I recently got a new job which means we'll be moving to a new area. I'm really excited about it- great job and it's a lovely place to live. It's the area my grandparents lived in and we've spent many happy holidays there (both in childhood and I've taken DD there).
My mum is retiring soon (DF has been retired for a few years due to ill health). I know they've been thinking of downsizing once DM retired. A few weeks after I told mum and dad about the new job and move they told me they'd been thinking of moving to the same area (roughly) as I am now moving once mum retired- and had been thinking about it on and off for a number of years. Now mum is retired, they have no real ties to the area they live in they've decided it's a "now or never" sort of thing. They were going to be moving anyway because of downsizing, so now seems the ideal time.
I am delighted. It's great that they'll get to see more of DD and I'll get to spend more time with them too. I think they'll be a 20-30 minute drive away, so not like next door, but close enough to see regularly.
Anyway, my parents told my brother and SIL yesterday. Parents thought neither brother or SIL seemed put up nor down about it. But this morning I had a call from my brother, who is really angry about it and thinks I have "persuaded" our parents to move "to suit myself" and "never given a thought about him or his Ds's". He thinks our parents are are favouring me (he feels this way anyway) and being unfair to his DSs. He wants me to tell my parents not to move and they are being selfish and unreasonable.
I explained I have no intention of telling mum and dad anything of the sort. It wasn't my idea and as far as I am concerned where our parents move to is entirely up to them. I said of course I was happy they were moving closer to me and I'd get to see them more often, and I could see from his point of view that it could be interpreted as favouring me- although I didn't think that was the deliberate intention. I also said I did not asked them to move to be closer to me and suggested that if he was upset he really ought to take it up with our parents as it is their decision where they moved.
My brother seemed to think that when mum retired she'd be helping them out with childcare, which wouldn't have been all that feasible due to distances involved. Not that they've asked her to do this, just assumed she'd be desperate to do it. However, I don't think mum had intended to spend her retirement being an unpaid babysitter! That's certainly not what I am expecting from her. I hope she gets to make the most of her retirement and spend some time doing the things she and dad want to do- she's worked hard all her life and deserves some time to please herself.
As it is, it's not like my brother/SIL live all that close to my parents at the moment and don't see them all that often. Their boys stay with mum and dad for a week during the summer and visit occasionally at weekends, but this has been limited by the fact that mum has been working full time and neither brother nor SIL drive, so it's always mum who has to collect them and take them home again if they do visit. Brother/SIL won't make the effort to get there under their own steam.
I get why it seems like their prioritising me and DD over them and their DS's, and I suppose in a way they are. I can why he might a bit hurt and less favoured. I would probably feel a bit like that if the boot was on the other foot. But on the other hand, surely my parents have a right to spend their retirement living in a place they love, if that's what they want to do? I think they may well have ended up moving there anyway, its just my moving there gave them the impetus to do it now IYSWIM.
I think he needs to take this up with out parents, not me. I also think he was being unreasonable to expect our DM to act as an unpaid babysitter. As far as I know, she's still happy to take my nephews for their usual weeks holiday, and maybe have more regular visits during school holidays now she's retired- so they may end up seeing more of her than they do now.
AIBU to think brother should a) discuss this with our parents, not me and b)our parents are not being unreasonable to move, if that's what will make them happy?
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Parents moving
9 replies
jacks11 · 14/06/2015 15:57
OP posts:
soverylucky ·
14/06/2015 20:34
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