I know that this technically doesn't affect me as such but I'm a concerned observer as is my dh and I don't know how much longer either of us can just sit back and say nothing, but anyway I'll get to it.
My dh has a younger sister and a younger brother. His younger sister (not that much younger we are all in our 30's) has three children, all primary school age. The jist of it is that my SiL (imo) is taking advantage of my dh's parents and their brother. She is a single parent, but at the same time not completely helpless and despite the fact she doesn't work and never has she depends on my inlaws for practically everything. My MiL and FiL both turned 70 last year, so are retired and have time on their hands and they love their grandchildren including mine and dh's kids and they'll happily help out if any of us need it but I think my SiL is taking the piss.
She lives literally a five minute walk away from her kids primary school yet she never takes them herself. My MiL has a key and turns up at 8am every weekday morning to sort the kids out (they're 10, 7 and 6) whilst my SiL lays in bed. She takes them to school and then picks them up every day too whilst my SiL is either still laying in bed or out with friends shopping or having drinks in the pub. She expects my inlaws to mind her kids whenever she wants to go anywhere and if she "can't be bothered" to take them to doctors/dentist/opticians etc than my inlaws will take them. Like I said they aren't exactly spring chickens and both me and my dh are seeing first hand the strain it is on them keep running around like this.
My SiL doesn't drive so she uses both my MiL and FiL as her own personal taxi service. Every school holidays she just assumes they will mind the kids why she goes out and if on the rare occasion they refuse to have them then my SiL goes mad. She also is constantly asking them to borrow her money even though she knows they only have their pensions to live on and again if they refuse she takes a strop. My dh's brother is currently at uni but has a lot of time off in between so my SiL has him running round doing jobs for her ie the food shop, taking her kids to the park, paying money into the bank, etc etc and I don't think it's very fair.
Now I know what you're thinking. It's up to my dh's family if they chose to do these things for SiL but I genuinely think they are too soft and maybe even little scared of saying no, as trust me it doesn't happen often. I just can't help but think that my SiL is lazy and should be doing these things herself instead of relying on other people and to be honest I'm sick of having the single parent card thrown at me. I have single parent family members and friends and none of them are like this, they are strong independent women and manage fine with just occasional help. My dh has tried to speak to his parents before about this matter but his mum just shrugs it off and says she doesnt mind helping and his dad just days that it's a struggle for SiL and we wouldn't know because their are two of us to parent our kids. Yeah the difference is though we both work (and I study) plus raise three children but we pay to have people look after our kids (nursery, after school club) we don't expect our parents to commit to long term childcare. So Aibu do you think to feel this way? I personally don't think I am as I hate to see people being taken advantage of but I just wanted to get other perspective.