I genuinely don't know if I'm being a massive bitch. 
For starters we're all Americans and I know that long distances to you wouldn't seem quite so massive to us, so that may come into play. :) But.
My parents live about 300 miles from us. Takes five hours in the car on a good day. We have three kids (9, 3, 1) so it always takes considerably longer given bathroom stops etc.
DH works 8-6 Monday-Friday. I stay at home and do part time child minding during the school year and don't drive. 
(I really need to learn and stop being so afraid!) My parents are 56 but my mother is frequently not in fantastic health. She has chronic migraines and thyroid issues and has to get cortisone shots in her knee every few months. :( She works from home and is pretty flexible. My dad also owns his own business but works ib a hardware store on the side. (His business has been slow lately so he's picked up more shifts at the store, too)
Anyway. My DC are the only grandchildren on my side and seem likely to remain so, at least for years. My mom talks a lot about us moving closer but seems to have accepted that won't happen. She's talked a lot about moving closer to us but my dad REALLY doesn't want to. She still talks about it but I don't know how serious it is. She looks at houses occasionally but she admits that if it weren't for us, she would never think of leaving. I would like them closer but it's a lot of pressure for my family to be her only reason for being in a certain place. I would feel like we had to be around every time she wanted to stop by and also like we couldn't move if we ever wanted to. (I don't think we ever will, but who knows.)
They see the kids pretty often. They are really good about coming down and staying if I have a meeting or even a doctor's appointment or something. I NEVER make them feel obligated too but they always offer.
They often have the older two for long weekends at theirs.(Maybe every six weeks or so?) Usually we meet them halfway and drop off the kids. Sometimes they will bring them all the way back and sometimes we meet again. We don't often go all the way to theirs...maybe just a few times a year and then we stay in our family's lake cabin. The reason we don't is that our house is a fixer upper and there's always SOME project or another going. Plus DH and I rarely get to go out together so we use the time the kids are at my parents' to work on house stuff and/or occasionally go see an actual movie that doesn't have cartoon characters in it. :) My mom wasn't fussed about seeing me all that often before I had the kids (we get along well but she's pretty clear on the real draw being the DC) so I never think it's all that important that DH and I go up there.
This weekend is a long one (Labor Day here on Monday) and then DS starts school on Tuesday. A few days ago I was telling my mother that as it's the long weekend I was going to get a babysitter to be with the kids so I could finish the project I'm working on (switching some bedrooms around including repainting and ripping up carpet) because I want the boys to be settled in their new room before school starts. She texted "well you know you can drop them here anytime" and I didn't say anything... probably sent a smiley or something.
Today she brought up the weekend again and suddenly started in on how we never "just drop them off, you only bring them all the way here if you're going to stay at the cabin." I explained that that probably wouldn't happen because DH wouldn't be able to get there before midnight on a Friday night with them and then he would have to come right back on Sunday to get them. She just said "yep, I know" in a tone that implied she and my dad are always doing that very thing. Which isn't entirely true, they never take them just for a few days because it's not worth it with the driving. It's usually a four day weekend at least.
She said she was telling my dad how we NEVER just "drop them off" and he agreed and was angry about it.
I don't know if I'm BU or not but honestly I can't see that we are ever going to do that. I don't drive but even if (when, hopefully) I get my license I can't see driving five hours at night on a Friday and dropping them off and then leaving. If DH or I bring them up there we will stay for the weekend and then come home all together.
She got off the phone kind of quickly after that and I'm not really sure what to make of it all. My dad will drive down to drop the kids off or pick them up and then drive back a few hours later, but I always tell him it's madness and he should at least stay the night. He doesn't usually want to though. Once they drove down and stayed for six hours to see DS's school concert and then drove back home. I have never asked them to do any of this and I always try to get them to stay. We don't have a lot of room but they could sleep on our bed or the couches, but they never want to. My dad has talked about putting a guest room in our garage (he's a carpenter of sorts) and maybe then they would.
