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?

Its a hard one. He did take them out, he did feed them. But essentially he is clearly disinterested. And this in itself is a long slow lesson to the dc that their ideas, thoughts and play don't matter- and one that will end up in them feeling badly about themselves, for sure.

Op, you sound caught between a rock and a hard place. Your dh sounds like he is a decent person- could you gently point out the long term effects of his self absorption?

I would take issue with hour-long baths after work every day, what he did yesterday doesn't sound so terrible though.

Anyone creating a scene with loud crying and accusations of neglect would be shown the door sharpish though. There's no getting over that.

Your dh took them to see their Grandma, and took them to see some planes.
How is that not doing anything? Sounds like a perfectly fine weekend activity to me.
If I had my MIL staying for SIX MONTHS and then took to her room crying her eyes out accusing me of being lazy and neglecting my kids, I'd be fuming!
Don't let her get in the middle of you.

I think his pita mil might well be the main factor in why he was hiding away. He knew the dc were safe and saw an opportunity to get away from her for a bit
Yup, definitely this!

There are different expectations here between the OP and her husband on how weekends should be spent. These should be worked between the two of them, leading hopefully to a compromise. What the OP's mother is doing is driving a wedge between the couple and making this a lot less likely. It is none of her business how her son-in-law chooses to parent at the weekend, unless she witnesses abuse, which is not present here.

I found when DS was younger and indeed to this day that DH parents differently from me and in my opinion not as well.

He is much more task focused and will write out his list of weekend jobs for the house and garden, rather than allotting time to spend with DS.

However that does not mean he is neglectful or goshawful.

As I said above if you back your DH up and show a united front to your DM, then he may be much more willing to discuss weekend options.

My first thought was him staying in a different room was more to do with his MIL being around than wanting to be away from the DCs.

I agree with that too.

If my mum had done this to my DP she would know if she acted like that again she would need to find somewhere else to stay for the 6 months.
She is a guest and having a tantrum while throwing around accusations of neglect aren't acceptable.

What is with the tears? Crying at the start, crying in her room. Has she got other problems in her life that mean she is very emotionally vulnerable, because I would be as upset by the DCs witnessing all the waterworks as I would be about DP leaving them to play for a bit.

"MrsDeVere"

"Only the OP really knows whats going on but I think she needs to be honest with herself about expectations,"

But she doesn't know what is going on, she "suspects" that he is lazy, she "suspects" that he does nothing.

All she really has to go on is children that are "happy" with their weekends and a mother that is sticking an oar in.

On a different note, I suspect that the DH is a nice man or the OP would be posting about him wanting to kick her DM out.

Sorry op but dm sounds awful. Your dh cannot be all bad when he agreed to her staying (or did he not get a say?). Why on earth wouldn't she take it at face value that he felt unwell and just entertained the children herself, if she felt that strongly about it? If I were you, I would be having a serious conversation with her too, perhaps she needs to find somewhere else to stay.

Has your DM acted like this before - as in judging your DH for where she feels he is falling short?

FWIW I never did much with DD at weekends - having worked five 12 hour days and being a 100% (or apparently "genuine" as someone upthread called it) lone parent, I have never had a weekend "off" although once DD was say 13/14 I would do the shopping etc without her - and expected her to share household chores at weekends as they were the only two days we had to do them. We would see friends and family on Sundays but nothing structured, and we didn't have a television until she was eight - I (like the DH) probably didn't get up until 10am some days but she was happy to amuse herself. When she was older and I suggested various clubs/activities, she said that her weekdays were so structured (before and after school care) that she preferred to relax at weekends and really didn't need any planned events. Now she's 18, obviously she goes out with friends, has a Saturday job etc but I don't think she missed out.

Wow you may want to reconsider your mother staying for 6 months or you may end up divorced if this is what is is like after 3 weeks.

While the OP's mother is being tactless and melodramatic, I think the OP is concerned because it confirms her sense that her DH is a lazy, uninvolved parent every weekend, whose idea of parenting seems to involve one token outing and then being elsewhere in the house surgically attached to his technology.

I work full-time, and my husband always works one weekend day, occasionally two, and he is currently abroad. We have no family or friends in this country who can help, and we live in a village, and I don't drive. I would say I was an averagely lazy parent, but even this weekend, when I'm snowed under with work, have a bad cold, we have no car, and the weather is bad, we got the bus to the nearest city to go to the library and shop for groceries, picked up windfalls in the garden and fed the birds, made a cake and read. Today DS, who is three, has watched a film, but also spoken to DH and grandparents on Skype, and played board games and coloured with me, and later we'll make a run to the park if it doesn't pour. I think that's pretty minimal, and I've been working and looking after him solo for a week. He needs exercise and at least some interaction.

The bit most of us find strange is leaving a 5 and 7 year old in rooms on their own most of the time (when hwe wasn't out with them(). So we need know if it were to avoid evil mother in law or whether it was because he could see she was playing with them and presumabkly as she's living there rent free why not let her do a bit of childcare in return for her room and board?

I agree, Deo. There's no one but me to interact with my son this weekend, but if there was, I'd be sloping off for a walk or a bath, or doing more work than I can currently manage. I think in the DH's case, I wouldn't feel it legitimates me spending an entire day in a different part of the house to my two young children. Did he actually know the MIL was there and involved?

