My parents won't have dcs at theirs for the night as "too much" but will come to stay at ours with my sister to look after them AND stay over WTF!!!

[minxofmancunia]

My parents love seeing our dcs AS LONG AS WE'RE THERE. they pester me like hell to go and stay in their rural backwater cheshire hamlet so we can see them. They've never offered NOT ONCE to have dcs without us there. When we're there they don't offer to get up with them for an hour do the bath, nothing. They babysit ocassionally in the evening once the dcs are in bed.

My sister is looking after both of them this weekend at ours from Saturday 1pm to sunday 3pm, she has no dcs but is great with them. My best friend was supposed to be helping out (it's mine and dhs 5 year wedding anniversary) but she's had to go away with work. I've arranged for some other friends to go round to help. However my sister has managed to get my parents not only to come and help with bed time but to stay over to help her, in our house.

I just feel like saying "why the f*k won't you just have them at yours, just once in 4 f*king years to give us a break??, but when she (sister) asks you'll STAY????"

My Mum has never stayed in any of my houses, even after dd was born and i had severe PND. She had flute lessons to go to etc. Choirs to sing in. When me and Dh nearly split and I begged for just one night off she refused, "we're too busy darling". When i was 19 and ended up on anti depressants at university age 19 she didn't want to come and see me. I just stayed in bed, failed my year and cried for months. My dad came eventually and packed me up and brought me home.

I know I sound spoilt and undeserving esp as they're helping look after my dcs for the night. But I'm f**king aghast!!

everytime friends of ours have a bit of time out (and some have a lot) it hurts a bit, but it's really begun to get to me recently. she said Dh shouldn't have asked my sister as it was "too much" for her but we're desperate, i'll admit it, and sister seemed happy to do the night. We just wanted the night off.

BTW when I was pg with dd both sides of Gps offered the world. 4 years down the line the reverse is true.

Oh dear, I really sympathise. My parents live a long way away, but we see them frequently and they have never once babysat in 4 years. When I hear of friends whose parents come and stay for a whole weekend so they can get away, I feel very very envious.

They finally did offer when we went down to stay with them last and they had the DCs for 1 hour (I'm breastfeeding so couldn't leave DD any longer). They found it exhausting. I have to say that recently they have been doing more with the DCs and I think that for them it has boiled down to a lack of confidence. They seem a lot more relaxed now which is great.

Can you, very tactfully, tell them how you feel?

[sa]d. I feel your pain. I've come to the conclusion some parents are just crap. Your mum let you down when you were 19, now you feel like she's letting you down again.

That's the key word gaelicsheep "tactfully"!

Unfortunately due to my mum never apologising or ever seeing other peoples perspective it's hard. i start off with what i want to be a conversation and degenerates to crying and shouting because she thinks she's been hugely supportive. She really hasn't, even my friends and my GP think she's been a bit of a cow. I ended up on sleeping tablets earlier this year due to stress induced insomnia and she didn't offer to take them out for a few hours.

I think the final straw for me was when i was pg with ds, dd was 2.6 i had swine flu (!) and she turned up to "help" wanted me to go out for lunch with her and dd and rather than stay til dh got home from work as planned at 5pm she left at 3pm with some b**shit excuse about traffic. I was left shivering and shaking pg on the sofa with dd who luckily was an angel and just read books with me. Dh got home from work and was fuming.

You need to tell them how you feel (but calmly) they sound a bit deluded.

Do they look at you as the coper, and your sister (I'm assuming younger) as the less capable (regardless of what you are actually like)?

I'm not projecting. Honest guv.

I missed some of the central bit of your post there, sorry. It does sound like your parents (mum?) are particularly selfish. Mine have those tendencies, but realising recently that I really do have PND, and I'm not just being a bit pathetic, has snapped them out of it a bit.

I don't really know what you can do when it's that deep seated other than accept that they're crap. Are your in laws any help at all?

Oh god, she does sound like my mum but a lot worse. I have the same thing - strenuous denial and tears when someone tries to challenge her. Were yours always the stiff upper lip types when you were a child? My dad's quite ill, and a complete martyr, and I found that as a result I was never ever taken seriously when I was ill - it was always, "you have to fight things gaelic, don't give in to them".

I think perhaps it's a confidence thing

with the extra person (sister) they feel able to have a go, at yours

jareth what you say is true, especially as my sister is very bitter and resentful about not having a partner and they feel sorry for her.They are giving her a deposit to buy a flat/house. this offer was not forthcoming when i bought my first flat 9 years ago. But TBh I'm glad i did it on my own, it just rankles a bit sometimes.

gaelic my MiL tries, but she's got her own issues, she's got no common sense can be v impatient and is skint, single, doesn't drive and lives ina 1 bed council flat. my parents are together have a 4 bedroomed detached f**king mansion in the country and a vehicle each. It's a lot easier for them!

They're obviously just rubbish!

My inlaws were very like this, not wanting to put themselves out at all to even visit their GCs, it was very much up to us to do the leg work until one night on the phone DH really lost his temper in a way that I'd never heard before and told them VERY loudly that if they weren't going to make an effort they didn't deserve GCs.

Since then they've been brilliant, have the older two to stay for the night in their caravan if they've been staying nearby etc. Not sure they would cope with all four yet but DDs are still very young, give them time and they'll be having them all for long weekends so DH and I can shag rest.

If your oldest DD is only four and DS must be a baby I think maybe they have cause to be daunted about looking after them all night and presumably a lot of the next day if you're wanting to stay away for a night. Jsut start slowly and build up.

they just sound shit, sorry.

