to want to make ILs house as boring as possible?

[BrittaPerry]

OK, quick post before I take the dds out.

The DDs are 5 and 2, and constantly want to go to granda's house. Sigh.

He picks them up from school (no way of avoiding this on any kind of regular basis - he ambushes us anyway and invites the kids in) which of course I am grateful for, but then he keeps them till 5pm ish. I never know when exactly he will bring them back - it can be any time between 3.30 and 6.30, and he gives them snacks, takes them to the park, lets them watch loads of tv, buys them expensive toys etc.

I would like to sometimes take them to the park, do crafts etc with them and not just be shouty "eat your veg, get ready for bed" mummy. Yesterday DH had the day off wor and went out and bought fruit and ice cream, made a lasagne, bought DD2 a new thomas from the charity shop. FIL actually rang up for once, saying he would give the kids their tea, DH told him not to as he had a special tea planned and asked if the kids could be home by 4. FIL sulked and when the ids came home they weren't interested in the food because they had already eated biscuits and ice cream, and DD2 had been playing with an entire set of trains :( the other day I had promsied the kids we could go to the park, DD2 was at home that day, so we got everything ready and waited by the door (DD2 was excited) and no sign of them. So I rang the ILs house, spoke to MIL who said that FIL and DD1 were at the park. By the time I got there DD1 was tired and wanted to go home, and I just had to deal with the tantrums.

They cry for him when they are upset :(

If i as him not to spoil them, he rolls his eyes and does it anyway, and if I post on facebook that I am picking the kids up from school/nursery, I get messages off friends of BIL telling me that the girls are the only thing keeping him going (BIL died 3 years ago) and that I shouldn't be so mean.

I love having such lovely ILs, they are so helpful, but aibu to sometimes want to give my own children treats?

any ideas?

tell the school that nobody apart from you can collect the children without a prearanging phone call, walk a different route home and explain to fil that whilst you all love him very much hes being an arse and thats not ok.decide what type of arangement you would like to happen then impliment it.

or just both you and dh sit down with him and explain to him that his constant attempts to overide both of you as parents is extreamly hurtfull.

ask him how he would have felt about it if he was the parent, that the children need to eat healthy food most of the time and him ignoring your requests to not fill them up on junk means that they then do not eat there dinner, if you want you could even explain how his constant treats prevent you doing such things and that it is not benificial for any child to be prevented from having a full relationship with there child.make a point of telling him you all love him that you do not wish to be restrictive to the point of him missing out but that you will be forced to revert to doing so if he is unwilling to support you emotionally as parents

I think you should stop moaning! It could be worse- he could show no interest.

Honestly ..I'd love a grandparent like that for my kids .

Ex mil called her 3 grand kids ( my dc) brats in front of them. Whilst saying she'd bought golddengrand child ( not mine) a £500 suit for going to court.

My kids do had done housework for her , made dinner and umpteen cups of tea for the old bitch.

My parents are not Intrested , never have been .

Current PilS , whilst nice people, are too busy to help with grandchildren , preferring to take over arrangements for home improvements ( in our house ) and sending cakes down . (dh is 3 stone overweight ,clearly not in need of cake ! )

Really grandparent who spoils their grandchild a little is someone to be cherished.

Sorry, I should have been more specific (I was having a sneaky brew and MN while DH got them ready to go out, hence the typos). I don't want to get accused of drip feeding, so I will try and add everything I can think of.

Yes, it was my thread before. I got all fired up by the MN support, then lost the willpower and heart to do anything.

How the school picking up thing happened was this- we used to live right next door to the ILs (we moved up when BIL was ill, because obviously DH wanted to be with his family) so the kids both went to the nursery near there and DD1 started the school next door to their house. Then we had to move a bit further away. Only a mile from the school, but the nursery was already a mile away from the house (and a kind of round the back of an industrial estate route as well - in bad weather it is muddy and dark and a pretty unpleasant route, but it is a really lovely nursery) and can only be got to by going past the school, so that makes a 4 mile round trip to do the school run. I don't drive, and the buses to school are really good, but the nursery bus isn't. When we moved I was going to move her, but she was settled and, well, it just didn't happen. The only nearer nurseries are either massively oversubscribed or the one that DD1 tried and cried every day for two weeks until I took her out. PILs drive, so what can be an hour for me takes them five minutes, so it does become massively tempting when it is raining and PILs are really nicely offering to do the school run. In fact, them doing it on some days is the only thing that gives me enough time in the day to work and study - especially on one day a week where DD2 is in nursery till 5.30 and DD1 goes to rainbows till 7 - the ILS help means that I just have DD2 from 5.30 and DH picks up DD1 on his way home from work. This is a massive, massive help to me as it gives me time to get to the big library or work meetings etc.

I work and study from home, adding up to maybe 35 hours a week, so it is flexible, but it does mean I need some childcare - hence nursery for DD2 and the PILs helping me out, which is great, it is just the not knowing when, and the fact it is every single night and my wishes seem to get ignored. Two set evenings a week till teatime, plus the overnight they do once a week, would be amazingly helpful. DD2 is a rubbish sleeper, so working/studying on four hours sleep isn't very productive. Hence why I feel mean specifying days, because they do help me a lot.