I don't want to make it sound like "if you don't pick them up halfway you won't see them as often" but to put it bluntly that's kind of the way of it. DH can't take his whole weekend driving there and back and there and back again and we can't always get away for an entire weekend to stay up there (we have a massive dog too and no one to watch him when we leave so we have to take him with us and he doesn't get on well with my parents' dogs). We could probably make it up every 2-3 months as a family and stay for a weekend but I know she will complain about going that long and also not seeing them "all to herself."
AIBU to say that we are never going to just "drop them off"? Sorry this is so long.
AIBU?
...to tell my mother we are never going to just "drop the kids off"?
CheerfulYank · 01/09/2016 00:52
Thanks
Lucky you starting school after Labor Day - here we went back today for two days of school then the long weekend. It's bonkers
Trafalgargal - Cheerful explained why she didn't do Driver's Ed, she also explained that as she works as a childminder she wouldn't be able to leave when the children finish school.
Cheerful - do you absolutely and totally understand that you are being unbelievably, mind-blowingly unreasonable to not have learnt to drive - none of us care in the slightest that this isn't what you asked 
LOL at "learn to drive" being the new "canceled cheque" (Or check even 
)
Okay. I do not personally blame my parents for not teaching me to drive. I never said that. Someone else asked if they did not, and I said obviously not, or I would know how. DH and assorted friends do want me to learn but until this year I have not known precisely WHAT my problem with it actually was, and it's made it hard to properly try without having panic-y type attacks. Now it's a bit clearer to me and I hope to remedy it this year.
Not all high school have driver's ed (and for clarification, I stated that I was BORN in Ohio and lived there until the age of seven. I have lived in Minnesota ever since. Ohio may very well BE car-centric; I would have no way of knowing as this is not something that would impress itself upon a seven year old.) My high school had it as a class that everyone took until a year before I would have taken it. After that it was something you had to pay for and take after school. At the time (I was 15) my mother and I had a not-so-great relationship. She got angry with me over the cost, I sneered that I wouldn't take it, and I didn't. After that it became increasingly hard to work into my schedule and I just never did. The older I got, the more nervous it made me, and at some points I made excuses by thinking that I wouldn't be able to afford a car and insurance anyway (which at the time was true) and also at that time I lived in a bigger city with a bus system. I don't now and DH and I can afford another car, so I will try to get my license and get comfortable driving this year. Wish me luck!
As far as the rest of it, we have tried skype but my parents' have dodgy internet and it doesn't work well. None of us have iphones for facetime but that MAY be something to look into. However there are very few phone plans that work around my parents' house. (They live on the outskirts of a town which is jumping off point for this, it truly is the end of the road!) The kids do call and speak to them every few days.
It's just difficult as what my mother wants is to be involved in their every day lives. I have discussed all sorts of options including a camper or tiny house she can bring to our driveway, going in together on a house in town (it's a duplex and she could have the upper level while I ran my childcare business out of the bottom), and the aforementioned guest suite in the garage. (There's a ton of room out there and it really could be pretty nice. Plenty of room for a bed and kitchenette and small bathroom with toilet and sink) She doesn't really like any of them because what she wants is to be able to have the kids over on a whim or to just decide to drive over and see them whenever. So I don't know. Just recently she told me that their town is looking for someone to run their movie theater (I used to do that here before ours closed down) and if I got the job then we could have their house and she and my dad would live in a tiny house on the property.
She was semi-joking about the situation but seemed really put out when I told her that honestly I don't want to live in that town again; I grew up there and just...no. I do love visiting it though :)
So, I don't know. At the end of the day she wants what my in laws have...ten miles away, take DS and his cousins home with them after religion class every Wednesday, and get called to pick kids up from swimming or whatever in a pinch, can randomly call and say they'd like to see a movie with the kids the next day...stuff like that.
Anyway, sorry for another epic post :o Thanks for the input and I'll keep you all in the loop on my driving as it seems to be very important to some of you
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