My mum's 'demands' for money... for looking after her grandchildren etc

[Helpmepleasenow48]

Last year my MIL and FIL gave us a sizeable chunk of money to buy a house. My DH is on a good salary but to buy our house and get a mortgage we needed a bigger deposit.
We have bought our house and planning bits and pieces. I'm freelance and working part time at that moment as am not sure what to do (that's s wholeother post!?) anyway since we moved my mum who lost her home and business back in the early 1990s when I was a teenager has become a bit unbearable.
She doesn't have much money and can't work because she had a hip replacement op last year. My stepfather died back when their business went under in the 1990s. My dad and step mum are around but haven't helped financially. My uni education was free but I stayed with my mum till I got a job after post graduate training (which I took a year out after to work after university to pay for). I don't earn loads and have two DC... my mum has always been a bit funny with money. And now she demands cash after looking after the Dc. Who are both at school but I had some days I had to work in London so I needed her to pick them up and give them dinner before DH came home.
Every time she offers to do something she will say 'when are you getting paid'-I think she thinks that because we are having an extension (which was planned when we bought our house) we somehow have loads of money.
What do I do?!! Although she's been great at letting me live with her in my 20s etc I can't support her and need to monetise everything is driving me crazy and skewing our relationship.

I've spoken to my mum and said I will pay her £50 for the two days she helped out. I explained that the employer has not paid me yet (I do regular work for them also but from home so a number of invoices are on their system). I don't how much I will get paid on Friday but I've said £50 and if there's more I can give her some more.
However after that it's petrol and food expenses only as the only reason I'm working is to pay off mortgage early and plump my very small pension plus keep my career skills going so that when my youngest DC starts secondary school I can go back to a management position. I've said I can't pay any more and that if we did have to pay childminder rates I would have to work school hours only (which I can do). She says that's fine. I've laid it on the line. I wouldn't have gone in to an office if we had to pay a childminder - we can't afford it - it makes no financial sense.
One thing this has helped focus me on is my career and earning money - I need to do some better paid work... which I can fit in around school hours...

How old is your mum? Could she get a more regular income elsewhere?

Does your mother do nothing unless it is paid.

Are you sure you are going to get free child care next time or could she refuse.

Why are you still paying for her food and petrol.

Really it is your pil who are picking up the tab for her incompetence with money.

If you didn't have to keep subsidising her through out your life you would have probably not needed pil to give you a gift.

Your DM sounds exactly like my mother with the exception that she never bought anything.
She would bank money and she too begrudged anything I ate or cost her
She had a ledger that she kept and wrote down anything and everything she spent on me. Every nappy, bottle and baby grow to every meal would be worked out and entered into a book.

I am NC with her and one of her final parting words were how much I had cost her.

I just get the impression that no one has ever said no to her. Probably why she has never got over the 90s.
Even now op you are still paying her

I think she thinks you are loaded. Whether you are or not isn't the point. You can't go around demanding money off people. OP has lots of financial commitments already l am sure with 2 children, a mortgage, bills, her pension, her husbands pension etc etc

A different spin on it is imagine the OP's mother is elderly. Wants shopping done, taking to numerous hospital appointments etc would it be reasonable for OP to charge her?! I think not. Is helping out for in effect a few hours a month a massive imposition and demand really?! She's being cheeky. It's hardly as if it's the tail end of paying hours and years of care e.g. 40 hours + a week

If your finances don't allow M&S wine, pre-cooked chickens etc. Then why should you buy them for someone else. She needs to budget better and be told she can't use you as a cash cow. If money is tight maybe she needs to get a part time job. It sounds like she's always been terrible with money

You've told her you'll pay her her £50 and told her there might be more cash coming her way. Why would you do that?

I imagine you'll be handing over lots of £50s for the foreseeable future OP

£50 is a lot for 2 days
My late mother in law looked after my 2 DD's for an hour and a half after school until i got home, i paid her because she was doing me a big favour, she never asked for anything,

Your mum sounds grabby. This is not going to end.

Why do you expect your mum to provide free childcare so you can earn money - why does she have to work for free (sorry, for food and petrol expenses )? I think you’re taking advantage to be honest, it sounds like you ask her fairly regularly.

This is a seperate issue to her tapping you and your H up for money all the time. But I think expecting not to pay for childcare, regardless of who is providing it, is really cheeky.

£50 isn't a lot - it's £2.50 per kid for five hours each day. I was paying more than that in the 1990s - and earned more than that as a 16 year old babysitter in the 80s, when all I had to do was hop over the fence to the house next door.

I would really struggle with taking money off my DS and DDIL for looking after my dgcs. They live over 100 miles away so it sometimes involves staying up to a month at a time, they offer to pay train fares etc but I always refuse. It's certainly not because I have plenty of money, it's because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of caring for them and taking money would devalue the relationship between us all.

I wouldn't think to charge my ds1 unless I thought he was taking the piss.
But I don't have money for no end of treats for my gd, which is fine whilst she's a baby.
I don't think I could afford to be out of pocket, but both ds and dil would offer if they knew I was short.
Maybe she thinks you take advantage, not sure how but, maybe she just needs money and would ask anyway.

Re the point that she can't work because she had a hip replacement last year...this sounds like an excuse?