I was also seriously ill last year, and again they helped out loads, as did my family. My family are in the town we used to live in, and the fact that I miss them so much could admittedly be part of this. The illness is another reason why I do need a break sometimes.

I suspect that ILs think I'm not coping very well, but that is because I do have lower standards in some areas - I'm not too fussed with too much housework, I let the kids run about the house with messy hair and faces (I just pin them down if we are going somewhere) and I let them play in scruffy and unironed clothes. I am capable of being more organised, and probably should be, I just don't give it a very high priority. I also think that the ILs see me working and leaving the kids with DH as hard on DH (I work out of the house maybe one night every other week) and are not very happy with the way I (again, one night every other week, if I haven't been out working that week) sometimes take my uni books off to the pub to study in peace (I drink a shandy, go after bedtime, come back if DH texts - DH does me no such courtesies, but that is a whole other issue)

They go out of their way not to be judgemental, but sometimes you can tell that they are trying not to be, if that makes sense...

Tbf, MIL is brilliant and rolls her eyes a lot of FIL, and he was working away a lot when his boys were young, so he doesn't really know much about the day to day rules of young children.

DH gets annoyed if I even mention these issues. He does occasionally get annoyed himself, but he doesn't seem to be bothered. I do the lions share of the childcare though, and he does most of the housework.

School and nursery know the ILs better than we do. Quite apart from all the school runs, FIL is very outgoing and chatty and me and DH are much more shy, and so he does tend to know everyone anyway.

I think the OP is getting a little bit of a hard time.

Unless you have lived under the watchful eye and oppressive thumb of a relative who demands too much of you/your children it can be hard to see why it is a problem.

My FILS moved onto the next street to us and immediately put immense pressure on us. The route to the shops took us passed their house and if we didn't call in and stay for a visit they would ring the rest of the family in tears to say we were ignoring them and they didn't know why.

If we called in but only stayed for a few minutes or just long enough to have a drink it was the same thing, FIL would ring DH to say MIL was in tears that we hadn't stayed longer and felt snubbed.

If I went to my visit my friend, whose house they could see from their window, they would make a note of how long I had stayed and compare it to the length of time we had spent with them.

We had to move house in the end because the pressure was unbelievable (although I don't want to hijack the thread with all the details).

The OP doesn't sound ungrateful to me, I'm sure she appreciates her children having loving grandparents. But not to the point that she should appreciate having her children kept out for hours after they were expected to come home and filled up with sweets when they should be having their dinner.

Why don't you learn to drive and get a second car? that way you can collect the kids three nights a week and IL's can have the kids two long nights till 6.30 and one sleep over. They could feed the kids on those two nights. That is still a lot of involvement.

I understand that IL'd have lost a son but you are loosing huge amounts of family time with your own kids. Put your fut down and learn to be polite but firm. Do not enter into discussions.

Tell them you are so unhappy with the situation you are planning to move house. Get the estate agents round next week for valuations or print off details of rented properties. Tell them you are at breaking point with the situation.

Your DH should get some back bone and man up!

I think things will only change when you make them change.

You may well have to upset your DH by talking through things he doesn't want to and upset FIL because you won't continue to let him do what he wants and deliberately ignore and undermine you.

I would suspect you aren't particularly assertive with FIL when he does things you don't like with your DC and you are giving a few mixed messages like it o.k to pick DC up when it wet and inconvenient for you.

I'd keep an eye on moving the DC school/nurseries nearer to you - keeping on waiting lists. It sounds like having them closer to your house would make your life a lot easier and avoid some issues you list.

You don't have to be nasty just firm - set days of week when GP can have them and perhaps have a good long chat with MIL as well about how your FIL is making you feel.

Learning to drive sounds like your best option. Otherwise you'll never be able to resist letting them do the pick up, and nothing will change.

Oh, I really want DD1 at the local school anyway - the one she is at is Catholic, but it was a) the only one with a place and b) I was in mental hospital a couple of weeks after the decision was made - I protested, but didn't really have the choice of HE at the time. DH is dead set against moving her though, and tbf she has enough trouble with making friends anyway. DH thinks that the outstanding Ofsted and the Catholic community stuff, and his idea that somehow Catholic schools are inherently more academic and will teach her Latin (?) added to the fact that he went to that school himself means I have no chance of changing his mind. It is a lovely school, but is about the third nearest to us and Catholic - that, again, is a whole other thread.

I can't drive for medical reasons, but I am working on getting better at riding my bike so I can attach the kids to that.

I seriously thought about just upping and leaving with the kids the other day. Move to MY mums village, get the kids in MY old school, have MY friends nearby, see MY family every day. But that is a) just swapping one set of problems for another and b) not good for DHs job, and my sisters are both alive and my parents not retired yet. My Nana is retired, and needs care, but that isn't enough apparently.

