How often do you see MIL? (Particularly if you have DC’s)

[JustAnUnimaginativeUsername]

I know everyone’s lives are wildly different, but just trying to gauge what the somewhat 'norm’ is for MIL visits/frequency of them?

DH and I have 2DC’s, and I think MIL has seen our youngest DC - who’s almost 18 months old - about 4 times since birth, one of those times being a flying visit of less than 10 minutes. DC1 will be 3 in December and I genuinely don’t think he’d even know who MIL is if she was to walk through our front door right now.

She works a regular 9-5, so granted the weekends are hers to do with however she pleases, but she only lives about a 10-15 minute car journey from us, so wouldn’t have to move heaven and earth to get here for a cup of tea, a catch up or some play time over the park with our DC's.
A couple of times DH has messaged her asking if she’d like to do a particular thing with all of us, to which she’s either not replied or has been ‘busy’ (usually at home watching football..), I too have sent a couple messages over the last few years inviting her to ours, saying we’d cook lunch and that it'd be nice for her to see her grandchildren in the process, but she doesn’t reply to me whatsoever.

I know we could go and visit her, but we don’t have a car, and the journey from ours to hers via bus takes well an over hour which is no fun with a two year old and one year old in tow.. far easier for her to jump in her car and drive for a few minutes for the sake of her seeing her grandchildren, but alas, it never happens.

I don’t really know if her lack of interest/lack of visits is the norm for MIL’s? My DM, for comparison, sees us as often as she can, at least once a month but usually every other weekend if we’re not busy doing something else, she also tries to take the DC’s out one at a time for some one on one time with them which is lovely and means our eldest gets really excited when he knows she's coming round. My step mother and DF will try and get round to us/have us over at theirs an average of once every 2-3 months, but if they can’t make it/a fair amount of time has passed between visits, it’s no big deal as I hear from them a few times throughout the month anyway for a chat and a catch up, whereas MIL quite literally never checks in to see how we’re all doing or asks after our DC’s.

Is this is a common thing? Or does it seem like there might be something else going on here?

Do your MiL’s make an effort and seem interested in your DC’s?

We go to her, she has DS 2 days a week while we work so see her then, and then maybe every other weekend for a couple of hours. I speak to her most days, DH will speak to her once or twice a week on the phone too.

My PILs have never been that interested in our two dds - they probably see them two to three times a year.

I understand it though - our dds are their 8th and 9th grandchildren, so the novelty has worn off by this point!

For my parents on the other hand, our dds are their only grandchildren and they love them to bits. We see them at least 3 times a week.

My PIL aren't that bothered about DD although they will claim to be to all their friends. They see her once every 6 to 8 weeks despite being a 10 minute drive away and being invited more often than that.

PIL look after my DS 2 days a week so I see them then, and maybe a third time if we're near theirs or going out for a meal together etc. My husband speaks to them on the phone every day at their insistence. For comparison, my parents have my son one day a week and I might see them another day briefly, but will Whatsapp my mum regularly in between.

Twice or 3 times a year. We've just had 32 days of no contact for no reason whatsoever other than that she couldn't be bothered basically. We sent her emails/pictures while she was abroad.

Took her being home for 5 days to even bother to reply...and then used an excuse of bad weather meaning no internet - well I'm sure you could have sent a text or a post card. she was in Oz by the way not deepest darkest Peru

I contacted her in Feb to ask if she had a free weekend in March or April for her birthday/Mothers day and Easter and was told that she didn't

Now I just think you reap what you sow and get on with my life.

Mine does not seem that interested. We don't live in the same country so contact is by phone - birthday and Xmas, probably. We tried to get PILs to set up wechat (Chinese app) which you can use for phone and video calls, messages etc, but they didn't seem interested even when ds offered to do it for them.
It used to bother me that they weren't really interested, but now I just think it's their choice and I am not going for force them to be interested. They don't have any other gc.

She's dead now, but when the boys were preschool age she would have them 2 afternoons a week, and we'd collect them fed and bathed at bedtime. I loved her for that!
The visits dropped off as they got older and life got more complicated, but we got together as much as we could with MIL and FIL.

A couple of times a month. We used to live the other side of the country so it was usually once a year for about a week or weekend, perfect.

In a decade, I can count on my fingers the number of times we have seen her. No animosity, she just doesn't seem to care particularly, which seems to be the opposite problem to most posters on here with over involved mil.

