Help please - is this "fair"?

[curlywurlyfairy]

A situation has arisen within the family. I am just looking for opinions please on how “fair” (or otherwise) people think the following situation is.

Jenny and Laura are sisters, and their situations are thus:

Jenny has 2 children, one secondary school aged and the other 1 year old. She lives a 2 hour drive away from her parents (DCs’ grandparents), who have never since youngest DC’s birth offered to visit to support with childcare. Jenny suffered severe PND following birth of youngest DC and is still recovering with professional support. She works full time. Her DH works FT, in a non family friendly job with long shifts and unsociable hours, meaning a lot of the childcare falls to Jenny around her own working days. PILs live locally but do not offer any support at all with DC.

Laura has 3 children, a 3 year old and 8 month old twins. She lives a 1 hour drive from her parents, who offer her regular support with childcare. She is mentally far more robust than Jenny. She is still on maternity leave. DH works from home full time with the very occasional night away. PILs and paternal aunties/uncles of DC live locally and offer support with DC.

Is it right that Laura gets more support than Jenny from their parents given her situation? In other words does the relative support offered to each sibling by their parents seem fair given their situations? Or does any of it seem unfair to you?

Any thoughts appreciated.

I know you've said you're away OP, but just in case you're still reading... I understand Jenny's want for this, but it's just not realistic when you move two hours away. I know because I did it! I'm close to my mum (and was to my dad when he was alive) but she's never looked after my DC for longer than a shower because that's just the nature of the relationship when we live far apart.

She is a loving involved grandmother, and the oohing and aahing on WhatsApp is part of that, it's how she stays up to date with them.

My parents hate staying over for medical reasons, so they've really only ever visited for the day. My mum doesn't find the drive too much but she's long since retired and in good health with no caring responsibilities so that's her longest day iykwim.

I can understand that for your parents, adding either an overnight or a very long day on top of work plus helping Laura would be a lot.

Having said all that, has Jenny explicitly said "mum, would you and dad fancy coming up for the day on Saturday when John is working? I find the days very long on my own so it would be lovely to have the company and it would be great for the kids to see you." She's needs to be realistic with what your parents can offer, and also be explicit in her needs.

For the love of god, grandparents are in no way obliged to do any childcare, so your question is moot and there is no fair/unfair.

Some horrible responses here.

So what if Jenny chose to move away or chose to have kids. She then developed PND after having a child and deserves some support.

They already regularly drive an hour to the other sister, a 2 hour drive occasionally to Jenny wouldn't kill them and would mean so much to her at one of the toughest times in their lives. They don't have to do it of course, but I'd judge them massively for it! There's no way I would leave my daughter feeling so unsupported!

Women get treated like shit when they suffer from mental health issues, they really do!

While I do think the distance is a factor, I also think if they did less of the 2 hour round trips to Laura, they may have more energy for Jenny despite it being a 4 hour round trip. I also wonder is there a place at Jenny's they can stay the night? 4 hours drive in a day plus childcare is very hard, even for people who aren't grandparents age.

I know 2 families in similar situations. One the adult dc who is struggling is a 5 hour drive, they do it every other weekend for Thurs-Sun. The other week they do the 1 hour visit with their other dc and stay the day, will do an evening baby-sitting etc. For them, they put a lot of energy into supporting the adult dc in a very hard situation - 3rd baby born with a very serious immune disease.

The other has 2 dc one single with 1 dc and one single with 2 dc's. The latter is a Professor and on good terms with ex, so has every other weekend without dc and can support the family very well with good income etc. The former is lower income and her 1 dc has very serious and complex type 1 diabetes. The grandparents moved from where Prof daughter is where they've always lived, to be 2 hours away where daughter 1 lives to help with childcare, hospital visits etc.

I don't think fair is always equal. It depends so much on needs and they will vary over time. As a parent that can feel hard, but I try like the people I know to put efforts where the need is highest, while not overlooking anyone else.

Hopefully Jenny's parents can get more support soon, or maybe Jenny could look at moving closer? Though she'd need to be careful around expectations because that alone may not meet her expectations/needs. Sounds like a good conversation may help.

It does matter if you are or aren't, but if you're jenny, hang in there, I've been in a similar place, juggling kids with a loving family but a great distance from them and a husband who's always at work. It's so lonely but it does get better. If you're another family member well done for seeing her plight and hopefully you can visit her if possible

But they live 2 hours away.

