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?

knows she can't*

I think it's a shame if once a month is too much to help out. Our family made it very clear that none of them was up for childcare, invites for tea, sleep overs or even being in their house in any form ever very early on. So if we had an emergency unless it involved one of us being in hospital we had no one. As soon as the eldest was responsible enough he did the babysitting.

The problem resulting now with such a distant relationship is that they don't really need those people in their lives either. I was talking to my 15 year old about when one of them got ill in old age and he looked at me blankly. In our family, you don't help each other out in his experience. The possibility he would be expected to help anyone beyound his siblings and us is just ludicrous to him. I wonder how he got that idea?

Do less often but be careful or never being there, ever

OP phrased her first post badly.
If it was a clearly set out once a month weekend day, then maybe she would have said yes. But that's the tip of the iceberg- there's the school holidays and then the fact that the career DD has chosen is incompatible with a high needs DC with no support from the DF and GPs living 1.5 hrs away.

What about the DFs DM? Has she been asked to do childcare?

I think you are. Family is all that matters.

Fwiw I don't think you are being unreasonable. You have dc and work .I too longed to be a nurse but it didn't happen for various reasons. As mick jagger would say you can't always get what you want .so children are hard going. Maybe occasionally here and there's to give her a break but this is too much I think

She unfortunately has childcare needs that are incompatible with nursing. Her childcare request is probably her opening gambit and there could easily be more demands of your time in the future.

Blimey... you have a 10 and a 15 year old who could help you and learn some care and be part of a family and you can't commit to one day a month?
And trying to talk your daughter out of bettering herself?
I hope she'll be able to find a solution, as family clearly doesn't matter to you, at least now, that you have a 'new' one. She could look into finding an apprenticeship route.

The 5 yr old DS has such severe needs that he his ratio is 2 adults when he is in a formal setting.

But somehow it would be fine for a 10 & 15 yr old to be quite heavily involved in his care, or indeed that of a 1 year old baby.

This is cloud cuckoo land talk. Those DCs are just that DCs. One is heading into exam territory and the other is still a child. Maybe they could push the baby round the block for half an hour, but I'm not sure what other care people think that DCs should be providing.

DSis attempted Access Nursing as a lone parent to 1DC. The amount of help she required from me was, frankly, ridiculous. From picking her up from the childminder because she’d missed the free college bus that only takes 30 mins to get back and needed to get the normal buses - 2, which took 90 mins, to me having her on the days DSis wasn’t at college (they only fund the days at college) as she needed to revise/do coursework, or having my niece for days on end as she was too unwell for the childminders.

I was happy to do this because she’d had DNiece very young, had zero support from our family who had pretty much disowned her for it.

I repeatedly asked her what she planned to do about the degree considering the hours they’d expect, and she told me that I’d just have to have her child (alongside my other 2 children and I was pregnant with my 3rd…). Unfortunately, she didn’t get higher than a Pass grade in any module and therefore stood no chance of getting into Uni.

A few years later, I was 30, I started an Access course - STEM - single mother to 3DDs, aged 7/5/6 months old. I went to an RG Uni for UG and PG.

Zero help from anyone. I asked DSis if she would collect elder DDs from school once a week and give them dinner (niece was at the same school), she refused.

I powered through anyway, because a) had the drive to do it and b) had chosen a realistic goal based on my academic ability and personal circumstances.

Your DD isn’t doing that, so YANBU.

You sound utterly and completely unsupportive of your poor daughter. I was shocked that you said she would drive them to you, I thought your only reasonable complaint would be the drive to pick them up but even so any reasonable parent would drive to help out their child. She's been utterly abandoned by her husband and mother and I feel so sorry for her.

@Moominfanjo your post is very goady to be fair. It's not healthy to be digging up dirt from posting histories to make a point in a separate thread. Nor is troll hunting within the guidelines.

The 5 yr old DS has such severe needs that he his ratio is 2 adults when he is in a formal setting.

But presumably mum has to look after him entirely on her own when he's at home.

If you had read that thread, it’s because I was sharing a Guardian article where a woman addresses the tired ‘why should I pay for you to have a child’ trope that so many people trot out. And I was saying what a great article it is. But you didn’t read it, did you?

Well yes. Unless she places him into care and relinquishes parental responsibility, she’s the one responsible for him. That’s generally how it goes.

@whumpthereitis quite. My point being that, unless she gets carers to support at home, mum is looking after child on a 1:1 basis without a second adult. Whilst also looking after a 1 year old.

I do wish sometimes people would actually look at the facts of the matter as they are being presented, rather than waffle on about OP being unsupportive, evil, or disinterested in her DD and GC, before they make sweeping pronouncements.

DD lives 1.5 hours away. A 3 hour return journey. She will not want to do that before and after a 12 hour nursing shift - that's 18 hours before she even starts to eat / sort kids / etc. How much will this fuel add to her cost of living - is this affordable?

