Let down by my parents? AIBU to expect them to be there for me after first child.

[TheCluelessMum]

Want to know am I being hormonal/unreasonable or do I have a right to be pissed off.

I moved out my family home a few years ago? Since then my relationship with my parents has dramatically changed, I think my eyes have been opened to a few things.

More recently, at really the start of me being pissed off I wanted to know if I’m being over sensitive.

I recently had DD, 9 weeks prematurely… my daughter spent a week in the NICU. this was due to preeclampsia, and had I not given birth I would of likely had a stroke… but this is where my pissed-off ness starts.

1. my father didnt contact me for the entire

time me and my son were in hospital. When I’ve asked about why this was, the response was that my mum was speaking to me so he didn’t feel the need too.

1. When my DP told my parents we were having to have a c-section he asked for the information not to be shared as we didn’t know the condition of our child(due to premature) My mother ignored that and shared that information with my brother (who I have a very strained relationship with) when I asked why she did that, she advised that she couldn’t keep secrets with her son… (we would have told everyone, just a few hours later once we knew the situation.) and I didn’t understand how stressful it was for her…

Returning home from hospital we didn’t really hear much from my parents, and they kept repeating “we’ll come round when invited”. I kept asking them to come round but they would regularly say they were tired after work etc and would come round on the weekend. By the time my DD was 6 weeks old, they had met him 4 times. I was hurt.

We recently had family members over (to meet DD) where my mum said she wouldn’t of had children had she known how difficult the newborn stage was… this hurt me as she’d offered no support to me??? If she’d found it so hard, why wouldn’t she offer support.

they have a great relationship with brother and his children, but don’t seem bothered about mine. My father said the other week “oh I really miss brothers names kids… I wish they lived closer” whereas they have a grandchild (my dd) 3 miles from their home…

So after the last 11 weeks of me being disappointed I sat down to chat with them. I was hurt at the response (some as above).
But ultimately I asked what can we do to repair this relationship, to which my mother responded “I don’t think there’s an issue, if you do, then that’s something you need to work through on your own”

I do feel hurt and let down by my parents, I’ve just had my first child, in stressful circumstances and I don’t feel supported. I tried speaking to them and didn’t really get a response I expected.

Where do I go from here? Because I honestly feel like I am done with them. But they are my parents…

It sounds to me like you are done with them too......

@godmum56 I don’t want to be. But don’t know where to Go from here… I want to have a fab relationship. But I’ve tried saying how I felt and was shut down.

It sounds like you had a sensible discussion with them but your mother in particular gaslit you over it.

Need a bit more info about what happened with your bro for context.

Is it possible that your mum is triggered about her own births and had pnd and this is why they are pulling back?

Unfortunately, grandparents do sometimes get PFG syndrome about the first GC and the child who gave them first GC and then seem less bothered about subsequent GC. They can also go overboard with helping first lot of GC and then don’t have as much time and energy for the new baby(s).

Sorry your birth was stressful. Hope baby is doing well now.

Do you feel like your brother has always been the golden child?
My parents are like yours too. Since I gave birth my mum has only seen my DS once. He is now nearly 2.
When I was pregnant (it was during lockdown) she never called to ask how I was , it was always me calling. She calls my sister daily though..

My parents never bothered unless I made it convenient for them. My mum never calls to ask how my son is but she shows off the pictures I send them on the family whatsapp group like my DS's achievements are her accomplishments.

At the beginning I tried really hard to facilitate their GP/GS relationship but it just wore me down how I was the only one making any effort and eventually I saw how entitled their behaviour was.

OP you can keep trying with you parents but their entitled behaviours not going to change. Just focus on your DD and things that are within your control. I know it's hard not having the support/relationship you dream of from the people that should love you unconditionally but put your energy towards the things that do make you happy.

Hi op. Congratulations on your lovely baby

My story is similar to PotatoRabbit in a way.

My mum was desperate for me to have kids & said she'd help me raise them (honestly, I would of thought I'd of been on here asking 'How do I get some space from my mum'?!)

Yet she saw baby the day I got home then that was it, unless I asked her to meet me.