Sadly, my mum has no interest in my children. They are her only GCs, and she drives past our house twice a week to see a relative. She never drops in, despite me being on maternity leave. She only comes round for birthdays and Christmas.

I don't understand it, but she'll never change so I might as well accept it.

We go to stay with the in laws friday-sunday every second or third month in order to keep the kids close with them. FIL makes zero effort with them and as such as no real relationship, MIL loves them fiercely and they adore her back. It's lovely! And maybe twice or three times a year MIL will get on a train and come and stay with us fri-sun to babysit so we can go to a party/concert etc.

Thing is with this type of question is there is no right or wrong. It really is a case of how long is a piece of string.

Some grandparents provide regular childcare and so are seen most days, others aren’t interested or are far away and it’s a couple of times a year at most.

Whatever works for all involved is what’s best, but I feel like you’re not happy with this setup.
Unfortunately you can’t force a relationship if she has little interest in having one.
Try and send her photos and updates to keep her in the loop, invite her over or if you’re having a day out just tell her ‘we will be in x place at y time if you want to join us’.
By all means make the effort to offer Oporto get together but if she won’t take them up there’s a limit to what you can do.

She doesn’t sound very bothered about seeing you all OP, which is pretty sad imo, but I guess it’s her choice at the end of the day. At least you’ve tried to arrange things with her. You could look on it differently and be glad she’s not demanding to see you all every weekend

My partner's parents who live a 5 minute drive away visit every 2-3 days to see DD, sometimes more. They went 6 days once without seeing her once while they were on holiday and you'd swear they hadn't seen her in months when they got back. I do strongly feel it is somewhat a novelty right now as she's the first DGC. I am sucking it up for now as I'm on mat leave and I do like them a lot but when I'm back working full-time in 3 weeks it will be weekends only for my sanity's sake haha.

My DM only sees her sporadically which makes me very sad but she lives further away and doesn't drive so I understand.

At least twice a week, but they do childcare for us and are retired. My DM less so, as we all work and she often goes away at the weekend.

I saw my maternal grandparents about 4-5 times a year, my paternal gran about once a month. We'd always go to them, paternal gran was closer. She was a bit inform and didn't have her own car. We enjoyed seeing her, but she never had a caring role for us. Maternal grandparents less exciting to us as they were much older.

Honestly, without children yet, but with DH having one of those really close families, I would love to look forward to having kids without having them in our pockets!

I had zero angst as a child about my own relationship with grandparents, nor did I compare to anyone else. Kids just take what comes to them.

Also, personally, I'd loathe to have the sort of routine life of seeing people that regularly - so I doubt I'd want that sort of routine as a grandparent either.

Before they died, 5 days out of 7, we like our relatives!

MIL only saw DD 3/4 times a year. We do live a big distance away.

However she didn’t really interact with her when she did see her anyway.
She was OBSESSED with her first grandchild for the two years, then it just dropped off when she realised she wasn’t actually that interested.
She never went out of her way to see her 3 GC who lived locally.

I can’t say she was that interested in her own children as adults anyway.

PIL see us maybe 3-4 times a year, and they live 45 mins drive away. They aren't interested in ds who is GC#6 and 11 years younger than the next youngest GC.

We see MIL 3/4 times a year. She isn’t very engaged with them when she’s here, though you can tell that she’s Very fond of them.

She lives about 350 miles away and irritates the hell out of both DH and I, so it’s unlikely to ever increase.

Ils never bothered with us when we lived ten mins a way..
Saw ds 3 times in 4 months. Held him 2 of those times. Fil once.. We moved an hour away and she emailed her friends we had cut her off!
Not seen them for over 4 years now.
Dh is an only dc and ds their only dgc.

She's at home watching the football instead of spending time with young kids??

Lucky bitch

I would imagine that most on here see their MIL a lot less than their husband/partner see their MIL, the maternal mother seems to get a much fairer deal than the paternal mother.

My only grandchild lives a 4.5-hour drive away and in 11 months I've seen her more than that. I've been sick for 9 months or it would have been a bit more. If we lived as close as you do like to see her once a week if I could.

We hardly see ours but I love it that way! I would hate to have them dropping in regularly or having that much of a presence. My ds knows who they are but he really doesnt ask for them or I dont feel he misses us.
I only had one gp who we were close to but I honestly dont feel like I feel a sense of loss of not having gps.