The GC has high enough SEN that he needs 2:1 care, is at a specialist SEN school and has a specific transport bus laid on for him which gets him to / from the school at specific times of the day. This sounds like DD has got him nicely settled in, is dealing well with her local council and his educational needs are being met. She is not going to want this disturbed in any way. Who will ensure that the GC is there to meet the transport bus before and after school, as this will be from his 'normal' address and not the OPs? How does this work with the child being at OP's home 1.5h away?

The OP has children of her own, the elder can do some ad hoc childcare for their sibling but is in an exam year and this must take priority. The younger is still at the stage where they do need a bit of attention, plus they will be moving up to secondary next year and this can be a lot of change which creates its own issues. People suggesting that OP moves her own family (increasing the daily commute for husband - whether or not he is father to DD) at this stage in OP's family's life are unrealistic.

Nursing is well known for its anti social hours, and whilst I'm sure that the course will be as supportive as possible, DD will still have to do 12 hour shifts, night shifts, shifts in different locations etc, as well as the academic side of things (and you can't be expected to produce decent essays etc whilst looking after a baby and a high SEN needs child).

The one day a weekend, once a month, and 'some childcare' in the school holidays is probably fine, if that is what it is. But what are the childcare arrangements for the rest of the time? Who makes sure that the SEN child is there for his bus? What's happening to the baby? What happens to them once DD actually qualifies and gets a job? How does the DD study for the academics without some time to herself without them? I strongly suspect that this would expand, especially once the reality of the commute settles in.

The logistics and practicalities for this would mean a No from me before I even got onto the question on whether I'd like to do this or not - emotion or caring doesn't even come into it, you cannot just wing it for the next 3 years of studying and then into a job, on 1 day a month's agreed childcare. Huge stress, huge waste of time and money and it has been set up to fail from the start.

Unfortunately nursing is just not the right career path unless you have rock solid childcare arrangements, and back up alternatives for when these fall through. I am sure that there are other options for the DD which would be more realistic and pragmatic solutions, and which the OP would feel much more able to support.

It is also a salutary lesson in making sure that, if at all possible, you do the training etc for careers like this, with tricky training schedules, before you have children, as you will be in a much better position with much less commitment than after. Obviously it's a bit late for the DD in this case, and indeed for many others, but it is still easier to do it this way round.

Yes, but if OP doesn’t feel capable of doing the same, it’s not unreasonable at all of her to choose not to. It’s better she does just that, in fact.

OP daughter is the one that chose to take that on, OP did not.

This is a fairly horrifying thread. Here we have a grown woman wanting to return to a career, which is proving very difficult because she has two young children, one disabled, and cannot afford specialist childcare. And instead of blaming the absent feckless father, or the useless government for failing to provide a solution, all the blame and vitriol is being heaped upon her MOTHER, whose parental responsibility ended some time ago, who lives an hour and a half away and has her own life and two children still living at home, and SHE's the one who should be facilitating her daughter's career!
Because apparently being a mum, everything is your duty and responsibility, no matter what
OP, YANBU

As someone who would wade through fire for my kids, I would probably find a way to try to make this work, although I think people, including the OP's DD are being ridiculously unrealistic about the overall long-term workability of the plan, but, yes, this post is spot on.

The amount of mother shaming on this thread is shocking. I think there's a whole lot of projection here.

She unfortunately has childcare needs that are incompatible with nursing.

Yes, this is what it comes down to unfortunately. And @throwa summed it up excellently.

I have a lot of sympathy with DD. Her situation must be very hard. She's also wanting to embark on something that she isn't going to be able to achieve without very substantial childcare support. That evidently isn't going to come from her useless twat of an ex, and it's also not going to come from the state. Neither is it likely to be met in the childcare sector itself, even if money were no issue, given the needs of DC1. This doesn't have to be fair to be true.

Nothing we've heard suggests there is any other source available aside from the OP. And even the 'some' school holidays bit is actually pretty telling. It's going to end up being a huge undertaking, whether DD has fully got her head around those practicalities at this point and is asking in the full knowledge that it'll be more or whether she's yet to realise it.

To that end, it would be better for all parties if OP were to make clear to DD that she is not going to be in a position to provide the absolutely colossal childcare support necessary to make this work.

OP daughter is the one that chose to take that on, OP did not.

I can't imagine that having a disabled child and a partner that won't help out was a choice.

No absolutely, but being brutal she did choose to have a second DC in those circumstances. That was totally her choice, and I only raise it because some posters seem to be implying that OP was being selfish by having more DCs so therefore unable to take on major GC caring.

I think it's a shame if once a month is too much to help out.

Once a month is not going to help her nursing career. As a student or when she’s qualified.

But she did indeed make the choice to have children, which, unless she relinquishes custody to the state, makes her the one responsible for them. Not OP.

Also, if nursing is her lifelong dream as she claims, it is quite a strange decision to have 2 children first and then try to pursue it. I have a dream...but I'm going to wait until my life is ten times harder and need other people to help me accomplish it. This sounds like a woman who wants what she wants when she wants it and doesn't care what it means for everyone else.