I cried to her when baby was a few months old, told her how isolated I was (few friends) & that I was finding it hard just being me & baby all the time, she said she'd be there but she isn't... I told her it hurts me feeling I like I have to 'beg' her to spend time with us when she sees my sis' kids 4 times a week... All she had to say was 'Im here if you need me, but I won't ask 'first', just let me know'.

I changed my expectations & saw her once a month/every 6 weeks or so, that 'baby' is now 9. 2nd one is 5 but this one was easier in that I knew how mum would be.

I hope you can make some peace with whatever decision you come to, I'm sorry it's not going to be how you wanted things to be. PotatoRabbits last paragraph is perfect.

I actually think you're being a bit oversensitive.

Does your dad normally phone you? My dad has passed away now but it was always my mum that phoned me. I knew my mum kept dad informed about what was going on. He never phoned himself though. I guess the main thing would be if your dad normally regularly called you but stopped doing so when baby arrived.

Your brother is immediate family so it would be unusual keep the imminent arrival of his niece secret from him IMO. Wider family being told later us fine but I'd find it stranger for your brother to not be told than to be told.

4 visits in 6 weeks isn't loads but it isn't ignoring you. How are they when they visit? Any offers of help or do they sit around expecting to be waited on? The later would annoy me more than the frequency of visit.

The newborn stage is generally hard. A lot if people say that. If you don't feel your mum and dad are helping when you've got things you need support with have you specifically asked them? ie mum, please could you hold baby for 10 minutes while I have a shower, dad, could you bring some milk with you when you visit, we've run out etc. Do they know what you are hoping to have as support from them?

Your brother's children are obviously older than yours. As children grow up and develop personalities usually their bonds with people also grow. Newborns are cute but to be frank, unless it's your newborn, a lot of people, particularly men, don't really get the newborn stage as Newborns don't really do a lot. I don't think your dad's comment about missing your brother's children was a bad thing to say at all. It doesn't mean that he doesn't care about your child.

In the nicest possible way perhaps guiding them gently as to what you'd like them to do would be better than telling them what you feel they've done wrong.

All grandparents are different. I'm always amazed by the level of support some people on Mumsnet seem to get from grandparents. with days and dsys of childcare, regular overnight stays etc. I don't necessarily think that's the norm for everyone. Likewise it is also sad when grandparents don't show any interest at all. I think somewhere in the middle is probably the norm and that seems to be the category where your parents fall into.

Congratulations on your baby. Being premature you've all had a bit of a stressful start to parenthood. I hope your DD is doing well now.

Ouch that sounds hard.i any to say they aren't worth the hurt this us bringing but they're your parents! Hard not to numb yourself to that. harder still not to want them to protect love and cherish you.and or seek nurture and approval.its hardwired into us.
I don't think your expe ting too much.so therefore it only up to you because you need to be brave and stop expecting.because otherwise you'll keep being hurt.and parental hurt can be the deepest.
Is this a golden child situation too?

Your baby was in hospital for the first week, so they have seen your baby 6 times within 5 weeks? I don't think that's unsupportive at all. What level of support are you wanting? You might need to spell it out to them, your DM sounds like mine and waits to be invited as she's afraid of stepping over the mark. It also seems your DPs are still working? If so you have to cut them some slack.
Congrats on your baby 💐

Some of it is a bit dickish but 4 visits in 6 weeks is plenty of visits, surely? What were you expecting exactly? Why do you feel you need your parents to support? Does your partner not help? The newborn stage IS hard, but why should she do it (she altready did it for her own kids) and not you as parents? It does sound like they put more effort in your brothers family and they should have kept your secret, so I agree with you on those points.

Thanks everyone,

I guess I’m hurt by my father not contacting me even just a short message, as the whole experience was quite stressful. I get all the details going through my mother. But I think if DD ever went through a horrible situation I could never not contact her because someone else was.

myself and brother are very different, being honest we never really had the closest of relationships… but as I’ve grown older it’s always been apparent our parents compare us completely. No matter what I’ve done my brother has done it, but better.

