Mother / Mother in Law - WTF does anyone do to keep everyone happy?

[LH2016]

Hi, hoping you can help. At my wits end. Mum lives in South London, we live in North. MIL lives in Suffolk. Logistically MIL doesn't get the chance to baby (10mo) regularly so we go for a weekend or she comes to us - once every 6 weeks or so. Mum sees him every week for a few hours. MIL is with us for second weekend in a month because early Nov we decided to go to her for an amazing fireworks display in the local village. Mum outraged. She says it's unfair that she doesn't get a look in at weekend. BUT SHE SEES HIM EVERY WEEK. We are dealing with distance and practically speaking she can see him every week and MIL can't. We also have our own friends to see, and so sue us, we want time on our own. She won't let it drop and now every time she comes over she just wants to slag off the in laws and I'm just sick of it. What do you ladies to about distances and MILS????? FFS. Didn't sign up for all this shit! Thanks... x

Um, 'what do you do about distances and MILs' is not your question!

Rather, it is:

'What do you do about a Mum who is an entitled brat who reckons that she gets to call the shots on where her grandchild goes rather than his parents?'

You tell your mum that -

a. This is not her child, and not her call. You are his parents, and you have the right to spend your time WITH YOUR CHILD wherever you damn well like.

b. Your MIL is his other grandmother, and therefore is exactly the same in your eyes as she. She's not more important than MIL. MIL is not more important than her. What IS more important than both MIL and your Mum is your primary family time. You decide that. What she is coming second to is your family time, not MIL, when you decide that you wish to visit MIL.

c. She currently sees your DS a lot. Every week. More than MIL. That is a privilege, not a right. If she wants that to stop and to end up seeing him FAR less, she should absolutely carry on pissing you off by slagging off her DGS's other granny and her SIL's mum. Thin. Ice.

I would refuse to discuss it with her. She sounds like a nightmare!

We used to have this with MIL. Since the time she threatened to stop baby sitting at all unless she got exactly equal shares with my mum we haven't seen her at all and life has been so much less stressful.

We didn't really go NC just because of this but it was certainly the last straw.

You cant keep everyone happy.
In your case you cant because your Mum is turning this into a battle. In real life 50/50 access never really happens, not even between parents. Theres always a compromise needed at some point.
She's feeling hard done by and thinks its ok to take it out on you; thats the real problem. So put your foot down and tell her to quit the complaining. Work out a suitable 'shut down' comment to use when she starts.
Then if you have the patience, talk about whats really behind it; it sounds like jealousy more than anything. You cant fix that for her.

Explain to your Mother that she has absolutely no 'rights' to see her grandchildren. You allow her to see your baby.

If she carries on like this she will no longer be granted that privilege.

We had this issue with my Dad wanting to see GD on Christmas Day and then moaning when he was offered Christmas Eve. I explained that he didn't actually have any right to see her at all, either over Christmas or at any other time.

Harsh, but it needed saying.

Would she prefer to see you for a weekend day once every six weeks too?

Don't discuss it or try to justify it. She is completely out of order. Just say Mom l am not even going there. ..l refuse to get involved in this. She is way over the line and has some cheek.And l am a grandma and completely on their side usually.

Tell her you're thinking of moving to Suffolk.

Stand your ground and cut her off every time she mentions it. There's no competition with Grandparenting; it's not about who sees the child most but who gives the child love, kindness and nurturing and your Mum sounds ever so slightly like she cares more about quantity of time than quality.

Stand up to her; just say "nope, you don't get to speak that way" every time she raises it. She'll learn.

Offer her the same 'visitation' as MiL gets.

That's fair, surely?

I would say you have 2 options.

1 - Smile and say you're so glad she's realised how stressful and uneven all this is as you were worried she was going to be upset, but now you're going to do 50/50 between grandmothers so a day or two every 6 weeks each will make your life so much easier

2 - Directly tell her she's being ridiculous and causing you stress, so drop it or be ready to see less of you

Our problem is the other way round. MIL relatively close and comes to see dd frequently. My mum lives 45 minutes away and refuses to come to us to see our 4 month old. She literally refuses to come to our house. She lives in a country village large 5 bedroom home for 3 people, we live in the outskirts of city in a small two bed but In a very nice family oriented area. She acts like we live in the slums. Even though we worked very hard to buy our home and it is the best area in the city!!

Our dd is awful in the car and screams and cries so a 45 min each way journey is hell. And she's all ways really grumpy when we visit because of this the last few weeks I've said we aren't going until she's better in the car and my mum has been slagging me off to everyone. Saying things like "I won't see that baby till she's walking"

All because my house is below her or something. It's ridiculous and I am starting to resent her massively for it.

