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.

That's not really my reading of what's being said here, though.

One poster said that her elderly parents were unable to help, but showed care for her in the way that they communicated.

Most posters seem to be upset with parents who have a 'you're not my problem any more. Deal with it' attitude.

Which is pretty cold, imo.

ccf - I would hope you would help your grown up children if they are desperate for help when they have PND, are in hospital suffering a miscarriage etc?

I think it is important to remember that our job as parents NEVER ends, and we should expect to be there to help when our grown up DCs need us. Yes, the bottom wiping etc comes to an end, but surely the caring doesn't.

I am glad my parents continue to care for me, anyway

My parents never had my kids alone when they were small. They lived hours away and it never occurred to me to dump the kids on them and go out. If I went to visit them then I went to see them, not for babysitting.
Them never coming to visit you is a bit odd.

My parents never (or rarely) visited me at university. They were both working and I'd travel to see them if I needed to. There was nowhere for them to stay at my small bedsit anyway. None of my friends had parents popping round.
I suspect your general relationship with your parents isn't good or you'd have discussed your depression with them at the time and told them you needed them to visit as you needed some tlc. Perhaps they thought you were too dependant on them and needed to find your feet at university and mix more.

Your posting has some mixed messages. You come across as not liking them much and feeling unloved, but want them to do free babysitting.
We found paid sitters. I think if your family don't want to babysit then it just causes resentment to try and make them. Find some friends with late teenage children who like kids and want money.

I think parents should, ideally, be kind and friendly and sympathetic when you are an adult, but I don't think they should feel obliged to carry on parenting your children after many years of parenting YOU. People do seem to feel awfully entitled to all this time off that I really don't remember my parents getting via their parents. THink this is all quite new and rather spoilt. My parents never visited me at university either - nobody's did!

I don't think it's quite new at all CCF. I think it used to be quite normal for GPs to help out with the grandchildren, at least occasionally. What's new is the baby boom generation with money coming out of their ears, off on cruises all damned year, and more than happy to offer money (with strings attached) but no practical help whatsoever. Or is that just my parents?

To be fair, I think they have woken up and smelled the coffee (as I said earlier) now that they have seen first hand exactly what I am dealing with. But it took forever.

I think the idea of going away for the weekend without the kids for the purpose of just getting away is more common. As is the idea of going out and having a babysitter who stays over night so you can have a very late night out.

Maybe it's the expectation that the GPs will stay overnight and do all the work in the morning and/or be in sole charge for a whole weekend puts some off the idea of offering.

Also, if you have older parents and then didn't have children until you were older, that can affect how much a GP can do, as some peoples' energy levels change with age.

I grew up in the 60s/70s and none of my friends ever spent the night with grandparents. We had paid babysitters looking after us in the evening sometimes ( I was a teenage babysitter!), and went to sunday lunch with grandparents with our parents. My grandparents were all far too poor to go on holiday at all, let alone on shag breaks sans kids. So it all seems pretty new to me!

When we were young and travelled to visit grandparents my parents didn't go off and leave us either. They'd gone to visit their parents, not to go off clubbing or to a restaurant. If we went out whilst visiting grandparents we'd go off with mum and dad and return to the grandparents in the evening. The only trips my parents made without us was when the men would go for a drink before Sunday lunch and the kids were left with the women!

Well perhaps the staying over bit is quite new. I think my DB and I did stay over at our GPs very occasionally but certainly not often. I was referring to day to day, or even occasional, practical help from GPs really.

We stayed over, but my folks were there, too.

My parents live closer to my sister, and they would and stilld o stay overnight, but her kids are teens.

When they were really young, they'd have them overnight if, say, my sister was really poorly or she and BIL has to work a lot.

But it wasn't until they were able to look after themselves pretty well that they had them overnight for things like my sis and BIL getting a night out.

2rebbecca
"Perhaps they thought you were too dependant on them and needed to find your feet at university and mix more."

I was depressed, not just a bit sad lonely and down and fed up. I had psychomotor retardation to put it in technical terms, I couldn't get out of f**king bed, I was crying constantly and all I thought about was suicide, I just didn't have the goddamn energy to do more about it. I have felt sad, desperate, unhappy irritable, etc.etc, since then but apart from PND when I was hallucinating NOTHING NOTHING like that.

As for not helping them when they're older, when did I say i wouldn't do that of course I bl**dy will! I don't see stuff as conditional at all, they can be supportive, particularly my Dad, but he's very controlled by my Mum. She can be lovely too, it's just it's so sporadic and I don't know where I'm up to with her. E.g. a combination of friends very kindly looked after dd whilst I was in hosp having ds (overnight labour), however said friends had stuff to do it was the weekend! She said she'd come up to pick dd up from friends house at 11am, she turned up at 1.30pm having stopped off for a coffee somewhere on the way (45 min drive)!! Just bizarre, friends too nice to tell her to get her arse in gear or ring us at the hospital and had to change all their plans. I was mortified!

I don't feel unloved in answer to 2rebecca just on ocassion a bit unsupported in times of real need!

I was a bit of a nightmare as a teenager and i don't think i've been forgiven for it tbh even though mum says otherwise. At primary school the teachers said I was exceptional and would go to Oxbridge etc. However became v unhappy and chaotic age 14 and didn't do any of those things. Got A levels etc. but really underachieved. Loads of delinquent type behaviour, "off the rails" so to speak. think mum was gutted after bragging to all her friends about her "exceptional" daughter.

Sister also suffers from low self esteem after being compared unfavourably to me in the intelligence stakes all those years (by Mother). She has better qualifications than me though!

If your parents hadn't visited you they wouldn't have known how depressed you were though and maybe thought it was difficulty settling in that alot of new students have.

