to wonder why my neighbour needs so much help from her mum and dad?

[ssd]

my neighbour is married with 2 kids in school.

they family are fit and healthy (her words) with no underlying problems

they parents are, or at least seem, more than capable of looking after 2 kids

so AIBU on judging her on the amount of help she gets from her parents?

they are there every day, usually seperately, taking the kids to school, picking them up again, bringing in shopping, doing the garden, walking the dog, god knows what else

why do the parents need help every day?

why don't they want the in laws to get a sleep in/time to themselves and look after their kids themselves?

why do the in laws feel the need to always be helping, don't they realise they look like they can't stay out of their daughters life even for a day?

am slightly jealous and slightly confused why 2 grown up fit able bodied parents need the help of their parents every single day? it just looks like they cAN'T DO A BLARDY THING BY THEMSELVES. (OOPS SORRY) CAPS ON

YABU to wonder. However, thing aren't always as they seem. The life you describe is my idea of hell, luckily my only family lives hundres of miles away.

OP, I think YABU. We never know what goes on behind closed doors. I have neighbours who appear from the outside to have a similar set up - two parents, two small children - the mum's parents arrive every day in the morning to take the kids to school - and the mum goes too - and the same every evening.

Except what people from the outside didn't know, is that the dad/husband has been quietly wasting away from cancer for the last few years. He died last week, quietly, at home, leaving a devastated family.

Don't judge.

D0oin That's lovely. I hope my dcs are just as thoughtful when they're adults, regardless of whether they're getting something out of it or not. I love the idea of your dad being essential to the proceedings. My grandad was similar. Never really needed but we couldn't possibly function without him

OP I've just thought of something else - your neighbours or their parents might indeed suffer from something physical or mental but here's the thing... they might not want to tell you. In another thread, the op asked someone if their child had SN. The other mum said no. But many many parents then came on and said that they too would say no regardless of whether their child did nor not. Perhaps your neighbours are just not up for discussing their personal medical history with you?

YANBU

My parents have my son to sleep over twice a week while I go to work (DH is working abroad). On Wednesdays they have him from about 10am and I finish work at midnight and sleep over at their house so I am there in the morning when he gets up.

In addition to that, my Dad had my son from about midday to 4:30pm yesterday afternoon, just for the fun of it, and then I met up with them at the local woods to walk the dogs before bringing DS home again.

It's nice, I know I am lucky, my parents love having him and often volunteer to just take him (as happened yesterday, Dad just wanted to take him on a train ride because DS loves trains, they rode on one to see a steam train come through another station, then rode back again).

I'd be very surprised if my neighbour had the same level of interest in all that as you have in yours. Makes me wonder what they thought last week when my friends came over and one of them spent three hours putting up a set of window blinds for me (again, lucky to have friends who own a drill and don't mind using it). With DH's coming and going, my nights at my parents house and various random men doing DIY for me I think we might be much more interesting to the street than I ever expected we would be.

Mind you, my neighbour keeps a giant Bruce Willis head in his car with a yellow workman's vest draped under it over the passenger seat, so it looks like an abnormally large Bruce Willis is sitting in the car. So perhaps our comings and goings are far less interesting in comparison to that.

yabu
she should come on here and start a thread
AIBU to think my neighbour is bloody nosey

As many people have said one or other of the parents may have problems with ME / CFS, depression or a whole lot of other health problems that makes them appear fit and healthy but unable to do simple tasks. It doesn't sound to me like you're that close to your neighbour so wouldn't be surprised if she told you that they're all fit and healthy if they are not.

I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome so on the outside can appear healthy and normal but even doing basic tasks such as going to the shops or vacuuming my house requires so much energy out of me that I spend the next few days recovering. My extended family all help me lots and I'm very lucky to have them. In the beginning of this illness I didn't ask anyone for help because I've always been very independent, but it was doing me no good and worsening my health. They always offered to do small tasks like that for me but I refused their help because I was too proud, until my health declined so much that I couldn't continue on without their help. Now I accept their help and we have a much better relationship because I'm not constantly ratty and irritated with them from being so utterly exhausted. I don't take them for granted but part of being an grown up is knowing when to accept help and to ask for it.

I'm just glad I don't have you as a neighbour, you sound terribly judgmental!

It sounds like a lovely family set-p as long as everyone feels happy about it.

I had a next-door-neighbour like this years ago. I worked fulltime and she worked fulltime. I struggled on with everything on my own though:two children, a home to run, shopping to do because DH worked very long hours, six and sometimes seven days a week.

My neighbour's parents picked up all the slack for her. They shopped, parented, gardened, hoovered and dealt with all the laundry. She and her husband even came home to a hot meal.

I was very, very envious. My mum was a young disinterestedgrandmother, she worked long hours herself and she hated doing her own cleaning let alone someone else's. I once mentioned in passing my neighbour's set up and she absolutely freaked out in horror that grandparents might want to do such a thing. Mind you, my Granny used to do childcare and cleaning for her...

It makes me sad though - I would love to have a mum who wanted take DS to school.

Yes you do sound jealous - how lucky your neighbour is to have such great parents who are willing and able to help. It must be wonderful for the DCs to see their grandparents every day. Yes I'm jealous too - my mum is dead, my dad is busy with his own life and MIL is 400 miles away

It might be a bit of both. My 83 year old mother runs errands for me, light shopping, dry cleaning etc.

She has never been one for sitting in the house, she became a lollypop woman on retiring, but now cannot pass the medical.

Having something to do gives her a focus to her day and keeps her going. She is the person in the neighbourhood that feeds people's pets etc, when they are n hospital or on holiday.

