Feeling jealous and generally grumpy when i hear or see how much help other parents get

[LiJo2015]

I need grounding and perspective and i know mn wont fail me!

I am estranged from my family and cannot rely on my husbands family for help with childcare.

Met up with another mama today who explained how she had childcare provided from her and her partners side and i cant deny i felt jealous. This issue of course far exceeds the childcare aspect and i generally just miss having any form of parental support myself.

So aibu? Am i being a whinging minnie or is it understandable?

I know how you feel, I'm not close to my parents and all our family live far away anyway. Day to day it doesn't bother me but then every now and again we will get an invite or my dh will have an event and I can't go and it's tough.
Made worse by a friend who complains constantly that her and her dh never get enough time together but their children go stay at grandparents at least twice a month. It does grate when you haven't had a date in 3 years.

@Biblionerd

I generally dont think people who have help actually understand how fortunate they are. I cant get on board when they do complain because im fairly certain they wouldnt not want the help.

@Pinuporc

Definitely with you on people who have it dont actually get it and/or realise how much help they do get. I domt think it helped that the woman i met today just came across as quiet smug.

@ivfgottwins

Both

My parents are dead and my husbands useless mother lives in Italy, I have my sister who helps but yes I know people who have sooo much help and giant families on both sides, who book weeks away with their partner.

But
I may never get a child free holiday with my partner for the foreseeable but at least I can afford a babysitter for a night, at least my children don’t have additional needs that would make it hard to find a sitter. Counting my blessings!

@Hobnobsandbroomstick

'Well personally I'm a bit jealous of both, but more of the moral support, money can't replace that. Help with childcare doesn't just have financial benefits though, I have friends whose parents look after their kids so they can go to the gym, catch up on housework, diy or general life admin, go out with their friends, or even on child free holidays. And their kids love spending time with their grandparents. I'm not bitter about it, but I am a bit jealous of it in private. I'm human and can have negative emotions without feeling guilty about it.'

Yes - this with bells on

@Babdoc

All very true

We're from Ireland and live in England so had zero support.

It was hard but we coped. The working week we had a great childminder.

Other times were harder. No ad-hoc support for nights out, parties, weddings, anything social.

I don't begrudge anyone with family support, but will admit I'm a Rottweiler with folks posting that their family don't provide enough, have the audacity to expect some payment, and general ungratefulness and entitlement.. of which there is a never-ending supply on MN.

@stealthninjamum

It physically hurts me that my kids just won't meet any of my side. I would just love to know the feeling of having a mum and/or dad that loved me.

@Winterwarrior

I empathise.

The woman i met today sat there looking lovely and airy as she explained how her daughter was sleeping so left her with her mum. Just like that. God how lovely must that be?

@ShallWeStartTheMeeting

This sounds so hard 🌷

I would also say OP, that if you are estranged from your parents then this probably runs a lot deeper than 'just' childcare. It's okay to feel negative emotions like jealousy sometimes. I had a stiff upper lip for many years about the loss of my mum, and it did me no good. Some days you just have to let yourself feel the shitty things .

You’re not alone OP, I feel it too - I don’t like it about myself but I get jealous too.

We have twins, both have disabilities and we have no one to help out. My mum died, MIL is a few hours away and we don’t see her much, as are both of our sisters and that’s it. Most of my mum friends have two sets of very involved grandparents providing lots of childcare, overnight stays etc and that’s tough.

For me though the biggest worry is that there’s no one to fall back on in an emergency. The one time DH and I went out for the day while the twins were at nursery, we had an accident on the way home and were stranded and I had no one to call on - I ended up getting a taxi to get me from the side of a country road to take me and the car seats to pick them up while DH waited with the car. All year i I’ve been terrified of us catching COVID at the same time as we’d be screwed. When you have twins it’s not easy to trade favours with other parents, and especially as our twins are disabled, and nobody needs to trade favours as they’ve all got plenty of help.

The worst thing is feeling sad for my boys for how few people they have in their lives. It really upsets me if I think too much about it.

I really miss my mum and know she’d be brilliant with them which makes it harder.

I think it’s natural to feel this way, but it’s MN where people will berate you and tell you that your kids are no one else’s responsibility - of course that’s true but it’s hard doing it without support.

Op I've had so little help, dh parents have been too horrendous and not worth the pain to ask, playing fast and loose with our dc safety etc.
My own family are deceased

I remember once a friend happened to be in our car and I needed something from the shop and the sheer luxury of being able to leave the car and go into a shop, looking only at the products and not extremely fast moving and talking dc..