’Jenny’ needs to reconcile herself to that fact and put that pipe dream away.

I don't understand the expectation that grandparents should offer child care.
They've done their child rearing, why should or would they take on all that again?

Jenny needs to realise they are her children and her responsibility, she should expect to palm them off willy nilly to the grandparents.

I am one of five children and each of us either have a child or two or three - in total my parents have 10 grandchildren.
Your concept of ‘fair’ is skewed in my opinion sorry. The two sisters situations are not equal. We are not talking about the parents splitting money 50/50. There are two many factors. The travel has been dealt with quite a bit but from speaking to my mum a huge factor in her childcare is how comfortable she feels in the different families. Ie everyone has different parenting styles and needs etc and my mum trying to navigate everything gets stressful for her in her older age. So she tends to step up if someone asks because she knows she will be better received but does not tend to offer.
Also - if the sister who lives a four hour return trip away can afford local help the parents would not think to offer to drive four hours for a few hours of baby sitting.
I have twins - at one point in my life my mother has five children under the age of 8 before she was 25 years old. When she helped me with my twins as babies/toddlers she would say having twins was much harder than having the five as with a range of ages the older children needed less immediate help than two babies. I think you have to considered how hard a toddler and two baby twins would be.
its also not said if the mother of toddlers and twins also has post natal depression as that is possible too.
But that said - if the person with one baby feels it would be helpful for her parents to help out more than it’s worth coming up with a plan (ie a night over) and be explicit in wanting help and ask specifically say what is wanted so everyone is clear.

Shouldn't 🙄

The more of your posts I read the more I believe @curlywurlyfairy is Jenny. If you’re so lonely then you need to move closer to your family, especially as your PIL are not supportive.

Also, is it possible for you to go PT and your DH change to a more family friendly job? Obviously the current situation isn’t working. You can’t blame your parents and sister. Only you and DH can change things.

I've dipped in and out of this thread, so if I've missed something I apologise.

I've had experience of providing my daughter with childcare and having to travel 2 hours to help care for elderly parents. I don't work now, but my husband does.

I have a few thoughts on your situation, Jenny. I'm sure your parents care about both of their children, but providing support to one adult child is hard enough, two would be back breaking. I'm lucky that mine are close to home. The travelling distance on top would kill me.

Looking after people who live 2 hours away is expensive. I was having to travel to my parents when they were both ill. It either cost a fortune in petrol or I had to stay in a hotel locally to give myself a rest. Apart from that it's very disruptive to my own life, exhausting and definitely not sustainable in the long term.

Apart from all of that your parents need to look after themselves too. They sound like they have a lot on their plate. I've been on the brink of needing medication when the demands on my time and emotional resources have got too much. There is a limit to what any family member can provide.

I will also add that my daughter is a single parent who was in an abusive relationship. If she had a loving partner, I would expect them to be making some changes to their lives before I made sacrifices of my own.

Do Jenny's parents call her out of the blue and just ask how she's going?

Surely even just this little bit of showing they give a damn would help.

"Jenny" needs to make a choice.

Either moving closer to her parents (the 12 year old will be fine)

Or suck it up and accept that she lives too far away for regular help. If "Jenny" wants over night / evening help then "Jenny" can hire a babysitter for less than the cost of the fuel that "Jennys" parents would use

My thoughts are that it is a mistake to assume that Laura is mentally robust even if that's what she said. Some people are more forthcoming about struggles than others. My sister, for example, assumed I was mentally robust and used me as her verbal punchbag when she was having a bad day. I am not and have struggled a lot with suicidal ideation and depression. I only share that with a few people though and certainly not those who are verbally abusive to me.

Jenny works FT so her child presumably is in FT childcare? If the GP visited in the week there'd be no-one there until perhaps. Asking them to start a visit at 6pm and then afterwards drive 2 hours to get home is a massive ask. Do they visit at the weekends?

On the surface, no it doesn’t seem fair but I’d say the distance may be the deciding factor given the fact it’s a 4 hour round trip vs 2 hours. 4 hours is a long way to travel to see someone for a few hours whereas two hours seems more feasible, lots of people commute this distance daily.