Her friend dropped dead at the shops and she has said that is how she would like go.

You sound like my step mother OP. She is absolutely obsessed with her neighbours too and updates us on their perceived wrong doings all the time even though we have never met them. They sound perfectly reasonable, law abiding people with normal children.

The truth is that her neighbours are happily getting on with their lives completely oblivious to the judgmental woman across the street. My step mother on the other hand whips herself into a frenzy over stuff that is nothing to do with her and entirely out of her control.

Surely there are better uses of time and energy

YABU. She is lucky to have all that help though and I'm jealous!

I am exceeptionally spoilt by my parents they take me out for food, do overnights, school run and whenever I want. Always helpingme out making me dinner, fixing my place up. My in laws do a lot for us to even though they are far away mainly financial help and then spoiling us lots when we are there.

In the past ithere are times when my mum and dads overinvolvement have been a pain in the arse but I do love them spoiling me i have to say, especially when you see some people whose paretnt sdont even bother with them or the grandkids which I thnk is strange.

Our parents live miles away, so have never had the opportunity for them to help in the way that the OPs neighbours' parents can. If my MIL lived nearby, I am sure she would be doing lots of the things described above, but only because she would be doing them for her DS and could do it better than me - but that is a whole other thread -
I would dearly love my parents to live closer, but not so that they could do these things for me, but that I could things for them, as they are no longer in good health.
However, I can see where the OP is coming from, when I look back at my selfish younger self. When I was in my late teens, early twenties living at home, going to uni, coming back to live at home for abit, then moving about an hour away. During all this time my DM, whenever I was at home, would cook my meals, do my laundry and many other things without complaint, as she was my mum, and I sort of expected her to do it . I have to confess there was a lot of take and not much give. It took a good talking to from my DF to see how selfish (and lazy) I was being.

It is lovely to be able to help your DC, and my parents still love to be able to do things for us when they can, and vice versa. Also I am sure I will want to do things for my DS when he is grown up, but it is important that it goes both ways and no-one is taken advantage of. I am not saying that this is the case for the OPs neighbours, but maybe that is where the OP is coming from.

Myobb!

YABU
You have no idea what that particular family's needs and problems may be.

I have some family members who have a vast amount of help from other family and yes, there is an element of taking the piss involved. But there is also a particular need for a certain amount of help and you would never guess at it if you were their neighbour.

You sound very unhappy. Do you have the support you need?

I live in a different country from my parents, so unfortunately, I don't have any help from my son's GP. If they lived here, though, I've no doubt they would actively want to help, as I am their only child, so any children I have will be their only grandchildren.

I would not demand help from them, but it would be offered, and I would probably accept as 1) I have a good relationship with my parents, and 2) it's always nice to have help.

If this were my situation, I'm not sure why my neighbours would care, much less set their curtains a-twitching over it.

it would be quite interesting to see what MN reaction would be if the neighbour posted a thread about how every day her parents came to the house took the children to school, did the housework, gardening etc because they thought she wasn't capable of doing it!
There are a couple of threads going at the moment where someone has had to change the locks because of an interfering MIL and another where a father was very reluctant to let his 18yo daughter go on holiday with friends, as he wasn't ready for her to be independent yet - just wondering

I suspect MN reaction would be exactly the same -- i.e. that if everyone involved is happy then it's fine and none of anyone else's business, whereas if they aren't then it's a problem but still none of anyone else's business. I would be very surprised if the consensus was "go and ask your neighbour what she thinks".

Perhaps they love their grandchildren and are fortunate enough to live locally so that they can pop in and out? Perhaps they don't need an almighty great drama in order to behave like a close family?

Only what you seem to think of as a wholly unreasonable amount of "help" is no more than some of us think we are fortunate to be around to provide. I'm really lucky to live and work near my dgd's home (as do all her respective grandparents/stepgrandparents) and while we are all careful not to be interfering nuisances, as a family, our frequent appearances would probably fall foul of your judgemental criteria.

I'm always amazed, too, that people get so fucking twitchy about arrangements that are none of their business. Worry about your own family, OP and let the neighbours lead their lives as it suits them.

30-40 years ago, this would have been normal, OP, extended families involved in each other's lives. If everyone in that family is happy, it's not for you to judge them and deride their relationship as being exploitative. It's just their normality. Different to your life, but normal for them. You sound like you can't cope with the idea of people living a different sort of life to yours.

Some of the family dynamics posted on this thread sound just lovely and have made me quite misty eyed, loving family members doing simple acts of love.

My lovely ILs have done a lot for my equally lovely SIL. I don't resent it at all, they are family, and helping each other out is what family means to them; and they help us too, if they can, and I am eternally grateful, I wish we lived nearer to them. My own family is crap and always has been, and having them involved in my day to day life would be my idea of hell. I therefore do it mostly on my own (another person with a DH working all the hours). That's my reality. It's not a "kick in the teeth" (as someone above described it) that other people have help. Other people are nothing to do with me.

Everybody's life and circumstances are different, you OP, are not some morally superior being for doing it on your own.

None of your business and who knows what's really going in in their lives? She could have serious mental health issues that you know nothing about. Or maybe she's just a bit scatty and disorganised and the inlaws are the well organised type and they like to keep busy. As long as they are happy to do it, what's the problem?

Before I answer your OP I'd just like to point out that my in laws live over 300 miles away, my dad is dead and my mum is an elderly, angina suffering alcoholic. I still think YABU.

The mum could have an illness you don't know about and she doesn't want to disclose to people. The mum could be working from home. The GP could insist on helping out as they enjoy it. You can't assume they insist on the GP's help nor can you assume either party is unhappy with the arrangement.