BettyTurnip No need for confusion, I missed the OP giving the ages of the DDs and assumed they were older - it's even more surprising that the FIL has so much say in after school goings-on if the girls are so young and are therefore not being 'ambushed' alone some of the time

The ambushing is me walking past his house with the girls, he will be doing something outside (messing with the garden, washing his car, etc) and he will ask the girls if they want to come in to play or to have some sweets or see a new toy. Then we go in and the girls get settled into a game and I have to sit chatting in the other room, which is nice, don't get me wrong, but I could be using that time more productively, and we have plenty of chatting time as it is.

So, it works out that I might as well just spend an extra hour studying, rather than sitting in the ILs house every day making polite conversation. They are both lovely, but a totally different generation and outlook, and I can never relax - I find myself trying to talk properly, iyswim. I once tried to bring a uni book to the house on a sunday (everyone sits and reads the paper after lunch, kind of chatting as they do it, which I am more than capable of doing whilst reading a lighter uni book) and MIL was visibly offended.

I think I will attempt it more though. Maybe I could invent an urgent thing at home?

I basically need to be more assertive - I could do it with my parents, but with the ILs I always feel a bit young and common anyway so I'm not confident.

I'm DH's second wife, ten years younger than him, and at our wedding it was very, very obvious that we come from different types of families. MIL is very well spoken - we live in an area with a very strong accent that she has "trained" herself out of. I come from an area with another accent, and mine is still very strong, plus I use more slang and have a slight speech impediment. Add in the mental health issues that make people doubt everything I say and I am a bit nervous talking to anyone really.

I think you might just have to get firm. We've had to with my PIL as they were still treating 2.5yo DD as a baby. Mostly singing & cuddling her to sleep and going in at every night-time grizzle. Sadly we had to have a really awful conversation with FIL which basically said we would stop DD staying over night with them due to the fallout we had when she came home. Not only bedtimes with us (which were difficult for a few nights) but she was more naughty at the CM as she was tired due to not sleeping.

The PIL are fantastic but DD's wellbeing is our responsibility and sadly this did mean an awkward conversation to do what's best for her (and us).

It turned out okay, but DH & I had already discussed what we were going to do if we had to follow through.

Do you HAVE to walk past the house after school? Even if longer, take a different route two days a week?

If there is no other route then how about having an excuse all ready - a nice cheery "can't stop! We're off swimming / to a friend's house / on a mystery errand! See you soon!" as you walk by briskly.

If you don't feel able to face up to them on this then you need to make your own home tempting for the dds - tell yr eldest that you have a baking project you need her to help with when you get home, all the stuff is ready and waiting. Or a Cbeebies magazine or a craft activity waiting for her. Just to start off with while you get a new routine sorted out where YOU get to say what happens some of the time.

How about when you pick the kids up prepare them by telling them that you will be going straight home to do x. Perhaps have an activity all laid out, painting or something. So then when you see in laws you can tell them you are going straight home to do x and then children won't be surprised. Hopefully if the activities are things they like they will rather go home anyway.

I've started doing that . . . having something laid out for my children after school and we all do it together. They really enjoy the quality time together and now ask what it is when they come out of school.

JumpingThroughHoops I'm crying because I wish my children has loving grandparents. (They are all unfortunately dead). Bloody hell, there are so many threads on here about relationship problems and absentee parents and disinterested grandparents, I would have thought you would be so happy that you had a fit, able bodied, interested grandparents on hand. I'm agog you think your life sucks because of it.

Wow! How hard is it to understand! Seriously! Would you really love it if your kids grandparents took your children off your hands every single day and you had no choice in the matter? To the point where you felt you had no control of your schedule or quality time with your own kids? Don't be ridiculous

Your own situation is clearly making you see nothing but your own feelings but they completely and utterly do not apply to this situation! One of my own parents has passed away and its devastating, but i would still hate the situation the op is in.

scarlettsmummy & droves

same goes for you!

Ok, tomorrow i ring a closer nursery. It will be really sad to leave the old one but it is the only real solution. Ils go on holiday on Wednesday, so i can use finding the school run hard without them as my excuse for wanting to be able to do it alone.

Fil said something really sad today. Looking at the fathers day card from the dds he said that he lost one of his sons but gained two daughters. Which is also pretty much the crux of the issue.

Its sort of sad but also worrying that he is seeing your children, his grandchildren as his own daughters, and referring to them as that. It would make me feel uncomfortable.

I think you generally need to take your authority back as the mum as it seems they are not respecting your job.

I also find that worrying - the boundaries need to be re-drawn. Its only a small thing but that is why I don't buy my parents cards from my boys when it is mother/fathers day - they are NOT their parents.

I think you will have a massive struggle on your hands with this unless you get your OH's support. You need to make him realise how much this is upsetting you. If you can present a united front it will be much easier to get through to FIL. x

It seems a bit as though you want to havge your cake and eat it. You want FIL to turn out pick the girls up and drive them back to yours and not have any fun with him.
This isn't fair. You either make arrangements that it will be day x and Y they go back to their house and on the other days you have to be there to pick them up.