Anyone else's parents not put the effort in childcare wise?

[TulipVictory]

We rarely ever leave the children anywhere mostly because we just enjoy our time together as a family.

The one time we asked my Mum about a sleepover it seemed like a big inconvenience. We wanted it at our house because there wasn't room in theirs for the children and the little one who needs her travel cot. But they didn't want to sleep at ours where all the children's stuff is so it didn't happen.

I have an appointment tomorrow so asked if my mum can meet me there just to watch the two little ones while I go in but I have to go hers first and pick her up so she can sit in my car so that she doesn't lose her parking space.

They always make out like they don't see the children enough but everything is always on their terms. I pop over every week, sit in their lounge so that they can see them but if I wanted to go out, meet them somewhere etc to the park we never go! it's always like it's a big inconvenience! Please tell me if I'm
Being unreasonable but this is the way it's always been and I'm feeling a bit frustrated

@Kdubs1981 yes there are people who will leave their parents to struggle because they wouldn't do the school run with their grandchildren.
Personally, I suspect that someone who thinks this way was never going to help their parents in their old age anyway.

I think its normal for grandparents not to care for grandchildren tbh.

DH's parents ask us to visit them. They never visit us. When we visit, they spend their time cooking and telling us about their week or comparing the children's achievements with how well DH and his siblings did. They have no interest in the children themselves.

My own parent never rings or asks after the children. I can't even imagine asking them if they would like to look after them.

My children have no relationship with their grandparents. The grandparents aren't missing out as they don't want the type of relationship that involves being actively involved with their grandchildren.
The children are the ones missing out as they don't get to experience any sort of meaningful relationship with their grandparents.

For that reason OP YABU. You must continue on whatever terms the grandparents want or else accept your children won't have any relationship at all with their grandparents and the only people that will miss out are your children.

My mum was willing but has healthcare issues so we'd never have leaned on her for anything regular, a friend of family often helped out while they were there as well.

With in laws, any care had to be very much on their terms, and they didn't keep as much kids' stuff at their house (mum always kept nappies etc when they were tiny) but that was totally fair enough as they are both self employed and still very busy with that.

All tailed off about 4 years ago as we got au pairs, mum's health has been worse and obviously we've had nearly 2 years without much childcare needed even without au pairs. Kids can both travel independently now and just need occasional babysit if we're out late or further afield

My mums dead, as is my FIL. My dads a drunk and MIL still works.

Since recently MIL will look after DD for an hour, but that's just to play with her, not for my convenience.

If my mum would have been alive she's have helped, but that's life. No guarantees. My kid so my responsibility in the end. I do hope that I'll be around when DD has kids. I'd love to help her.

I can understand why they wouldn’t necessarily want to stay at yours overnight but other than that they don’t sound very helpful.

I can empathise with all this. My DM was vaguely helpful with my first two but only ever on her terms, i.e they always stayed there which meant me packing their stuff and a two and a half hour round trip. She NEVER helped when the kids were sick and I was desperate (working single parent).

I then met someone else and had another one after a bit of a gap and she’s even less interested….I know we’ve had the pandemic and everything but my little one thought that one of my best friends was her Granny the other day and after I explained she was just our friend, she had a bit of a think and then piped up that “Granny no nice” (entirely of her own accord). It’s so sad, she’s such a lovely little girl but my DM just isn’t at all interested as, as far as she’s concerned, she’s done with grandchildren and it doesn’t suit her at this point in life….she’s maybe too old now for overnight childcare etc but definitely not to old to actually see her and spend time with her.

It hurts, it really hurts. I have accepted that there’s nothing I can do about it.

There are so many fab grandparents out there but seem to be plenty of crap ones in equal measure. I don’t have the answer, sorry.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad

They're a very, very close family, I'm not sure if that's a Baltic thing or not.
They still live in Mrs. Hr's words 'Like they're still in WW2 or the 1940's'.
Mrs. Hr is a successful family migrant, the Alpha woman, so it's a big thing, there's a lot of wider familial expectation.
We'll definitely have to go over there at some point, I think Great, great-grandma born in 1802 is still alive.
I just don't want everybody over here at the same time.

My mum was useless as a GP, but she was as a mum too, I think why I would have imagined she would change with the arrival of GC. Thank goodness my MIL was an awesome GP and helpful to me when my children were small. Miss her every day, she was a wonderful person.

They don't owe you childcare...?

You see, I think they do. Certainly not as a daily occurrence in place of professional childcare but every now and then, as the OP describes, is perfectly reasonable to me when they live locally, and are fit and well.

I can't imagine not wanting to help my DDs out when they have kids. Again, not as a nursery provider, but perhaps one day a week and some babysitting. Why on earth wouldn't you?

Why do you expect your family to help out just because you've chosen to have kids?

They are not demanding that you visit every week; entirely your choice.

You sound like a martyr to be honest.

Pay for childcare if you need it.

In our case MIL is dead but wouldn’t have been able to help due to health problems and distance.

My DPs used to help regularly until things changed for one of them health-wise, despite also being at a distance. Now their health is more stable - but we have two DCs, one of whom is in school (so we are less able to be flexible about when we see them), there is Covid exposure to think about due to vulnerabilities on their side - and they now have another local GC who they do regular childcare for (and lots of ad hoc too).

They claim to still be happy to help us out on an ad hoc basis but due to Covid and their commitments to more local GC, the circumstances under which they can or will help are very limited. They would probably help with holiday care in the summer but if one of the kids came down with chickenpox during term time, or school-aged DC had something requiring parental presence and we needed someone to mind DC2, that wouldn’t really be an option.

