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?

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.

Yes, and of course what's needed here isn't a once only sacrifice like walking through fire. I too would do that for mine, but what we wouldn't be able to do is make this situation workable, make it a sensible idea to embark on a plan like this without the necessary support in place. Short term pain is much easier to weather than impossible logistics!

Some posters are evidently struggling with the concept that this isn't actually a situation where some unselfish motherly sucking it up from OP will solve the problem and mean DD gets what she wants. This is why I think the OP biting the bullet and being upfront and honest about the situation now is actually in the interests of DD as well as all the kids involved. Because this plan is a circle that can't be squared.

There are no bursaries for nursing training now, either. So how will DD find the money to pay back a large loan? A loan for a qualification that she's highly unlikely to be able to use to earn a nurse's salary?

I can quite understand OP being reluctant to take on this commitment, when she knows that it won't ultimately be of any benefit.

Don't think your daughter has thought it through, and I fully appreciate after a split she wants to get cracking and do well for herself. I'm no expert but won't she have to do random shifts or long hours at some point? She is setting herself up for mega stress with childcare, it's brilliant she is wanting to forge a solid future but unfortunately it can't be at the detriment to your life. It's better to say no for now to revisit in the future when you have less responsibility, then agree and let her down in the future. I also find people underestimate how much child care they need from others giving the bare minimum as a guide to only pressure for more help? Once you are invested how do you then say no to the extras?

It's a great shame but sometimes being a good parent means having to say No and supporting your child through that disappointment

Absolutely spot on - even more so because OP was clear that, instead of wanting to discuss the issues, her DD takes an airy fairy "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it" attitude

Trying to improve yourself within what's possible is admirable, but as someone else said this sounds like a person who wants what they want and to hell with the consequences to others, and life doesn't work like that

If she was expecting you to do regular childcare she should of discussed it with you first before having more kids. She is being unreasonable and unrealistic.

Of course you don't have to. But, when you become old and in need of help due to your age - she is also not obliged to help you.
That is not the kind of relationship I would want with my mother.

YANBU.

How long had she been 'desperate' to get into nursing? It can't really be that much of a burning ambition, otherwise she would have done it instead of having a five year old and then a one year old.

It sounds as though she's having a really hard time. Do you think she's latched onto the idea of nursing? It sounds as though she doesn't get what's involved ascend the practicalities? So you think she might be steered towards something more manageable?

I feel the OP is hiding behind excuses and critiquing the daughter's life choices because she simply can't be bothered to look after her gc, and perhaps SEN factors into it. Discussions around whether nursing is the right career, whether she should have thought about it beforehand etc, are irrelevant. She hasn't decided to go off and be a pole dancer, she wants to be a nurse and it has been her dream. As parents we should be supportive if we have the means to be.

The op has the means to be supportive, she is choosing not to be. That, to me, is not what motherhood stands for, which is about having your child's needs before your own, if possible. The OP's other children are old enough, and everyone can be together when the gc are being looked after, so please don't come back saying what about the other children.

Additionally, the ask from her daughter does not make the mother suddenly have a right to question the whole career choice - this is not her decision, she simply needs to evaluate whether she can help or not. She seems to be a selfish mother, just from the limited context of what I read obviously, so she cannot help and that's it.

Unfortunately there are mothers who think motherhood is a chore that finishes when the child grows up...Generally, they should also also accept that when it comes to the parents needs one day they will, most likely, be similarly treated. That is the price of selfishness, and an unsupportive family environment.

So many carers fall into poverty because they can't work due to having dc with complex care needs. Childcare when you have a child with disabilities is a whole different ball game. Unless the OP is willing to have her dgc full time the dd is not going to be able to do nursing. All of the posters saying this one day a month will make a difference don't have a clue

As the parent of a (now adult) child with high needs and LD I completely agree.
On the face of it, one day a month seems like not much at all, although my own mother found caring for my dd way too demanding. Looking after your high needs child is a skill that you develop over time, and from knowing your own child. Other people find (and found) her much more difficult that I do because I can anticipate what's going to happen next. I can read her. Other people end up in chaos whereas mine is more organised chaos.

It's just not a simple one day a month. It's the whole 3 year course. How would that be possible without OP having to more or less take over parenting responsibilities for her gc? It's sad for the dd but it's pie in the sky and just not doable.

Of course. Because grandparents who provide childcare never, ever get left to it in old age. And getting corralled into it for certain future assurances is definitely indicative of a healthy relationship.

Are you my mother because this is how she goes on. She doesn't see her grandkids now and apparently can't understand why.

Don't expect help when your mobility starts to go.

Lots of people very confident about how much childcare they’d provide to a grandchild with significant special needs whilst still having children at home. Seems like an amazing untapped resource of ppl who’d be in a position to offer occasional respite care to families in this woman’s position

Yup my dd with LD is 30 and I haven't met one yet.

The op has the means to be supportive, she is choosing not to be.

She doesn't actually have the means to make this plan at all viable, though, and it's pretty obvious that it would have to look like much, much more than one day a month plus school holidays for it to get anywhere close.

This is exactly what I meant upthread when I said some posters have failed to grasp that this isn't a situation where a bit of maternal sacrifice and sucking it up from OP will deliver the desired result. She's not a magician.

You don't pay the loan back until you're earning over 24k

I'm really taken aback by how many of you apparently see family relationships as ledger sheets.

