Huge row in our household. Wibu?

[Bogeybrains]

My mum is staying with us at the moment. She's staying for 6 months while she's having some work done to her house.

I have to work every weekend for childcare reasons so DH looks after the DC ages 7 and 5. I have said quite a few times that DH does not seem to do much with them and have confronted him. He will take them to the cinema only if I think to buy tickets the night before, he might take them to the park for an hour. He takes them to his mother's and leaves them there for 3 hours every Saturday afternoon. Apart from that, most weekends they don't seem to do much at all DC don't seem unhappy because they just get to play all weekend but I have long suspected that are just playing on their kindles all day.

My DM has been here for 3 weeks. She has made a few comments about DH just being on his phone all the time and not doing much with them. Today I came home from work at 7pm and when I went to speak to her, she just burst into tears. She said DH stayed in bed until 10 am and they were helping themselves to snacks from the fridge when she came through. She said he then took them out for an hour to look at planes. Came home. Put the telly on for the kids and went to bed. She said he got up for 1 hour to ask if anyone wanted lunch then went back to the bedroom and played on his phone for the rest of the day. She said he didn't play with them once and barely spoke to them. DH overheard us and came in. She accused him of neglecting his children. He's now sulking in the living room, saying she is judgmental and a stirrer. He says he has had a hard week, has a cold and he needed a lazy day but as I said he does not seem to do much with them any weekend. She is in her room crying her eyes out saying our dc are lovely children and it is breaking her heart. I'm kind of in the middle. Neglect seems too harsh but i'm leaning more towards DM - he needs kicking up the arse right?

From the OP it sounded to me more as if he assumed his MIL would assume childcare by default and just left her to it, rude and lazy imo.

Ok so he took them to see some planes for an hour but his other 'activity' with them is taking them to their other grandmother's house (on a regular basis) and he doesn't even seem to be organised with feeding them proper meals.

My children have a more relaxed day at weekends but I learnt long ago that an unstructured day is boring for everyone involved, the time just drags and nothing productive happens. I always try and get a balance between things that need to be done and things that are fun for the kids. A day in bed unless absolutely unable to move due to illness just wouldn't happen. I wouldn't like my kids to spend every weekend in the way you describe although I have to say I consider the cinema screen time too so they wouldn't come home from there and have TV or tablet time.

I do think it could be taking its toll of he's working all week and then sole carer at the weekends. That's pretty tough

Oh please - what do you think lone parents do? Fucking cop out

And agree (as often do )with Mrs D - what the op imagines she would do at weekends is probably very different to what the reality of working all week and then having sole care every weekend would be. And if you are a crafting, baking, doing type op - the kids have a healthy balanced parenting team :)

Good post enjolrass

Also she may be a houseguest but why on earth should she take responsibility for the kids just because he stays in bed, fair enough if arrangements have been made but if he treated his wife as default childcare everyone would be encouraging her to deal with the situation. Somehow as it is the MIL she should be happy to step in so her son in law can sleep? She may not like the way he treats them but I think she was right to try and deal with the root problem rather than just taking up the slack herself and letting him off the hook.

At least a lone parent would be able to decide how they spent their weekend without someone dictating that their way isn't good enough.

But surely it depends on what they are doing?
Nobody is saying he needs to spend every waking second organising them, doing crafts and baking and nature walks.
But if they are spending all weekend every weekend playing computer games, that's not good either?
I'm all for kids entertaining themselves. But with books, toys, a bit of TV, a bit of screen time, drawing etc. not exclusively screen time week after week.
Which means a discussion with the OH to find out what they are up to.

It's hard to tell. I dion't think letting them up on their own and making snacks for breakfast is that bad and he took them out in the morning. I do think the bit about him being in his room on his phone and not talkign to them much doesn't seem very good with 7 and 5 year olds and most of us would not do that.

I also think looking after them all weekend when you're married is a bit much although he gets his mother to have them for 3 hours so that's actually a really good idea. We paid a sixth former if we were both busy for Saturday and Sunday mornings who gave full attention to the children and that worked very well so the hours we were with them we were energetic and engaged but it depends if you can afford to pay someone like that.

Just rereading the thread. Couple of thoughts.
Ops DM comment about the kids taking snacks from the fridge. That almost sounded like she was more bothered that they were helping themselves without permission. I don't know about other but some parents don't mind their kids riding fridges and cupboards for snacks, others do mind and expect children to ask. I'd wager DM is the latter and DH is the former. When I think of it that way the DM sounds controlling and judgemental already.

DM thinks an autistic child should be forced to play with other things, against sounds controlling and judgemental.

DM then goes on to complain about DH lack of interaction and parenting even though the kids were fine, he fed them, dressed them, took them out. DM wasn't there when they went out, for all she knows DH gave the kids his absolute and undivided attention the entire time they were out, I'd imagine he took them for longer than an hour. Unless you love at an airfield then they would have had to travel, park, look at planes, get back to car, travel home. Unless the 1hour included travelling plus activity plus traveling back, seems unlikely that all took just 60 minutes. I'd imagine DM is judging that harhly and in fact they were out longer than an hour.

I don't recall reading what DH does for a long or what OP does during the week. So if DH works all week on a full time role and then takes over sole parenting over the weekends etc. When is his down time if not having a lie in on a Saturday? If OP is a SAHM in the week and has to get kid to school, sort after school clubs etc then she will feel she does lots more with them, but she also gets a little down time whilst they're at school.

