I would like my 3 year old grand-daughter to stay with me for one night, but my daughter in law says NO, AIBU?

[redyam]

I bit of background, this is not me, but I will write as though it is, for a friend.

I sea my grand-daughter every few weeks, we live about 100 miles away from each other. We either go down to my sons house or they come up to stay for the weekend.

We all get on really well, my grand-daughter is delightful, and behaves as good as gold whenever we spend time with her or go out for trips.

I would like to take my 3 year old grand-daughter on an overnight outing nearby. We will take her out for the evening (not late) without the parents, spend the night with her, then bring her back to her parents the next day.

I think it will do her the world of good, give me some quality time with her, and give her parents a night off to do what they want. I'm sure my GD would love it.

However my daughter-in-law says NO! No reason given, to flat out refusal. I'm a little hurt really, as though I can't be trusted with my grand-daughter.

Am I being unreasonable to want to do this, or to feel hurt?

Okay, I want my PFB score. My twins are three. I will likely never let my mother have the twins overnight, but she wouldn't want them overnight.

I'll be happy for MIL to have them at hers overnight in a year or so, I think, and I'd be happy for her to look after them overnight at our house now. I make the place distinction on account of how the twins spend half the night sobbing, and clawing like wet cats, because they're in an unfamiliar bed, and the edge of the bed is here not there, and trying to chuck themselves out of the bed. Even though the great Mummy and Daddy are there with them. It is potentially possible that if we weren't there, and it was just grandma, they'd find it easier to cope, but I doubt it.

Ah well. It doesn't really matter, does it? Because parents get the final say just as their parents did and just as their children will.

Regardless of the same old arguments trotted out on MN.

Next time we take them on any overnight trip, I really must remember to cut their nails before bedtime.

Did the op ever come back to the thread?

If you want it to work for you,all the Mil ladies,I tried to tell you all ...'zip your mouth and wear beige!!!!!'

Kayano I think you're being pretty unfair to millions of parents, both past and present. Sometimes, part of being a good parent is prioritising food and shoe money above Days Out your child won't remember.

I know I certainly didn't visit the beach until after I was three, and I think that was my mother being very responsible with her money. Yet it was still important to her that she got to be with me that day, and helped me build sandcastles.

God, this forum is so MC sometimes, innit?

P.S. We're planning the twins' first visit to the beach sometime this year. But hey, it can't be important to me at all, can it?

She is kind, occasionally sarcastic when I'm patronising, forgiving, always honest, and simply A Nice Person.

Her biggest fault is cutting the carrots a different way to me.

I hope this reassures all you potential MILs.

Middle-class.

Hmm. There seems to be a misbelief on this thread that if your DCs aren't staying with GPs (or other family) from a young young age then they won't have a loving or close relationship with them. It is nonsense. As a child I only saw my GPs (both sides) pretty much in school holidays and up until I was about 12 I don't think I ever stayed with them overnight on my own. I loved my GPs dearly and had a very close relationship with them. You don't have to have an overnight stay on your own aged 2 to have a close relationship and wonderful memories.

My own DD (2 year) hasn't had an over night with my parents and I have no intention of doing so until she is much older. She sees them once a month when they come to stay for weekend and nearly every day on skype. That is plenty!

It's completely absurd to think that if small children don't get to stay overnight they will never develop a close realtionship. Why does this child have to be taken to stay at someone else's home overnight? Why not bring the child home?

For most of the overnight stay they'll (hopefully) be asleep anyway - why shouldn't they be able to wake up in their own bed with their own parents after a nice day out with the GP's?

What I'm asking is why the desperation to have children overnight?

No-one seems capable of answering this question - instead everyone piles in to attack the selfishness of parents who don't want to share their children out as though they are dolls to play with.

What can be achieved during an overnight stay that can't be achieved on a nice day out?

This desperation to avoid taking the children home to their parents is mystifying as far as I'm concerned.

But is it desperation to ask to have your GC overnight once in 3 years?

Desperation really?

Really?

I think if you class one night in 3 years as desperation then these are definitely your issues being projected onto your child.

Probably so they can spend longer on the day out without having I worry about rushing to get the GC home, they can just head back to there's and go to bed and have cuddles.