Most people are back to normality within a couple of months of having a hip replacement - that's why they have one!

Sounds to me like she's sees looking after your DCs as easier cash than a regular job.

Your mum sounds horrible. Your relationship should not be do transactional - I can't imagine ever charging my children for looking after my grandchildren!
I think you need to put a stop to the 'extras' - if transactional is what she wants, then that's what she'd get from me. So am agreed hourly rate for childcare, but no top ups or favours such as your dh is doing for her. Tell mil not to give her cars or anything else.

If I could I'd find alternative care. Just to add that you shouldn't follow advice up thread to ask a sahm. It's annoying when working parents think we have nothing better to do than facilitate their ability to work. We sah (often at great financial and career cost) for the benefit of our own families, not to bail out every other bugger who thinks we have nothing else to do but mind their kids. I'm not really aiming this at you OP, because you don't sound at all like a piss taker but as a general point, if anyone asks a sahm (who isn't a genuine friend) for favours please be willing to reciprocate in some way.
Sorry OP, had a bit of a rant there. It's just that this advice always crops up on threads

I don't know anyone whose parents look after their children where there aren't some issues or compromises in one way or another. Whether that's the grey area of grandparent time, sufficient payment or availability.

It's fairly common to offer money if the grandparents are poor too. Work out what compromise you can live with/ could work for both of you or arrange alternative child care.

she wants to have her cake and eat it, if she wants to be paid then you'll need to agree terms and conditions and she'll need to provide a childminding service
But if she wants to be paid for spending time with her grandchildren, well what if you decided you needed to be paid for accompanying her to the shops or whatever?

Well, if she's short of money and you need the job doing by someone - ie you'd have to arrange alternative childcare if she wasn't doing it - I would probably have a discussion about a rate p/h.
If it's just going to granny's for tea kind of thing, when she has asked rather than you, I wouldn't be paying.
I wouldn't have paid my mother and she wouldn't have dreamed of expecting it, but all families are different so whatever works for you.

Childcare is your responsibility, if you don't want to pay the full cost of it by using family, you should be prepared to cover her costs. "Spending time with her grandchildren" should not incur costs such as feeding them and petrol. If she could afford it fair enough, but she is obviously in a difficult situation.

I think it is strange tbh. I would rather employ a childminder or babysitter that way you are keeping it professional. You shouldn't have to pay family to look after your kids. If she doesn't want to do it find somebody else. I would really resent her expecting to be paid to occasionally look after her own grandchildren!

She can't be that broke if she's buying stuff in M&S (and not even essentials).

Also, you say she can't work/isn't working … which means having the GC isn't preventing her from working. It would be different is she had to say no to paid work to help you out cos then she'd be losing out financially.

Seems a bit mean and tight-fisted to me.

I think you are being unreasonable
. Your mum lost her home , partner and livelihood and has health problems it’s unreasonable to Exocet the poor woman to give up her time to save you money , I think life’s been hard enough for her , I’m sure that she’d love to spend time with the grandchildren -when she chooses and feels up to it not when you want childcare
You need to cut your cloth , see if you are entitled to tax credits and help with the cost of a childminder or after school club or change jobs and get a child friendly job that’s local -shop at Aldi instead of M&S!
I think you’re being insensitive complaining about her bottle of wine and ore packed /cooked chicken, maybe she’s exhausted and thought it’d be quicker than cooking from scratch ?

I’d be sad if my DM asked for money to watch my DC for a couple of hours occasionally. Grandparents most often want to look after their grandchildren, it shouldn’t be something they feel obliged to do.

Having said that, it sounds as though your Mum has had a tough run of things and is struggling. She is being quite brazen asking but most likely thinks you are well off so could afford a childminder but are using her instead. Offer her some cash or get a childminder, kinda your only options.

OP I completely sympathise. Most normal GPs are happy to help out occasionally and then there are the GPs that do loads and loads....sadly not all of us are that lucky. My PiLs give us 2 nights of babysitting a year as our Christmas present but there are so many conditions attached to it that it actually costs me more than it would cost to have a babysitter! 😂😂😂 Now we don’t use our “tokens”... when they are old and need our help I won’t feel any guilt in reciprocating their level of generosity....

It's a trick one as she should be happy to spend time with them. My mum looks after my boys when needed I help her out if she needs it. Its not expected. I would have a chat with your mum about it and say you feel like everything has a price attached. Ask her what she views as OK without payment for example if she's visiting and you pop to the shop for milk is she going to charge you when she was round anyway. Its a tough topic to approach but it needs to happen. Maybe say you get the impression your inconveniencing her as she's asking for money alot. Is she in financial trouble or would she rather you look for other solutions unless it's an emergency.

I haven’t read the whole thread but think it would be best to find alternative childcare.
My in laws have never once looked after our son (not even for 5 minutes) people find it hard to believe but we brought him up with help from nobody but childcare

Have some people missed where the OP says her mum offers to have the children, then requests payment after the fact?

How is asking your mum if she can have the kids for a couple of hours to help you out on occasion unreasonable? Surely if grandma is busy or has other plans she can say no.

To be honest the grandma in this scenario sounds entitled. Her mum took care of her, giving her money and paid for the OP's clothes as a child and now she expects her daughter to fund her. As someone else said she can't be that skint if she's buying non-essentials at M&S.