However,luckily I'm not a jealous person otherwise it would have driven me mad, hearing others complain about how their mum is always an hour late when they come on the twice weekly baby sit for them, or how their Mil irons their stuff when she baby sits etc...

We don't have any family support and it doesn't bother me tbh. Seeing threads here and friends woes about family help or 'help' makes me relieved we don't have that drama 😅

My family are hundreds of miles away (we see them for an afternoon a year), my husband's thousands (we see them for a couple of weeks every other year). We couldn't leave the children with anyone anyway as dc1 has special needs and you need training to adequately care for them.

It's just what it is.

Yanbu I always felt jealous as my parents were too far and my in laws too old. Particularly when mine were exhausting toddlers and preschoolers.

But, it does pass quicker than you think. My DC are now 10 and 11 and life is very much easier than the preschool years.

We still don't get many nights out, but who has in the last 15 months!

I hope any dil who I might have won’t feel like you as I have no intention of doing child care for any potential grandchildren but in my defence my children are still early and mid twenties so if they do have families around the age that I did I will be close to retirement. I have also spent over twenty years caring for my disabled mum and cared for my husband during his terminal cancer.
Mum could potentially still be alive then with even more care needs. In any event I am pretty much knackered both on an emotional and physical level so tea once a month and an evening babysitting for a special occasion is about all I will offer.

@Hobnobsandbroomstick

You're absolutely right. I am currently having emdr to work through alot of these feelings.

@SinkGirl

This sounds so hard. Especially with twins with disabilities 🌷

it's normal to feel like this. We live in a different country to all our families, and knew nobody.

But. But. When you start a family i am firmly of the belief you have to assume zero help, unless you pay for it, and anything else is a bonus.

@ZenNudist

Well you asked. Comparison is the thief of joy etc. There's always someone else doing better than you are.

We dont have family support. It's not worth feeling upset others do. It's like you have dh, what about single mothers? Should they feel bad for being alone?

May as well be grateful for what you've got.

Should they feed bad for being alone? No

Are they entitled to feel sad, envious, or struggle with the lack of support? Of course they are.

Nobody’s said it’s the hardest thing in the world, of course there are other people with bigger problems. That doesn’t mean we aren’t ever allowed to be upset and struggle with things, it’s not Top Trumps.

I know an amazing single mum of twins who’s heavily reliant on her own parents for help and support. Her parents are there a great deal, will step in at any time when she needs a break, will take the twins for weekends etc. She has more help and support than a lot of the married mums I know, whose husbands work very long hours or work away. So it’s really not simple to establish who “has it worse”, and there’s no need to do so. If someone is struggling with the situation they’re in, they’re struggling. They should be able to say so without others telling them how lucky they are for x, y and z.

I'm in the same boat. Both mums need taking care of rather than being any help. It's exhausting.

I can't wait to pamper my children when or if they have kids. I've made a list of things that I would have liked.

Things like food on the doorstep, babysitting, childcare, taking their laundry, turning up and taking the kids out on a Saturday morning and letting them lie in. All sorts. Without interfering and overstepping the mark.

I have moments when I get grumpy about it. My family live too far away for physical support but I’m lucky they provide emotional support. I’m a lone parent a her dad maybe takes her every few months for the weekend but it’s inconsistent and he’s not close by enough to rely on help generally. It can feel exhausting it being solely on me sometimes and I am jealous of those who have constant family support. I have built up a net work of friends who I can very occasionally ask for help (maybe once every few months I don’t like to do more than that as they all have families of their own) and I have a couple of people who in an emergency could help. It’s hard though.

I think what has emerged for me with this thread is just how deep this runs. Its not just about the childcare, its so much more. My mum died when i was 2. I am estranged from all my bio fam owing to years of abuse and toxicity. I have a son and now 10 month old daughter. The loss of my mum early on hurts. Physically hurts. The huge sense of loss i feel is so heavy. Its not just bout childcare, but about having that mum and/or dad or even gp thats invested in you, loves you, because youre theirs. Kinship is irreplaceable. I feel that loss more because i have this burning love for my own child which makes my loss so much more raw. Birthdays, easter, christmas - my existence and that or my children are simply not acknowledged by any of my side. It hurts so deeply.

@audweb

🌷