@Lindy2 thanks for response. I really value this. regarding my brother being told when we’d asked for the information not to be shared. It was literally, you need a c section before you have a stroke. We’re not sure how baby will come out, In what condition, you need to be prepared. So DP told both our parents. Of course once baby was born and we knew more we would tell closer family. Which we did with DP siblings. I was hurt as our request for privacy had been denied. I would understand maybe more if ur had been a few hours… but we got told we were having a baby at 9am, told parents at 9:15, baby born at 10:12. Came out of theatre at 10:47 to a message from brother about how traumatic their birth was (we hadn’t spoken since he’d ignored my message about me being pregnant 3 months before)

@fossilsmorefossils @thefamilyupstairs
i think because I saw the support brother got with his children? Literally parents flew to Portugal for 3 weeks when his children were born.
DP is amazing as is his family.

I think I just wanted my mum, I felt mentally drained from the experience. I didn’t want my parents to come round and look after my child. But after major surgery I guess I expected some more help. Most of my friends parents came round made dinners, helped with cleaning in the first few weeks. Which is what parents done for my brother. Maybe I am being over sensitive then..

my parents work 2 days a week each. We live 4 miles away.

It’s really not up to your parents to help you look after your kids. I can’t see what they have done wrong here. You wanted your father to contact you so you could basically gave an identical back and forth as you had just had with your mum, who no doubt relayed it all to your father? Bonkers.

Most of my friends parents came round made dinners, helped with cleaning in the first few weeks.

Were they single parents? Why couldn’t their partner/DH do these things?

@HoppingPavlova i never wanted help looking after my child. Myself and partner are FULLY capable. I wanted support from my parents after a frankly horrible time.

i didn’t expect to have the same back and forth with both parents but a simple thinking of you text would have gone a long way.

not bonkers, just hurt.

@HoppingPavlova because we are not made of money and DP had to go back to work the day after my DD came home from hospital & I was 7 days post surgery.

I can see what's been happening has hurt you and I'm sorry you've been feeling like that, but tbh I don't think it's all that bad really. Maybe it's an issue of expectations or you've felt overwhelmed in general but to me it doesn't seem as though they've really been all that awful.

I agree your dad maybe should've made more effort to contact you but presumably he was getting information from your mum so probably didn't see it as no contact.

I think it's okay for them to miss the other GC (although perhaps maybe didn't need to be said) since they are children with personalities and not little newborns. The bonds are different but it doesn't mean there isn't one.

Them including your brother in your birth update is normal imo. I can see both sides of that. I wouldn't expect my DM to keep something like that from my sister but I'm guessing your feelings about that are tied up with his non-response to you telling him you were pregnant. That's weird but I'm not sure I would've blanked someone over it.

In terms of the visits, I think that sounds like a good balance. How much and what kind of support did you want them there?

It sounds like this is about a mismatch of expectations on both your parts and you need to be a bit more explicit. Ask for help if you feel you need it.

I feel for you OP. I guess it's not even so much about wanting them to come do jobs but more wanting to feel they are with you and care.

I'm sorry but I don't think this is going to happen. They haven't shown much support and when you spoke to them about it nothing changed. You need to respond on their level now. Lower your expectations, accept that the relationship with them, and their relationship with your child, will not be what you hoped, and focus on the other grandparents.

It's really sad but you won't change them and all you can change is your expectations.

You can't change how they feel/react. Only how you do.
The no contact from dad wouldn't bother me as my dad never spoke to anyone everything went through mum.

Once a week is a fairly reasonable visiting routine. My parents were not very hands on and I think I probably saw them every couple of weeks they were about 5mile a way. In-laws were similar in visits but they lived 30mile away and both worked. I'm an only child so no competition on my family but pils have massively favoured sil family and see/do a lot more for them which I've struggled with. I think because my parents have never helped I didn't expect it but because pils helped sil I compare it.

We basically learnt to do it our selves . I work part time for ease of childcare we occasionally ask pil to do an overnight so we can go out but otherwise we just do it between us. (My parents died a few years ago) I do sometimes compare to friends or sil who have on tap support but I try not to as it's not helpful.

Have your parents ever been hands on ? When you moved, needed emotional support etc? They probably feel like what they are giving is enough . It may change as your dd gets older and they can play etc with her or it may at not. Your not being sensitive there's a gap between how you want things to be and how they want things to be. You have spoken to them about it and really that's all you can do. If they don't want things to change you would be best to try to accept that.