I didn't say you weren't depressed, just that maybe they thought you weren't.
If you rang them regularly telling them how awful you felt or wrote to them, or got the train home and told them you didn't want to go back to university and they ignored you then they were unreasonable, but I probably wouldn't want much to do with parents like that.

gaelic - we stayed over at both sets of GPs in the school holidays pretty frequently. We all lived fairly close though. Even after my GM died and my lovely GF was on his own he would still have all 3 of us to stay for about a week at a time. He did lovely roast!

I am guessing from the other posts that this is not usual in other families? Shame.

minx, I didn't say you would take revenge on your parents by being cruel to them if/when they become frail, but several posters on this thread have suggested exactly that.
If you were in bed crying did they know you were depressed?

CCF, I think some posters have indicated they would not put themselves out to look after their parents in old age, I don't remember anyone saying they would be deliberately cruel.

And TBH, with the lack of support some of the posters have experienced with their parents, I would not blame them.

I think they are ignoring the years of 'support' that parents give to their children when they are children. I think it is extraordinary when people complain about how hard it is to be a parent and how much they need a break in one breath, and then say their own parents have done nothing for them on the other! Yes, it is nice if grandparents feel able to babysit etc, but it's a favour IMO not a duty.

I think it is extraordinary when parents think there is no need to offer their DCs help even when they are in dire need once they reach 18, CCF.

Maybe I am strange, but I don't think you ever stop being a parent. I totally agree that they should be self sufficient and not sponge off parents when they are adults. But you really should be able to rely on your parents to offer you help when you are in trouble. I fully intend to be there for my DCs when they are grown and independent for those times when they really need some support.

Not really talking about just babysitting etc if you can afford to pay for babysitters, but a lot of people can't afford to pay for this and end up never getting any kind of break and so are exhausted, depressed etc.

I don't know about you, but I could NOT just sit by and watch my DCs struggle in this way and just say "not my problem, they are your kids".

ColdComfortFarm I think you are right.

This is the first time I have ever put this out there .

My DD is a wonderful girl and I understand that she has her own life and her own family but I can honestly say the only time she phones me is if she wants me to look after the DCs.

She never phones just to say "Hi Mum, how are you"

Again, the only time she visits is when she drops the DGC off and she may stay for 10 minutes.

Christmas day is the only day she actually comes for a visit.

I think that if I was to mention this to her, she would e shocked ecause I really don't think she realises that this is what she does.

Just giving a short perspective from the oher side.

I think a parent is a parent till they die.

My MIL has refused to babysit my dc overnight even though she is capable of doing it.

My parents on the other hand have offered to do it, but despite me giving some general guidelines it has all gone pearshape- so have stopped asking.

But I am learning for myself and just like smb else mentioned, I will try and be a better gp to my gdc- until they start moaning about smth else!

I think a parent is a parent till they die.

Really so you check it's ok to move areas or even countries with your parents, check financial decisions, who you want to date, marry, how many kids to have, you ran all that past your parents first did you ?
It works both ways, but I think beyond 18 you're on your own really, maybe 25 for men

'My MIL has refused to babysit my dc overnight even though she is capable of doing it.

My parents on the other hand have offered to do it, but despite me giving some general guidelines it has all gone pearshape- so have stopped asking.'

I can see why she refused. You first of all tried to force her. Then it sounds like, even if it's offered, as from your parents, you dictate the terms.

If you want to do that, then you have to hire in help. Beggars can't be choosers.

Babysitting doesn't have to include overnights and weekends so you can go out.

When you have kids, you have to curtail your dirty weekends away, drunken nights out a lot, not expect your family to soak it up.

There are plenty of ways to get a break that doesn't involve swanning off for the weekend or getting drunk all night.

We get no breaks, at all, because we live far from my parents and the ILs are in ill health.

We get breaks when we go and visit my relatives, as my father is now too old to journey here.

But to us, a much appreciated break is just being able to go and have a coffee together, or a film or even go to a supermarket alone.

I'd never presume to dictate to my folks that they aren't doing enough because they don't offer to take over for a weekend.

And if they did offer and I took them up on it, I wouldn't presume to leave them 'guidelines'

They didn't have any when they brought me up and I'm still here.

Some of you sound very spoilt and demanding.

at 'maybe 25 for men'.

gracevictoria - sorry to hear that you feel your DD takes you for granted. Do you think it's worth bringing it up with her? I'd be mortified if my mother felt this way, and I'd want to know.

Reading some of these, I feel very grateful for the support that I receive.

My parents had 3yo DS for two nights recently - the first time we'd ever left him. They wanted to do it - we had no particular plans.

They had a great time, but looked bloody exhausted by the time we came to pick him up.

I, on the other hand, looked a good five years younger due to having had two decent nights sleep in a row! (Am pregnant, so this was particularly blissful).

I hope I can do the same for my children one day.

Oh my goodness ColdComfortFarm - so you'd only babysit your own grandchildren as a 'favour'? Don't you want to spend time with them? Don't you want to have them all to yourself just for a short while?

I get the impression from your posts that you feel your own children somehow 'owe' you for having brought them up, and shouldn't now be asking even more of you. YOU brought your children into the world - they didn't ask for it - and therefore it is YOU who had the duty to look after them. They owe you nothing.

Perhaps I'm coming down hard on you, but my own mother is the same as you. Doesn't want to be an 'unpaid babysitter' (so she told a friend of ours before her grandchildren were born). So I have never asked her to babysit and never will. In fact, when we go to visit, if my dd goes into the room where my mother is, I follow her right in, so that my mother is not left on her own with her granddaughter thinking that I'm shirking my duty in the other room.

In sharp contrast to this, my DH's parents are absolutely wonderful with dd and are always asking when they can have her. They consider it a privilege.