It could be a fun little adventure for the dc, it's not about desperately trying to deprecate children from their mothers like a praying mantis.

It's just nice

Well it doesn't really cost a lot to go to the beach
Last time I went (on the bus with a day ticket) it was free... Well £1 for a ice cream

Believe me I am absolutely not middle class at all! The beach is something you an do with little to no money. So you can actually fuck off with your 'this forum is so MC'

You don't know me at all. If you can't afford to take your dc to the free beach why would you prevent someone else from taking them? What if your situation never improves (mine isn't)

To you just selfishly not let your child ever go to be beach because you can't be there?

Middle class. Fucking hell I have like £6 to last me this month
Idiot

I spent most summer days on the beach - we lived on the coast, we took butties and a flask of juice - we where poor and working class - it was FREE - sometimes my Gran came as well - bite me

Kayano
Well it doesn't really cost a lot to go to the beach

Not everyone is in that position .

We live in the midlands - due to work. We don't drive.

A common destination for people in our area is about an hours drive and costs roughly £40 - people they tell us. Takes us 4 hours by train - not factoring in bus/taxi journey to train stations either end and the train alone cost at least twice as much as the petrol. Our buses aren't free for us - if we all travel it actually cheaper to get a taxi and its over £10.

Then there is the actual logistics of travel on public transport with small DC, pushchairs, changes etc.

I have to say I'm shocked at the lack of imagination that others are in different positions even locations and the accompanying lack of empathy.

Yay for you. Giggety. We have no such buses, and we live many, many, many miles from the seaside. And even if 'twas a pound (crikey it costs a lot more than that to go across one set of county borders on the bus here) it would STILL be a big undertaking. Young children, the equipment for them, and hours on the bus? I used to find bus journeys of 1 hour 30 minutes pretty draining with under threes. Two longer journeys, in one day, with no toilet/changing facilities? Shoot me now, bad parent me!

It's this obsession with firsts though. Why can't the GC take them to the beach if you can't? It's not going to make your first trip to the each with them less special

What if your dc take their first step when you are out? Does it make the first step you see any less special? Are you delighted or in a strip because you weren't there?

I see the beach as no different. Stopping your child from doing something lovely with loved relatives because you have to be 'first' is a bit

That's my issue with not letting grandparent take kids to be beach, doesn't matter if you live in the midlands

Kayano this is the first time I've EVER thought this about you, but if you're upset by my post- I don't care. My geography is famously crap, and I would NEVER post what you did, even if I'd lived all my life on the coast.

As for the "let someone else take them" bullshit, in caring families (like mine at various points) the grandparents and parents work together to ALL go. Like my family is doing right now. On that account alone, now I think ot it, the OP's "friend" is being unreasonable.

My grandmother helped my mother take me to the sea- she didn't go, "lol you can't afford it, so I'm the only one who takes Jessie to the sea". My in-laws aren't doing that. Because it would be unrreasonable.

Well what this thread illustrates is that people in different families do things differently! So I'm afraid that what seems perfectly normal and "nice" for people in one family seems an imposition or downright weird to another.

Ultimately, if a parent is unwilling to allow overnight stays the best way to deal with it is to drop it or you'll end up being a pain in the neck to them.

You can have perfectly nice visits and (when they are older) days out, and a wonderful relationship, without having your grandchildren overnight.

It's not obligatory, or an entitlement, and you shouldn't act as though it is and make it a battle of wills.

It's an issue on which, if you can't reach agreement, someone has to give in gracefully. It's not the grandparent's right to insist on it, and you just have to accept that if you keep wheedling on about it you are likely to damage your relationship with your precious grandchildren's parents, possibly beyond repair.

Which is exactly what you don't want!

We´re about an hour from the beach.

Costs us petrol, parking & we have to pay to go onto the beach at this time of year.

I second Kayano Its like the whole let me keep a lock of their hair from first haircut, oh the fist time dc had a banana, oh first push on a swing, oh first time on a train. I really do not get that bullshit.

Oh 50 shades if you think im a bitch guess what I dont care.

Genuine question now, if you never let your DC stay out what happens when your really ill? Or if you broke a leg? What would happen to your DC would they just be left to fend for themselves while your stuck in bed?