To think some people don’t understand what it’s like to have zero family support

[Ironandwhine1]

As the title says , I have seen it here and on numerous occasions experienced it in RL.
I have lots and lots of family, I come from a very large family. I have 3 pretty young dcs. Not once has a single family member offered to have my kids, neither of my parents has ever gone for a walk or to the playground etc with me and the kids. My single sister visits regularly but times it so she comes down an hour before bedtime and leaves when she gets up. She also arranged to go out where we live and never offers for me and my husband to go out. The one time I asked her to babysit (in 7 years), we went out for the day for 4 hours and she made a reference to “milking it”.
Bizarrely they talk a lot about family and the importance of family when in reality I rarely see them and when we do it is strictly a half hour coffee while literally just looking at the kids. BTW it’s not just about babysitting, I guess it’s also about wanting to be with me and the kids for a bit but nothing. It’s always dressed up as not wanting to interfere but when I had an infection recently in my wisdom tooth I would love if someone had interfered as I had to take my youngest and middle into the dentists and it was all just grim tbh... It just seems so different for people we know in RL.
Me and my dh do get babysitters but find that a lot of the time it’s pre Uni kids and obviously when they go to university or get a job they move on. Also generally it’s very difficult to get someone for ad hoc stuff .
I just feel frustrated and sad when I see it suggested here and in RL ; “get the grandparents over, can’t understand people who never take a break from their kids” etc. etc Do people really not understand? At the moment we can’t find a suitable babysitter, it’s 10 pounds an hour where we live ( not Uk ) so you’re talking a very expensive night out or walk etc . Or I had a particularly difficult baby and toddler while never, ever slept and was told to “get granny and family to help out”, they all knew I was massively struggling and did absolutely nothing.
Just a thought for people who think that some parents are trying to martyr themselves

I wouldnt ever offer to babysit so a married couple could go out, its a bit of a pisstake.

What a shitty attitude to have.

What a shitty attitude to have

Oh my god. You CHOSE to have kids. It’d be like me choosing to buy ten Great Danes and then whinging that my friends won’t look after my ten dogs.

Two adults who choose to have kids should be able to rely on each other during those years without someone having to watch the kids so they can 'nurture their marriage'-it's nowhere like the needs of a single parent is it?

Ah yes, the old "someone somewhere has it worse than you so you're absolutely fine" attitude. Posts like this just make me so sad about the world we live in. Doesn't anyone want to spread some kindness in the world, just because? I have three children, a full time job and very little family support (I live overseas). I still offer to have friends' kids for an evening or overnight - even if, God forbid, they're married.

When ds was born it was touch and go for both of us. Dsis's comment? "If Irma dies and there's anything wrong with the baby, I'm not looking after it."

Jesus wept, @IrmaFayLear, what a thing to say.

That's not what you said and everybody knows it.

Insinuating that a wee bit of experience working with kids with disabilities gives you the faintest idea of what parenting a child/children with disabilities is like was offensive too. Which I said at the time.

Keep digging, your ignorance is showing you up very badly though. Don't say you weren't warned.

I so get what you mean op.
We never had help, never had the supportive family round the corner. It totally affects how you parent. It's like a whole different world to someone with help. And it's infuriating when they patronise you and don't get it.

Disabled children with carers who can't cope also suffer.

Disabled children treated as a wee experiment by people who dip in and out of their lives for whatever reason are impacted. How fucking dare you imply that parents who haven't got prior experience working with disabled kids can't cope and their children suffer for it.

@MNHQ at what point are you going to ban this poster? If it was racism, or transphobia you'd have done it already.

Yet this poster is STILL making their disablist points. Why?

You just cannot compare single parenting to saying you have no help but a husband there so you can go out and do things on your own

I could say that having a partner who needs as much if not more care/management than the kids can be tougher than having a NRP who is engaged with their kids lives and takes them for weekends/part weeks etc.

In the end though it serves nothing to race to the bottom - we all face different challenges and playing bottom trumps is of no help to anyone, let alone an OP who is struggling.

"Disabled children with carers who can't cope also suffer."

Are you saying that parents of disabled children who would like a few hours break are parents who are not coping because that's how I am reading it.? They should just put up and shut up. Othering in the extreme.

MirriVan I can't engage with you any longer. Me, me, me, I, I, I and repeating the same shit that got you deleted last time.

You are wrong and you are disablist.

Whether you admit it or not is not my fucking problem, unfortunately people who think as you do are very much my children's problem. Because you perpetuate stereotypes, use dehumanising language about disabled people and their parents, and will not understand anyone else's point of view.

So know this, one day someone will challenge you in RL. Please have the good grace not to be surprised.

Now if you don't mind, I'd rather do anything else that engage with you any further.

I don't think you have any idea what the possibilities are.

Likewise to all the moaning marrieds then-you can't argue it both ways?!

No, nothing like that at all, actually. Going on to a thread where people are talking about their mothers having died and saying “having grandparents isn’t great anyway - you’ll have to put up with them feeding your kids junk food while they care for them for nothing, and they’ll only fight over who loves your kids the most” - it’s one of the most insensitive things I’ve seen for a while.

Single mothers have come on to this thread and chastised the OP for finding it difficult having no one other than her DH - because it is fucking hard, no matter how hard other people’s situations are.

Mirri, you’re ridiculous. Lending a hand to a parent of a child with a specific disability in no way prepares you for having a child with likely a completely different disability / set of circumstances.

And if you think any parent to a disabled child would be happy with someone taking their kids for a test drive so that they can think “I’m never having kids in case I get stuck in this nightmare myself”, you’re delusional. Or even “oh yes, these few hours have proven to me I’d handle this brilliantly”. 🙄

So much selfishness on display here. A friend of mine had her first baby the day before my mum died. I had no kids then and didn’t expect to be able to have any either. When her baby was about two months old, she had something she really wanted to do which took 6 hours during the day. I gladly took care of him for her, and I didn’t want anything in return. She was having a tough time and needed a break, so I happily helped her out, because she was my friend. Unfortunately she lives further away now and we both have two small kids, so in no position to help each other out, but if she had an emergency I absolutely would help her.

Totally hear and understand you. Both my parents are dead, DP's Mum is dead too. I have a sister who doesn't drive and is completely unreliable 100 miles away. A brother in New Zealand. DP's Dad is in his 80's and several hundred miles. Youngest DC's nursery were doing a trip in work time last week, requiring parents to take the day off (!!) When I explained that I don't have the holiday to do that, their suggestion was that as I had been given plenty of notice, perhaps I could ask a relative. My reply was that it doesn't matter how much notice I have, I cannot resurrect the dead! Don't think they'll be saying that again!

I'm the same with 1DC.

Hate to say it but they way I have felt about hearing shite excuses to avoid childcare since dc was born has made me decide to not have anymore children. I am honest in that I need help and support as I find raising a child hard work, I couldn't do it again with such a lack of support.

The needs of my vulnerable child come first and he is a human being not an exhibit.

YANBU

You can't put some random person around a non verbal severely autistic teenager. He would find it completely distressing. They won't be any help. They wouldn't have a clue.