home, and DH works M-F in the office but it's flexible enough for him to wfh if it's ever needed. I don't like the intrusion of a babysitter or nanny and I wish there were more flexible paid childcare options, in the US there are indoor play areas doing evening childcare so parents can go out, which I'd prefer to a babysitter having full run of our house.

My kids were born in the late '80s. We lived in an outer commuter area that expanded hugely in that time. Virtually everyone I knew had moved a distance to live here, within easy reach of London, so didn't have parents anywhere near. My in-laws would love to have been involved, but were three hours away. My mum was an hour and a half away, but not very interested anyway.

Because of this, my life and that of nearly all my mum friends revolved around baby sitting circles and generally helping each other out, where local grandparents might have stepped in.

I'm lucky that my daughters are 30 and 40 minutes away, and I can step in when needed and spend plenty of time with the DGCs.

We just about managed with our first four DCs. We could arrange support for childbirth and anything predictable. As a teacher, I was there for the school holidays.

What we didn't expect was a DC5 who was constantly in and out of hospital with asthma. This was from age 1 - 5, so I couldn't leave here for more than an hour or so.

We needed emergency care, which we could not get from family. We had to rely on a support network from within the local community - school, church, neighbours.

I am very lucky as I have had so much help since my DS was born. I split with exdp when he was 3 and as he works away, he could only see DS on the weekend. My parents did the school run every day for all of his primary school days (except of course when I was on annual leave or if I was off in the week). I retrained as a nurse and couldn’t have done it without their help. They have had DS one night a week since he was tiny and will
happily have him for the weekend if I’m going away or working and they’ve had him twice when I’ve been abroad with DP for the weekend. I have lots of cousins and we’ve always helped each other out. I am very lucky

We are a rarity in our friendship circle. My 4yo and my 2.5yo have both sets of grandparents, also 4 aunts/uncles, nearest relative living 45m away and the furthest 1hr20 away.

We have had childcare help once (when baby2 arrived). And even then they couldn't leave quick enough. Yet they all say they want to spend time with our kids and want to help out.....but the reality is they never do, never can. Or rarely at least.

Our house has steep stairs and no ground level toilet facility - apparently that's the reason. 😔 And yet they all pile in when I offer to host a family gathering, providing food drinks etc!

It's exhausting.

The amount family that can or will help varies hugely, on location, relationship, lifestyle, commitments, health and Im sure many other things Ive forgotten.

Eg My siblings had our family help when their kids were younger, in different ways, but we didn't for various legitimate reasons. It was sad but no malice there or any bad feeling. My parents had both sets of sibling kids overnight for example but never ours.

My DH family however, were helpful but not overstepping. For example they house sat when I was in hospital for 4 of the longest most stressful days of my life in labour (thats a whole other story). DD, me and DH got home to a clean kitchen, fresh milk and bread in the house, flowers arranged in our vase so no extra clutter and most appreciated, but not expected, a few really nice (m&s so not cheap) ready meals in the freezer and 2 in the fridge to eat asap. I think there were various biscuits and treats around the house too. DD is a teenager now. They have been as thoughtful ever since in many ways.

We used to, I started off as an intentional lone parent, my friends were brilliant and would take it in turns to babysit so if there was a night out etc I didn’t miss many. My mum lived two hours away and she would spend at least one weekend a month with us, she would
come more if there was something I wanted to do, or if I was ill.

I’m not a lone parent anymore, but I do now live in another country, however we have some brilliant neighbours who have children and we have a cousin of my husband who lives near by. So if needed we do have people we can ask a favour of, my mum also visits around every 12 weeks and stays for two weeks, so we often have a night out, or even a nightaway when she stays. We’re very lucky.

dps parents were 1.5hours away, they used to take them for a few days in half term, my mum was 2 hours away, so too far to help, also too old to have them for prolonged periods of time. I really missed the support that others appeared to have in the younger years, both to give us a break and financially! We did find a decent babysitter (their pre school teacher ) that was a blessing if we needed a night out.

We are in our fifties and have just made the decision to move, to where our eldest and his partner have settled, within the next 3 years. They'll be there for a minimum of ten years. Our other children are not settled. We been talking for a number of years about the financial wisdom of moving further north.
We really want to be close by as the reality is we'll be working for a long time and don't want distance to be another barrier to relationship and support. We may never be able to offer regular childcare but are trying to make proactive decisions now, to make ourselves available.

I find there are 4 groups

1. super rare: full days if childcare regularly
2. rare-ish: having loads of help, like school collection several times per week

3)frequent: having some help (kids stay over in holidays, can jump in in emergencies). Many in this group do not realise how incredibly lucky they are, and complain about having no help.
4) rare-ish: absolutely no help. as in none, not even emergencies.no stay overs in holidays, no babysitting.
We are in the last group. even a weekend a year would be bliss, but its not going to happen.if we need childcare, we need to pay.

My PIL lived abroad and my parents were two hours away (they relocated when they retired) so no free childcare at all.

But I was luckier than some, my dear brother was local so in a couple of emergencies I called him (including the night my DH died suddenly). I use to pay his daughter (my niece) to babysit in school hols, which was great as I could trust her, better than clubs, and it gave her some easy money rather than holiday clubs.