I don’t blame you for feeling bad. It sounds like they treat your brother differently and they were always going to let you down a bit. I think the best thing you can do is to expect a bit less from them so you don’t get as disappointed when they inevitably fall short.

I am really sorry you are experiencing this. Congratulations on your little one.

Unfortunately you cannot change the action and attitude of the family around you - but you can change your own actions, attitudes and expectations.

Family on both my and DH's side are similar to yours - both our mums loved paying a lot of attention to our siblings children, and ignoring our children. My Dad passed away a long time ago, and FIL has turned his back on all his grandkids - his loss!

It really does hurt - but when I changed my expectations, things improved for myself. My kids are now all adults - I plan on treating them all equally, especially if/when they have kids of their own.

If I were in your situation - find a group of new mums and hopefully some friends who can be there for that emotional support that you need. If you get along with your DP's family - also look to them for support.

When you accept your parents aren't going to have the relationship you were expecting - you might go through a sort of mourning period.

It does get better ... eventually.

Some of ot could be explained I think. Especially if it's not normal for them to be stand offish. I say explained but I mean their logic about what's polite is odd and is in fact rude (like the woman I used to know whose son (my son's friend) I was taking on a picnic and she fed his a meal before hand so he would eat much of the picnic.)

1. Your father may not have contacted you because he felt like you'd enough to contend with and he knew what was going on because your mother told him. (Not thinking he was important to you and his contact was what you needed.)

1. Your mother doesn't think that your brother is just "anyone" and your strained relationship doesn't change that. It's just a "family is important" way of thinking.

1. Four times in six weeks isn't too bad. They may feel they don't want to interfer and they would be nuisance to you really. (I know you asked them, but as I said sometimes there's no logic in what people feel is being polite, but that lack of logic is always malignant - just bad experience they have had.)

1. Highly possible your dad was no support to her and possible she had a bad experience of her mother "helping" which effected her badly and given her the feeling of guilt that so many women get that they should be doing everything for her baby. Her claim she wouldn't have babies doesn't need to mean she regrets having you.

1. What was their interaction with your brother's children like? It could be that your dad just doesn't interact with babies because it's a one way relationship really isn't it? Your brother's children are older I presume. They will interact more with your father and he finds that easier. Plus he might not mean his missing them means he doesn't care for your daughter.

1. Could be true- they could easily see nothing wrong as everything they did is normal to them. Did you directly say things like "you said you wouldn't have had children if you'd know how hard it was, does that mean you don't love me?"?

You are not being unreasonable. You should reset your expectations and leave them to it. Focus on your baby. And on that note, congrats!!!

I can understand where you're coming from, but they're not going to be those parents. For your own happiness, accept that.

Congrats on the baby, you had a rough ride, hope all is good now.

I feel that you are being oversensitive and dramatic but that is because my parents are similar - in terms of contact - and it feels normal and fine to me, I have a good relationship with my parents.

When you were in hospital, you were in touch with your mum. Of course she was keeping your dad updated. Your dad didn't need to contact you too. Mine wouldn't have either.

You told your parents that you were having a c-section but asked them not to tell anyone. They told your brother. So your brother knew you were having a c-section a few hours earlier than you wanted him to know. Big deal. Expecting your parents to keep that from him, even if he asked after you, is needlessly dramatic, puts them in a difficult situation and contributes to the strained relationship you have with your brother.

They have visited four times in five weeks and said no sometimes if they've been tired after work. I don't see the problem.

They miss their other grandchildren. Why is this an issue?

They mentioned, once, that the newborn stage is hard work.

And all of that warranted a sort of intervention to criticise them and 'repair your relationship'? I disagree. No wonder there's a distance between you. As far as they are concerned, your mum was in regular contact while you were in hospital, they updated your brother when you had a Caesarian, they've visited weekly since you came home, and do still have to work.

they have a great relationship with brother and his children, but don’t seem bothered about mine. My father said the other week “oh I really miss brothers names kids… I wish they lived closer” whereas they have a grandchild (my dd) 3 miles from their home…

But, to be fair, your daughter is a very tiny baby. It just won't be the same relationship as he has with older grandchildren who know and love him.