Tbh it seems, in this situation, DH has the shitty end of the stick with little to no downtime and when he does try to grab a little time to recharge he's got MIL judging him and his partner accusing him of neglect. I'm not sure anyone could live like that or long.

But these are assumptions and may have no bearing on real life or I might have missed info in the thread etc etc.

Oh please - what do you think lone parents do? Fucking cop out

Well if was me I would have some chill out time as I would bloody need it! One advantage of being a LP being that you don't have a partner judging you..... Genuine LPs are also not massively common and I personally only know 2. Most single parents actually have weekends off.

So many autocorrects, apologies.
DH does for a long = DH does for a living.

I think a lot of posters are projecting here and seeing the husband in the light of their own lazy days. But no parent I know ignores their children for 90% of the weekend. This husband is lazy every weekend.

And if the MIL had 'sorted the kids' as many are suggesting then there'd still be the problem of the husband not parenting. (And people saying he probably would have if she wasn't there.)

OP, I think there is a real issue here. Maybe some family counselling sessions would help articulate what the issue is? Perhaps your husband doesn't enjoy the company of young children. But he should try to spend some more quality time with them than 1 hour all weekend.

You admit your mother is judgemental and that your H is a lazy parent and you thought having your mother to stay for six months was a good idea because.........

Stop wringing your hands, youre not a victim (hmm I wonder where the OP gets her drama llama skills from), have the long overdue conversation with your lazy H and if your mother is still going to stay for six months then you need to have a strong word.

My kids get up before us and scavenge every weekend. Downside of having an early riser who is rarely in bed after 5. Yawn.

What do you do with the children on your non working days? Are they at school? Do you both get the same amount of child free time in a week? Or low intensity child time in a week?

Obviously the Dh is not perfect here, especially if he is like this every weekend, but the Mil is making things worse by her attitude. You aren't going to get him more engaged with the kids by having a judgmental woman who cries like that living in the house for 6months. If she is staying with you as a guest and its a favour then I really think she should be helping out and helping look after the kids, is a good way to do it. She should have played with them and had a quiet word in a nice way, if she was concerned.

If he is looking after them by himself, there's nothing wrong with just letting them play, but he should stay in the same room most of the time, talk to them a bit and play a bit and make sure they don't spend all day just playing on devices.

Maybe there is another answer. You say that you work weekends for childcare reasons. Now the children are school age then you may have more options to work in the week. Then you will be able to have weekends together as a family.

Your mother needs to help out or butt out. And if she's there for six months (and I assume not working) then she is absolutely not a house guest and should be helping out - putting a casserole in the oven so you can all have dinner together, pushing the hoover round, and, yes, playing with her grandchildren and taking them to the park for a few hours. Your DH may well be lazy (mine is, but can step up to the plate when necessary) but your mother sounds a bigger PITA.

I do think there should be more interaction (conversation at least) between your DH and your children.

But I must be the worst parent in the world as I didn't actively get involved in my DC play very often and we certainly didn't do stuff every weekend.

They seem to have grown up okay though...

And your DM needs to either stay out of it or volunteer to have them one of the days.

It's all a bit melodramatic. I don't understand where the constant screen time references are coming from. OP said one of the DCs is autistic and spends a lot of time playing with figures so presumably that DC was playing with figures for a lot of the time.

OP's DH took them out for an hour. He then spent an hour with them at lunchtime. So that's at least two hours when they were interacting with him and when they weren't on screens. (and if we assume MIL had her own agenda then perhaps she underestimated the time spent on both those activities).

OP if you want to have a conversation with your DH about how he interacts with the DCs, this is not the way to go about it. You and MIL ganging up on him isn't going to achieve a positive result.

Tobysmum I have very very few weekends without DS. Maybe 9-10 a year. Most weeks I work all week then look after him all weekend. I don't pretend to be perfect, far from it. I'm lazy, spend too much time on my phone and get bored of kids stuff easily. We have lazy days (already said I was hungover yesterday and pretty crap) but it's not all day and not every weekend. I can't see why people can't grasp the difference between a lazy day once in a while and a lazy dad all the time.

your mum is a shit stirrer imo.

If I was your dh I would ask her to leave after that. There is nothing actually wrong with letting children just play at the weekends. They dont need to go to cinema, im assuming theyre at school all week at 7 and 5. He took them to see the planes, he left them with their nana while he went back to bed. Big deal

It does sound a bit like a dig at you as well OP for being out all weekend.

This is quite pivotal though, you do need to decide whether you are backing your husband or not or whether you will allow these dramatics. You are lucky in a respect that your DH is as laid back as he appears, if my mother was as disrespectful to DH in his own home he would have an opinion on it.

YABU. At your children's ages they are completely able to help themselves to breakfast. Yes I know your DM said snacks from the fridge but it's still food.
Your DH took them out to see the planes which isn't not doing anything with them.
When our DDs were small DH and I would have lazy weekends and the children would just play on their own. Yes some weekends we did more with them and one or both of us would take them out.
However they enjoyed the lazy weekends and just chilling. Children do not have to be entertained the whole time.
Your DH said he wasn't feeling well.Your DM needs to back off and not tell tales to you.

Yeah exactly obsidian but apparently he has a cold and needed down time. We don't have an exact itinery of the past 12 months.

I actually think the big issue here is the clash of parents' working patterns. Never having time as a whole family.