If I’m honest, I think they struggle minding more than one DC and they’re not really comfortable watching the DCs at our house any more - they pushed hard for the DCs to stay with them last summer instead but DC2 was too young in my opinion.

I try to take the view that we’re lucky to have had the help we did when we did, and that managing ourselves has made us stronger as a unit. We are lucky to have supportive and flexible employers. I would be lying if I said I had no feelings about the extent to which my DSibling receives help in comparison.

@Kdubs1981. There’s no need to be sad for us. How much help can we expect from someone who would have to travel for 2.5 hours to provide it? The answer is that we don’t, there won’t be any helping out from that quarter. Yes, it is sad that it’s transactional. I said exactly the same thing, yet this thread is full of it.

Why do you expect your family to help out just because you've chosen to have kids?

Because they are family and that's what (healthy anyway) families do for one another.

…I understand there is a perspective on MN that grandparents don’t owe you anything etc. However I think fundamentally there’s been a breakdown in the meaning of family...something that stems from the 70s maybe.

There are plenty of GPs around me that get it and do actually help. They will hopefully be well looked after when they need it.

I don’t know how I feel about helping DM when she’s really old. She’s never really looked after anyone apart from herself. She has abandoned her elderly cousin. Its hard to do but I think I’ll probably just do the same.

My mother would never look after my kids at our house so they had no toys or internet to amuse them. I tried asking her to take them to ours but she made it quite clear she was doing me a massive favour so I gave up trying.

I can't believe it even has to be explained to people that it is a default position that you help out with grandkids. There may be good reasons for not doing so, and for not requesting support either, but the default position is that you help one another in families.

Surely the reason they don't help or didn't want to stay over is due to your GM living with them?

I think these things go both ways. If they’re fit and well, live locally to you and claim to want to see the DCs, I see no reason why you shouldn’t ask them to, say, watch the DCs while you have an appointment or do the odd evening babysitting. Especially if they benefited from help themselves.

If they won’t do that - well, if I were in that position and I felt it was a “don’t want to” rather than “can’t/would struggle” - well, no problem, but further down the line I’d judge any requests from them that would make life easier for them on the basis of how much it would inconvenience me and whether I felt like helping out.

@ElftonWednesday

I can't believe it even has to be explained to people that it is a default position that you help out with grandkids. There may be good reasons for not doing so, and for not requesting support either, but the default position is that you help one another in families.

Seriously? When it’s the default position that people should plan for old age so they can pay for any help they need? Talk about double standards.

As people have children later, the prospect of care from grandparents will only decrease as they’ll be older and more knackered. Do people really want people in their late 70s looking after their children?

So sad that people expect relationships to be so transactional

I sometimes wonder if it’s less purely transactional and more values-based. If you are raised in a family unit where it is expected and modelled that people help each other out, and those relationships continue with mutual support and respect in adulthood, then surely you’ll be more likely to help each other out, whether it’s when kids are small or when parents are older and need support?

Whereas a family unit that is more based on ‘I didn’t get any help so you shouldn’t expect it’ is more based on values of individualism and self-reliance with and may therefore be a bit more transactional in its approach to asking for and receiving help or even involvement from family members.

Just seen you have said your GM doesn't need care.

Ours are teens now so no longer need childcare. But we had very little help. My Step Dad doesn't like children which meant my DM wouldn't have them at her house. She occassionally came to us but only if we paid. She now complains that she doesn't have much of a relationship with them.

It's their choice and you have no right to expect. But equally they don't have any right to expect you to run around after them in their old age.

What I found the hardest at the time was seeing other GPs in the park with their GCs or our friends getting loads of help in the summer holiday with GPs taking them for a week , or GPs taking them out on day trips. I really felt like mine missed out on that and we could have done with the help at the time. But it is what it is. I will definitley be more hands on.

You see, I think they do. Certainly not as a daily occurrence in place of professional childcare but every now and then, as the OP describes, is perfectly reasonable to me when they live locally, and are fit and well.

Why do you think they owe childcare to their children?

What about if they had a large family of five or six children or seven children, do you think its reasonable to expect the grandparents to provide childcare too?

@Blossomtoes my 79 year old grandfather looks after my DS occasionally. He's in fine health, lives alone with no help, drives, goes on holidays and has an active social life.

I agree with JassyRadlett - it's not that you're being grabby and want free childcare. It's the sadness at your parents not wishing to help you , but also the impact it has on the relationship with your children. Close relationships take time and nurturing. They're not going to happen when you see your GC a few times a year and you're not even trying to talk to them. As my mother is now discovering. Every time she makes a snippy comment about not being close to my teens I smile and remind myself of all those times she could have spent time with them but chose not to. This is the result.

I can't believe it even has to be explained to people that it is a default position that you help out with grandkids. There may be good reasons for not doing so, and for not requesting support either, but the default position is that you help one another in families.

You are assuming all families and all family dynamics are the same.

From my experience (with colleagues) who grew up with less money, they had this attitude that families were there to help one another out.

Others don't share these values. There is no 'default' position and to say otherwise is incredibly naive and blinkered.

[quote Waxonwaxoff0]@Blossomtoes my 79 year old grandfather looks after my DS occasionally. He's in fine health, lives alone with no help, drives, goes on holidays and has an active social life.[/quote]
Good for him. Frankly I’m astonished you ask it of him.