What Fizzy said, and if she still complains ask her write how many days she she’s your child, then ask her what the difference is about that number and the number of days the other GM sees your child.

your poor MIL is not the issue here... you know this... right OP

Personally I would not get into the debate about number of hours and fairness. You know full well she gets more time than your mil. She’s acting like an entitled brat. You tell her you’re not interested and she can only see your child if she is able to speak to you in a civil manner and stop slagging off your in laws. Then leave or ask her to leave if she doesn’t stop.

Anxiety
Your mother sounds pretty awful. You have an off button on your phone. Please use it.

WOW. Thank you. THANK YOU!!!
Firstly, thank you for some very funny comments which have completely cheered me up. I knew you ladies would come to the rescue. Secondly, I don't disagree with anything you've said and you've made some bloody valid points. This is what annoys me - to the lady who said move to Suffolk, LOL, the lady who said offer to see your mum every six weeks LOL, you see what I mean ... she's bloody lucky with the arrangement we have.

I am being totally honest here (mainly as it's anonymous!!) but sometimes my MIL is a lot easier to spend time with than my mum. I don't think I help because I have a tricky relationship with my SIL and so if I get a bit annoyed at something she has done then I vent to my mum, and I suppose that then fuels her fire and then she goes off about my MIL and the entire family .... so FIRST lesson learned, I won't say anything about my SIL to my mum. I see that I may not be helping. But when my mum comes over she doesn't want to do anything, doesn't want to go anywhere, she's very set in her ways where as the MIL will go for afternoon tea or a walk, or shopping, just normal turn your brain off do something together activities. Mum can be tricky and she doesn't listen when you're talking, she's getting older so conversation is out because she isn't focussing or isn't listening or isn't interested but we pretty much just talk about tea and the weather, and so I guess I get a bit more out of my MIL. So I feel disloyal to mum, but then mum goes and makes things difficult and cranky and awkward so it's an ongoing cycle. It's good to hear it's not just me! Thank you for your advice and comments.

You've fallen into a habit and routine with your DM and now she feels slighted when you, quite reasonably, need to do something different which breaks the routine. She is being ridiculous really.

I would stop seeing her on a weekly basis for a while, shake things up. Break the habit.

Just tell her to shut it.

'Look mum, just stop it will you, I'm sick of hearing it'

OP hearing you!!

The best advice overall here is - nip this in the bud. Basically, your mum is still seeing herself as in a 'mum' position - the matriarch, the person at the centre. She isn't, and with your first one at 10 months now's the time for the massive row and fall out, if that's what's needed. Before your baby is old enough to know what's going on, before she wrecks her relationship with your DH and inlaws, before you get totally sick of her, before it goes on much longer and you have more children and before you know it she's running the show.

Lay it on the line, get angry, tell her she winds her neck in or you would much rather not see her at all - and mean it.

Set the rules now. You're the mum. You two are the parents.

My mother is exactly the same (or was when she was interested in my DC - another story).

I now never mention when we see PIL, because she kept a mental tally and it was always one that showed she was hard done by). If I, for example, said "we saw PIL at the weekend, it would go into the mental tally as"whole weekend with PIL", even if we'd only seen them for 2 hours.

I've come to realise that it's not my problem but a symptom of my mother's jealousy and neediness. We now do what suits us, trying to be "fair", but accepting that it's impossible to be.

I've got the same situation at the moment OP ..it's really upsetting and I don't know how to deal with it either so no advice I'm afraid but at least you know your not the only one .

I would get cross, tell her to grow up and refuse to discuss the matter further.

It’s so hard isn’t it. We have a different problem in that my MIL shows next to no interest in our DC (one is 3, one is 7 months) hasn’t seen them since July and hasn’t once suggested spending time with them ever - it’s all led totally by us. She’s even been up to our city (she lives an hour away) and hasn’t told us until later - she’d never suggest coming round, hasn’t yet seen the house we bought in summer, and has never suggested we go to her.

My DM would see them every day if she could but lives a couple of hours away. Because she only sees them a couple of times a month, she then has a tendency to go a bit over the top with them and will sometimes randomly suggest something impractical or inappropriate when she arrives (ice creams on a freezing windy day, DS loved the idea and I couldn’t bear to disappoint him - it was terrible, we all froze and DD’s blanket blew away, and DS had a tantrum).

Is your DD the only grandchild?