Dh's family has issues with boundaries and using guilt and tears to manipulate him into changing them.
They have a local home where his sister lives (they gave her their 4 bd house) and they have an away home about 3 hours away where they stay full time. They come to town often and stay with sil.
My parents are elderly and local. My sibling is here too.
The issue: does babysitting have to be equal?
With my in-laws, we go camping for 4 days out of the year, we've been on vacations together (not anymore lol) and we stay at their 3 hour away place for a day or two. Maybe once every 1-3 months. Depending on the occasion. We also see them when they are in town.
With my family, we just visit locally. Maybe once or twice a month. No camping. No vacation. No staying over.
When it comes to babysitting I usually ask my sibling to stay in my home to watch my kid and dog. Because we do sleepovers at the in-laws, I only ask my family to babysit. If we did other things with my family, then maybe I'd be more interested inclined to ask my in-laws (I would ask they only come to my home too).
The way I see it is we do different things with both families. I'm not score keeping or trying to be equal - I just do what I think is fair based on the unique interactions with each family.
Thoughts?