AIBU not to help DD out with childcare?

[reesep]

DD has a son with special needs age 5, and a daughter age 1.

She has requested I look after them one day at a weekend, every month. She has also requested I do some daytime childcare during the school holidays

This is so she can get into nursing. She's desperate to be a nurse and has been accepted into a Healthcare Assistant role on bank, meaning she can pick shifts

AIBU not to provide such rigid help? It's too much of an expectation and I can't handle it

I do feel bad but it's just too much. She also lives 1.5 hours away so it would mean bringing the DC here

AIBU?

Three= those

@hulahooper2

selfish is the worst thing you can be as a woman on here

we r all selfish sometimes

🤷‍♀️

@saraclara
Currently 1512 jobs for part time or flexible working. Just because they're not common place, doesn't mean they aren't there. Sh3 could easily start with bank work allowing freedom to choose the massive amounts of available shifts. There are always ways and means if you stop being pessimistic.

selfish is the worst thing you can be as a woman on here

Well, it is and it’s not. How many threads are there saying it’s what you want that matters - fuck your bloke/parents/siblings, do what you want? But you have to be a martyr when it involves your kids. And, yes, apparently selfishness is heinous. God knows how anyone’s supposed to navigate it.

The OP has two other kids at school but according to some posters she should move an hour away and completely disrupt them…..

There is no way the eldest DD can actually be a nurse with a high needs child. Respite care is not wrap around care and is not flexible. Nurses work shifts. She needs to focus her energy on a career she can actually pursue.

@Cuppasoupmonster really? i dont feel embarrassed at all 😂 have a lovely evening but maybe stay away from your phone for abit.

My neighbour is a single parent to two kids with autism. She retrained as a nurse while they were in primary school then worked on wards for a couple of years. She has a lot of help from her mother and a good friend. They are at her house looking after her children a lot of the time. She changed jobs recently to something completely different because it had become too stressful and it was impacting on her health. It's less than eight years since she started training, so it wasn't a long term career at all. It doesn't sound like your daughter has the support network to make this work, and I can see why you are not in a position to help when you live so far away and have young children of your own to look after.

@Cuppasoupmonster the zealot-style nature of your posts on this thread hint slightly of bored troll/man.

@Cuppasoupmonster i take that back, i see you are indeed a woman having a baby according to one of your posts so im assuming you aren't in midlife but do happen to take exception to midlife women who want to take control of their lives after raising children. I can also see you already got a jammy dodger thrown at you on your goady thread about benefits being too generous in your view.

Why especially a Sen child?

What are you rambling about now 😂

Yanbu for not doing exactly what she needs. You have two kids yourself etc.

But.
Yabu for the way you say things like 'thie doesn't suit her' 'she can't do it' etc. Support her in ways that you can. Help her consider her options. Help her live her best life. If she wants to be a nurse say godammit do it, I can't look after your children but I will help you work out who can. I'll help you apply for a student loan. I'll help you get help from x y z so you can do it. All this, 'she hasn't thought this through' bleurgh yabu on that score

There’s no poll. But YABU

So OP is selfish for not wanting to take on open ended care for her DGCs - one of whom requires two professional people to look after them -but the DD is not selfish for choosing a career that doesn't have set hours and will require her DM to take on a lot of childcare.

I can't believe people have suggested that OP uproot her own DCs to move closer to facilitate this.

There's being a supportive DM and DGM and then there's taking in too much. I think some posters are jealous that OP doesn't work.

Surely you can make a distinction between things we have to do and things we should do out of the goodness of our hearts? I don’t have to phone an ambulance if I witnessed somebody having a heart attack on the pavement, but I would be a bit of an arsehole if I didn’t. This attitude that the only care you should show for others, even your own blood, is the bare legal minimum and anything else is a ‘selfish ask’ is depressing. OP shouldn’t move house for her daughter no, that is extreme. But she hasn’t even
met hers halfway, ie ‘I can take them one day a month but can’t manage the holidays, can I help you to find an alternative for those dates?’ Or ‘I can take them during the holidays but not at weekends, however if I help financially could we find a SEN carer who could help?’ Etc.

As it is OP does bugger all for her struggling daughter, she doesn’t even drive to see her - she makes her poor daughter do the 3 hour round trip every week to her house. She hasn’t once mentioned going to her daughter’s house to babysit or even bring lunch to her one day. The best she could offer is ‘a little walk with DGS, if DD moves closer’. Ugh.

@Cuppasoupmonster your posts which are easily searchable for all to see if they wish.

I think it is your decision and that really no one else is in your shoes - you should not feel compelled to help

@Cuppasoupmonster how have you come to the conclusion that op 'does bugger all for her daughter'? Do you know something we all don't?

So OP is selfish for not wanting to take on open ended care for her DGCs - one of whom requires two professional people to look after them -but the DD is not selfish for choosing a career that doesn't have set hours and will require her DM to take on a lot of childcare.

This!

@strokethefurrywall yep!

Of course that's fine. Just don't ask for help when you need it

If more local then 1/8 days at weekend once a month isn’t a lot to ask

but with a 3hr return journey it’s not possible

let alone care during holidays

the shifts aren’t going to work with early starts

tho if your daughter wil trust you , is there a sn carer who can help out and earn the trust of the dc

Even if the OP said yes, one weekend day a month and some help in the holidays is not going to solve her childcare to do the training.

I think she knows what jobs are available in her trust (as opposed to nationally) than you do. She's been trying to plan her escape from the wards for some time.

But the point is that if OP's daughter does manage to qualify as a nurse, her chances of working in a way that fits around her children, as a single mum with a child with intense special needs, are almost vanishingly small.

@saraclara my point is, that just because that’s your daughters experience, it’s hasn’t been mine. You don’t know which category she’ll fit into. What if it’s mine?