I have always been a bit puzzled by the mn insistence that parents should be doing "stuff" with their DC all the time. If my DF had tried to get me involved in activities with him all through the weekend when he was looking after me I would have gone absolutely spare: as a child I wanted time to myself and just play as well. Surely allowing your kids to be kids and enjoy their own head space is a beneficial thing?

My DS (11) pretty much lives for "lazy days" where he's not expected to do, or participate in very much at all. Every other Saturday, he spends 9 hours with his father - and is run ragged. He's in school all week, with all that entails, and every other Sunday (on the opposite week to his time with his father) we spend the day with my side of his family. So for the "off" day in each weekend, he recharges his batteries. Actually, his paternal grandmother made him a birthday cake the other month with a little fondant DS lying in his bed, because she'd asked him what his best days were like and got the answer "being lazy!". He might well lounge about in his pyjamas, but he reads, draws, catches up on his homework, plays board games with me and his sister when she's not working.

When I was growing up, weekends were for pottering around and doing very little. By the time I became a parent almost 20 years ago, things had Changed (yes; with a capital 'C'!). Suddenly, we were failing as parents if our darling offspring weren't leaping around all hours of the day, doing ballet, or computing, or math tuition, or music lessons, or gymnastics, or dance classes, or... or... or...

My DS's friends mostly all leave school after an almost 7 hour day and go off to do another 3 or so hours of swimming/gymnastics/music/dance, they then have playdates, and homework, and... don't learn how to like their own company. They constantly complain of being bored - and their parents (with whom I'm friends) constantly moan about their whinging children. My DS doesn't moan, or whinge, or even whine about being bored. Because he knows how to entertain himself. Just as I did at his age. Actually, one of his closest friends has recently started coming to ours after school for tea... and being dropped off at his home at 7pm, but only on Mondays because the rest of the week is choc-full of "activities". And when he's dropped home? Well, it's then homework, and French lesson prep for the next night, and... why?! He's 10 years old, for crying out loud.

My 19 year old DD... well, I bought into the clap-trap until I realised too late the precedent that was being set. She now cannot occupy herself at all (has to be told what to do and when, often in great detail), panics if her days are not fully structured by other people, and has already "burned out" three times in the last 8 years. She's not the only one in her peer group. Actually, the only two in her immediate circle of friends who hasn't had some form of a breakdown, are the ones whose parents eschewed militant "they must be occupied/entertained 24/7" behaviour. Conversely, my DS is able to work out how to entertain himself. I've never been an emotionally absent parent - actually, it's possible they'd both insist that I'm too emotionally involved in what goes on in their lives. I work from home, but always with an ear and one eye to what is going on if they're around. I just believe in allowing my DS to be the child that I stupidly believed the hype concerning my DD not being.

Let your children get bored, OP. One day, I promise you, you'll be glad they were... because it teaches them to think for themselves, develop an independence that will stand them in good stead, and they'll be the best problem solvers you've ever met.

As for your mother... yeah: she's shit stirring. But then, if there's no shit to stir, she cannot stir the shit, can she now?!

I have always been a bit puzzled by the mn insistence that parents should be doing "stuff" with their DC all the time. If my DF had tried to get me involved in activities with him all through the weekend when he was looking after me I would have gone absolutely spare: as a child I wanted time to myself and just play as well. Surely allowing your kids to be kids and enjoy their own head space is a beneficial thing?

I agree Fith

Sometimes I'm worn out just reading about all the structured 'fun' a lot of MNetters apparently organise.

Sometimes the baby's barely out of the womb before they're organising groups and places to take them.

Just because some parents like that sort of thing, it doesn't mean the parents who don't constantly organise activities are wrong.

Sometimes I'm worn out just reading about all the structured 'fun' a lot of MNetters apparently organise.

It reminds me of that bit in Star Trek Voyager, when Seven of Nine is training some children, and they moan that they never have any fun. She points out that fun has been scheduled for 9:30-10:15 the following Tuesday.

Excellent post, contrary!

Couldn't agree more that children should not be organised and "entertained" constantly. They need time on their own to develop independence and imagination. It is quite possible that the OP's children like to spend quite long periods playing in their bedroms - it was my son's preferred activity at that age. He would spend hours building elaborate creations with Lego or Playmobil, and certainly wouldn't have wanted our assistance or interference. After he'd finished, he would call us through to admire his work, and discuss various aspects of it, but that was our sole contribution during a morning or afternoon. He loved his own space and the freedom to play as he wanted, after a week of being busy and fully organised at school.

Dependso n the age very much. I am in the house all the time with my children some weekends and I hardly see the teenagers just because we are all busy doing our things unless we break, eat or have a chat. That is becuase they are teenagers. I don't think that would be the case with many 5 year olds but even with them some get very engrossed in a task and don't need attention ( I never managed to breed one like that at that age however unless it were out playing with older siblings).

One of the greatest gifts I have given my children is ability to entertain themselves, make their own meals etc and when they go to university in a couple of years they will be very self sufficient.

Also the father here might be worried about being snooped on or judged by his Mil so keeping out the way to avoid her penetrating gaze.

my kids are expected to entertain themselves of a weekend, we might spend a couple of hours doing 'stuff' but otherwise, get on with it, i'm here if they need me, but i'm not running around making them do anything.

My parents were never busy people, neither am i, thank god, nor is DH.