Staying w MIL and wife work

[ChangeNameTiredAF]

DH mum is in our bubble, but lives a few hours away in a rural location. He’s worried she’s quite lonely and has proposed we go and stay with her for a couple of weeks with the children age 7 and 5. Kids delighted as they love her massive garden and dogs and are bored of same scenery every day at home.

DH would work while we are there, fine, but his hours are long and we wouldn’t see him from 7am-gone 8pm. My work is freelance and to and extent I can pick and choose my hours, so organising homeschooling inevitably falls on me. That works OK at home as I have p/t childcare which keeps things ticking over.

How will I get any work done at MIL’s? I ask him. He says: MIL can do homeschool for 3 days a week. But she is not IT literate and I know I’d be called to help every 5 minutes when someone can’t logon or someone doesn’t know where the assignment has been posted etc etc. And there would be the inevitable showing her how it all works, timetable and getting her used to it, which would take ages anyway.

Ok, he says, organise some p/t emergency childcare at MILs (our nanny can’t travel). Apparently that’s simple. Even IF we could find someone in a rural location at late notice happy to do the hours needed in middle of pandemic, organising said nanny inevitably would fall on me and there are always early teething troubles.

Fine, he says, just take some time off. I could, it’s not a big deal, but I have just taken the whole of half term off to spend some proper time with kids! No, we don’t need the income my work brings but I like my job and it’s important to me.

This is before we’ve even get to the fact that it’s ME who would have to pack up two weeks’ worth of homeschool books, laptops etc etc and clothes for the kids. Organise an online shop so they/we have all the food we need and everything else you need to think of when packing up your life for 2 weeks. Apparently none of this is ‘that hard’ to sort. Like fuck it isn’t!!

everything ticks along nicely at home with this arrangement with me doing to bulk of the childcare/school stuff, when I am not working, and organising the nanny when I am, but AIBU in thinking this level of wife work is taking the piss?

I think he could go up by himself for a week now and then the whole family goes up at Easter time

sports day in the big garden i bet Mil would just love that!

This all sounds like it's way to much hassle for Mil, does she even want this or has your husband decided this would be a great idea?

He wants to go, he sorts it all out -- probably best he takes annual leave and takes the kids to MIL's alone.

Let him go by himself
He is volunteering you to keep his mum company (because he's working all day ) and that's not fair .
Tell him your job is important too and you wont be able to cope with the distraction.

He should go up there himself for now and make sure she’s ok, he can work his long hours up there and you will have one less person to faff over :)

Then plan for a trip up at Easter

‘Oh brilliant! I thought it would be really difficult to sort. If it’s easy, that’s great. You sort it - I’ve just taken lots of time off for half term, so i don’t have time right now - that’ll be: packing, packing up homeschool stuff, online shop, temporary nanny- let me know when everything is sorted’

ChangeNameTiredAF

We don’t have the room or the beds

Is there no way round this? Might be alot easier. Mil sleeps in one of dcs beds and dcs sleep on a mattress in your room

Just say no. If I had a nanny that was sorting my homeschool theres no way I'd leave her. As it is my ILs have a big house with lots of lovely things for the dc and we could stay in a different house on their land but there is NO way I'd do lockdown at theirs. I want to be at home if I'm working and dc are schooling.

It's just a disaster waiting to happen. Stand firm. Get the dc speaking to grandma every day. That sorts out entertainment for them, some peace for you and a little company for grandma.

I'd let him take the kids by himself. You can't go due to work commitments and he and his mum can muddle through with homeschool. If it doesn't work he can explain to the teacher and sort something they're all happy with.

This is what I would do.

A) stuff homeschooling for a couple of weeks. Unprecedented times. Let the children spend time with granny. You could maybe do some light homeschooling yourself when not working.

B) work during hours where kids are not home schooling.

Why can't your DH take every other day off while you are there so you can work too?

And why do people ALWAYS suggest baking and board games? My idea of hell, I would be staying at home and letting granny entertain the kids!

Don't 7 year olds know their log ons by now? And the 5 year old is 5. They can read and learn through play. I'm more worried about the impact on poor granny - has DH ever done a whole week as main carer, since March? I wouldn't ask for someone else to do that unless they are the sort to thrive on it. Especially if your kids need discipline and she has never had that role with them.

Id'say sure - let me know when organised but I will need specific days covered. If MIL comes to you on those days then redirect her to him. It might be worth it just to give the kids a change of scene.

I think you are making too much of this and are looking for reasons not to go..............I don't get the issue. I would love to have a different set of 4 walls to looks at for a few weeks.

Another vote for him to sort it, if he wants it to happen. My ex used to love suggesting stuff and then would expect me to sort it. Does his mum even want to do this?!

Why does he work such long hours? Is there an option for you to pick up more hours and he drop some? Then the wife work will be shared out a bit more.

Personally I think if you don’t want to go that’s fine, maybe he can take some holiday so he can go with the children and support his mum, and get all the stuff ready.

But long time I think the hours he works is unreasonable and needs to change.

Why can;t he go by himself? Even if you still have the children, he sounds like such a waste of space you'll have a break.

If it’s that easy , let him do it all. You could stay at home

Go, let Granny do what grannies do with DC and relax about the school work. If they help her in the kitchen, in the garden and with the dogs, it's all good as long as DH does the packing.

This smacks of someone who doesn’t want to go and is casting around desperately for excuses to me. What happens when you go on holiday?

Why didn’t you go at half term when there was no home schooling to worry about?

Why not wait until Easter holidays now?

@ineedaholidaynow

Why didn’t you go at half term when there was no home schooling to worry about?

That's a question for the OP's husband, surely, as he's the one who wants to go?

Let him take the kids to his mum’s. You stay at home get your work done and he can contact the school to say the children will not be doing the usual amount of school work.

If they miss 2 weeks of work it won’t be the end of the world but certainly make sure he picks up all of the slack which is being created.

I agree with others saying forget hardcore homeschooling, they’re pretty young, give their grandmother some educational activities and crafts to do with them and leave them to it. Nature walks, reading, watching a documentary, cooking, art - it all counts as educational and doesn’t require IT skills. Then if you really want to, pick one super crucial thing a day you’ll do with them for an hour.

I agree your DH should do his share of the online shop, packing etc but it sounds like all the problems are being caused by homeschooling so why not just adapt that for a bit? It’s one of the few benefits of Covid that it allows flexibility like that in a way school absolutely doesn’t.