I was going to say that maybe you could use this as leverage in future (you stayed over to help my sister) but it won't work (I have two younger sisters - somehow they need a LOT more help than I do ) ffs.

I know how you feel...

loubielou that sounds like sensible reasoned advice!

I've just felt so fed up with it recently, almost like crying. Am beginning to get snappy with friends who're off for yet another weekend with their dps/dhs. Feel like telling them to shut the f**k up, especially my friends from school who assume my parents help on a regular basis, err no actually. They just don't want to. I know this is unreasonable.

That's the hard bit accepting they're rubbish. It really hurts. They don't want to help, even when i've been desperate.

When me and Dh have had a rough patch and I've thought we'll have to split i've literally never felt so alone..

I need to accept it tho, so I can move on.

Thanks for your kind words, i'm sorry for those of you who have crap parents too!

I must go to bed now!

Do you know what? Get your weekend away and then send them a bloody email telling them how crap they are. That way you will be able to articulate all your thoughts without bursting into tears of frustration, I totally understand where you are coming from because my parents are exceedingly crap as well. I did the email thing and they got slightly better. However I left the dc overnight with them and returned to a pale and shaking ds because he had apparently misbehaved and they had gone totally ott in dealing with it, nothing physical but just total drama and stress (ds is ASD). I would never leave my dc with them again now.

Honestly your thread really strikes a chord with me. I remember being in hospital once, ringing my Mum to tell her and she said "Oh, well you will let me know how you are won't you", I could barely move, lived in a shared house and had absolutely no-one to help me out as I recovered. They lived half an hour a way and couldn't even be arsed to visit me. Oh I am getting irate now typing this, time for bed I think . Anyway totally feeling your pain.

Are you sure there's nothing you can do? I really did think this was the case with my parents too - sometimes I still do. Recently DH and I had an absolute blazing row and I decided there was no way my and the DCs could stay in the house while he was trying to do the renovations. We're geographically isolated, only one car, he's got depression, I've got PND, DD is really demanding - it's a complete nightmare.

So I phoned my mum to ask if the DCs and I could go and stay for 2 or 3 weeks. Did I get an immediate answer? Did I heck. She ummed and ahhed and had to go and ask my dad, who phoned back and gave the most qualified yes you've ever heard. They then spent the next few weeks trying to put me off. I was really hurt.

But as I say, I think we've worked through it now that they finally realise what a pickle we're actually in. What made them realise? Spending more time with a very depressed me and the DCs (especially an inconsolably screaming DD). Time will tell though - I'm supposed to be going down in November.

Oh I had something like that gaelicsheep. When I was married to my first dh and the first Gulf War started (he was forces), we were stationed overseas and every single other wife and their dc were going home for the duration to be with their families (well all my mates were anyway), I phoned my Mum and told her that I thought I might come back to the UK for a while and she couldn't have been more off putting, so obviously didn't want me around. I was only 19 and totally alone out there while my dh was away at war.

I think they thought we were about to split up tbh, and thought they were "helping" by not having me to stay. They seem to believe that if you're married you have to be joined at the hip. I tend to think that a bit of time away from each other at the moment might just save our marriage, as we're clashing with each other nearly every day just now.

You will have a lovely night away with your husband but you will miss your DCs at the same time.

The up side is that if they've looked after your DCs once with your sister to help, they might be more willing to do so again.

It will be a pain for you but do as much as you can to make it a really pain free experience for them, leave out food that you know your DCs like and will eat, get their clothes ready, favourite bedtime story etc. Write a crib sheet for your parents with DC's basic routines to give them a guide for what to do. I know this sounds OTT but if they're unsure it might help, (my mother still demands one when she babysits) and they'll be more willing to do so again. :)

loubie speaks sense :)

As as nanna I am waiting to be asked to baby sit. Grandad & I both work full time.....but we would both be willing to change our working patterns if possible. Our house or yours.........we don't care. Just want to help.

I have to say that whilst I sympathise (and would also like ome time off) I do think you are expecting too much. If they don't want to help they wont I think you said they are helping your sister because they think it is too much for her so I'm guessing they find it a bit much too-sorry.

You've said they babysit occasionally while you are with them.
However I do think she was unreasonable when you were 19.

My third dc was unexpectedly hospitalised for 3 months earlier this year on being told of the illness (and that it would need a long hospitalisation) my dm said 'oh no that's all I need' I quote her exact words!

Not once did she even offer to take my older dcs to the park or to the hospital canteen for a sandwich!

Daughters of shit, unhelpful, uninterested parents, regard yourselves as well and truly off the hook when they're elderly and incontinent and needing intensive nursing.

"What goes around comes around" is true even within families.

Not everyone is having weekends away with their DP/DH. Look around honestly I can't believe this is true even of your friends.

I have not had a night away from my kids since they were born (14 years). We have had a few late night outs, with specially arranged babysitters (friends or paid for). We once got close but SIL who was going to look after (my eldest, 18 months at the time) seemed so unwilling really that we changed our plans and took him with us.

We have no parents on my side, and elderly (increasingly) ones on the other.

Your Mum does sound useless (and since you were 19), so I would just give up on expecting support from her. Build your own support network, help friends and have friends who will help you. Good luck!

Sorry, but I think YABU. I just don't understand the many people on here who think that it is their RIGHT to have gps look after their kids for them. Yes, of course it is lovely when people offer to help and you would hope that your parents want to be involved in your kids' lives, but the bottom line is your kids, your responsibility. I think calling people crap and shit because they won't do what you want is pretty unreasonable too.