I’d also say that Laura probably has a more difficult time if we’re pitting them against one another because I don’t imagine a toddler and baby twins is easy, however mentally robust you are. Jenny has a toddler and teenager so the teen could help out with certain things around the house surely which will make things somewhat easier. I do have sympathy for her though, PND is awful and I had to get through it last year myself with very little support other than professional. It’s hard, I feel for her.

Jenny lives two hours away and one of her kids is secondary school age. Laura lives an hour away and has three toddlers. Massive difference on multiple practical levels. Of course Laura is going to get more help.

Jenny and her DH were presumably aware of their job situations and their distance from Jenny’s parents when they chose to have a second child.

Neither Jenny nor Laura should have any sense of entitlement to free ‘childcare’ from grandparents.

I don't think this thread is actually about childcare. It's about the fact the grandparents NEVER visit.
I think OP feels she's the one making all the effort.

Loads of families live miles away from each other these days and I think it's common that the ones nearer tend to see a lot more of the grandparents.
But the grandparents should also be thinking how they can maintain the relationship over the distance.
It shouldn't be for Jenny, who works full time, to do all the visiting. Even if the grandparents came on a Saturday and stayed overnight every other month, and Jenny went to them on the month in between

I don't think this thread is actually about childcare. It's about the fact the grandparents NEVER visit.
I think OP feels she's the one making all the effort.

YES!
I did clarify this in my updates and say childcare was the wrong word, but seemingly no one else bothered to read that.

Thank you for understanding what the I was trying to convey.

Since I provided an update about childcare being the wrong word and detailing the real issue, the following comments have been made:

^
Neither Jenny nor Laura should have any sense of entitlement to free ‘childcare’ from grandparents.^^
^
If "Jenny" wants over night / evening help then "Jenny" can hire a babysitter for less than the cost of the fuel that "Jennys" parents would use^

Jenny needs to realise they are her children and her responsibility, she should expect to palm them off willy nilly to the grandparents.^*
*
The last one is a personal favourite 🙄 "palm them off" is missing the point by a country mile and then some. The sadness is because Jenny yearn to do precisely the opposite and have them involved.

At least read the updates if you're going to contribute.

I'll be ignoring anything that refers to "free childcare", "entitlement" or "palming off" from here on and only responding to posters who have bothered to read the crux of the issue in my updates.

If Jenny wanted "childcare" and nothing more she would ask her secondary school aged child to do it, surely? Or pay for a babysitter?

Jenny has literally zero interest in "childcare". She finds it hard enough to simply go to work and leave the baby so I assure you she has absolutely no desire to "palm off" the baby to anyone at any other time.

She just wants a family who appear to care and want to be involved. And it makes her sad that it's apparently not so. Whilst witnessing it be so for another member of the family.

That's it.

Are Jenny and Laura in the same direction?

Maybe Jenny could suggest their parents make a day of it by travelling to them in the morning and stopping at Laura's on the way back to break up the journey?

I do think Jenny perhaps needs to speak to her mum at least one on one.

@PuggyMum

No opposite directions unfortunately.

I think you need to reframe this, both for Jenny and her parents. It's got nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with childcare.

Try saying Jenny misses her parents, and Jenny's eldest would love to see her grandparents more. Jenny wishes she lived nearer so she could spend more time with her family. Jenny thinks it's sad her parents won't have a close relationship with her youngest.

My parents didn't seem to realise that relationship with their GC wasn't based on blood, but on actually spending time and effort with them. Unfortunately they missed out.

The other thing Jenny can do is find support and friendship nearer home. Build a chosen family instead. Fill her life with other people.

Ultimately you can't make the GPs be who you wish they were, or want them to be.

Be aware though, this could be 'just for a season'. Right now, and for the next three years, they will be pretty busy supporting the twins. It really is hard work, for Laura and her parents.

Honestly i think this is about how isolated and trapped Jenny feels so far away from her family. Did she move for her partner?
What year is her secondary age kid, because i think if shes year 7 or 8, I think she should move her. Yes its unsettling for a child, but its not the worst thing either. Jenny really needs her mum and her family.
Of course her mum cant be expected to travel 2 hours to help out, but she might not realise that thats not even what its all about. Its more Jennys inner child, needing her mum. Its hard because of her guilt because of uprooting her older kid. She might be feeling like its never ok to put her needs above her child, when sometimes it really is ok