For the record, my mother has not provided more than a weekend of grandchild childcare in her life. But, still, I have a great relationship with her as do my kids, my siblings and their kids. She was a fantastic mother and a great role model, her not being an unpaid babysitter doesn't change that in any way. And of course my siblings and I will be there for her if/when she needs our help.

@user3729104859301018384592
Does your mother not see her grandkids because she just doesn't see them or because they've been withheld in retaliation for her not providing childcare? I'm not saying family relationships aren't complicated - they often are, but your post makes it sound very tit for tat. Presumably if she wants to see them now, she has always wanted to see them?

But it isn't up to the op or other posters to offer an uninvited view as to whether the dd will be able to manage nurse training. That is between her and her place of study.

I have family members who have often suggested I wouldn't be able to do certain things (travel places with my dc on my own, cope with pets, dc and full-time work while do worked away, pass additional qualifications) and I managed them all just fine, because I'm best placed to make decisions about my life. I suspect the adult dd is also able to make decisions about her life.

So, maybe she has a plan that she isn't speaking about. Maybe she understands the restricts if the nurse course she is looking at better than the op. But the op seems to think she should be the one to say whether this is possible or not, and it isn't her place.

Except OP is being asked to enable her DD.

Invited to or not, OP is free to have her opinions and make decisions accordingly. The DD can go ahead if she wants, but she needs to find alternative childcare.

Discussions around whether nursing is the right career, whether she should have thought about it beforehand etc, are irrelevant

Irrelevant to us maybe, but since DD clearly expects her mum to do so much the consequences of her choices are certainly relevant to OP's own life, and the DD's refusal to engage in discussions about how it'll all work are hardly helpful - and may, I'd expect, have informed OP's decisions

As said a career aim is an excellent thing if it's realistic, but nobody with sense should expect to pile such hard work onto someone else and then seek to avoid questions about it

It is staggering that the OP is being called selfish for being able to see that the relatively modest request at the moment is incredibly likely to turn in to vast amounts of commuting and childcare for an indefinite period of time. Dd is not off to a conference for a couple of days or asking for a local pick up from school occasionally, or in fact anything near reasonable, if the reality of the situation is looked at.

No one should get to automatically "pursue their dream" when it is detrimental to the wellbeing of others. OPs daughter is a parent herself, to a child with significant extra needs and a fairly young baby. I'm not seeing where she is prioritising them here, although the OP seems to be expected to, above her own younger children.

But the op seems to think she should be the one to say whether this is possible or not, and it isn't her place.

Of course it’s her place. Because you’d be naive to think that agreeing to what DD wants now won’t become “but if you don’t help me by doing more childcare, I’ll fail the course and lose money and my dream. I thought you were supporting me with this :(“

The DDs current plan is already completely unrealistic. She is not going to do 6 hours of driving every day the OP has them and she's working a full and no doubt exceptionally busy shift as a HCA. She has shown no evidence of being able to put together a workable plan.

As the person who's going to be in line to pick up the pieces once this becomes apparent, the OP not only has the right to question the practicalities but is also acting in the interests of all her children and grandchildren to do so.

maybe she has a plan that she isn't speaking about

Maybe she does, and if she was planning to take the load herself she'd have every right not to speak about it

But she isn't - for all the reasons given her hopes would very obviously involve OP in a colossal amount of work, and as said you don't expect to do that and also refuse to discuss it

@Mummyford

No it's not tit for tat. She isn't interested (she told me she was interested in us so she's not interested in seeing her grandkids)

She was more than happy for both my gran and my granny and other family to watch me when I was younger every weekend, school holiday and 2 nights during the week. She worked in a school so was term time only and I was sent off each holiday with my siblings to grandparents and aunties and uncles.

We don't have a good relationship. I was a hopeful that would change when I was pregnant with ds and dd thinking maybe the pregnancy would be something we could finally have some sort of shared experience but it didn't change anything, I never saw or heard from her.

Ds is 11 and dd is 4, she's met dd a handful of times and ds not much more.

That's nice you have a good relationship with your mum. I would have liked that with mine but it hasn't worked out that way for us.

Have I got this right?
DD as a 5 hr old and a 1 year old.
5 year old has very high needs and the house has been adapted.
Respite have assessed and say they can only do it on a 2:1 basis(this doesn't include caring for a 1 year old at the same time.
It is a 3 HR trip between houses which Op would have to do due to 5 yr old needing adapted house and school transport.
DD thinks 1 day a month and some school holidays will be sufficient child care to manage a nursing degree(and believe me this is not a child friendly degree,25% drop out rate)
OP is called unreasonable because she says she couldn't cope giving this level of care and the five year old will soon be 6,7 and the one years old a lively toddler.
Because she realises her Dd is being unrealistic about nurse training.
DD does not seem to have looked at other childcare needed and her 'we will cross that bridge'suggests that she sees her mum as that bridge.
I think the OP is being realistic and has her own children at tricky ages where they need support too.
I have had my mother's emotional support over the years and it included some thing I didn't want to hear because this is what mums are for to help us figure out how to manage our own lives.
So I can't fault the OP who is being a good mum who sees her Dd regularly and they seem to have a good relationship and is just saying no,this won't work for either of us.

YABU

Just as you see it he’s responsibility to care for her children, she needs you to extend a bit care for her to allow her to study