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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Family support - Yay or Nay - Please vote

50 replies

Happyhippo90 · 26/01/2023 20:40

I am trying to understand how many people have family support around that helps with kids.

I mean family that steps in and e.g. look after kids when unwell and parents have to work or look after kids for parents to have a night out or pick up kids from school or look after kids during summer holidays when parents work etc.

This could be part time help from them or full time or split between maternal grandparents or paternal grandparents. Any kind of help counts as help!

I am just trying to figure out how common this is!

YABU - Thank God grandparents help and I have family support around
YANBU - No family support, we just embraced the chaos and take it day by day

OP posts:
Outtasteamandluck · 26/01/2023 20:41

YABU.

I am lucky to have support as a single parent from my parents.

Daisymae55 · 26/01/2023 20:42

My parents have DD twice a week so I can work.

TableChair1 · 26/01/2023 20:45

No family support here.

Thatiswild · 26/01/2023 20:46

Our nearest family lives 4hr away so no support but we manage to muddle along.

AceofPentacles · 26/01/2023 20:47

YANBU

No family around

SpinningFloppa · 26/01/2023 20:48

none here at all and I’m a lone parent, I made my own thread about this and most seemed to have lots of help and said it was unusual to not have any family help.

workiskillingme · 26/01/2023 20:49

My healthy youngish parents who live very close would help in an a emergency but don't help in any other way
Which I'm fine with

JustFrustrated · 26/01/2023 20:50

YABU -ad hoc babysitting, would be there in a blink if we had an emergency

CandlelightGlow · 26/01/2023 20:51

We have no childcare from family at all and bar a couple of evenings when my first was a baby and when giving birth, so I don't get any support that way.

We do see my mum regularly so that is nice, but I'd be very grateful to be able to entertain the odd evening out with my DP. That said I'm happy with our setup and appreciate that I'm very lucky that one of us is a SAHP and one of us works from home. It's just more the never getting to do much together that doesn't involve the kids!

stressedmumof5 · 26/01/2023 20:51

I support my DD with my granddaughter..we are family and if we can help we will

DelurkingAJ · 26/01/2023 20:54

We’re somewhere between. Everyone a couple of hours away but in a crisis would be with us as soon as possible. This has happened twice in a decade. If they come to stay or we go to them then they’re very happy to babysit. So DM probably babysits half a dozen times a year.

CatherinedeBourgh · 26/01/2023 20:55

yanbu. No family who would help in the same continent!

SSDDagain88 · 26/01/2023 20:57

My mum moved to the next road and does breakfast, school runs, dinner and takes them one a week to a club that she paid for- I couldn’t be without her

FfeminyddCymraeg · 26/01/2023 20:58

We are an extremely close-knit family; cousins who babysit for each other’s DC and we all holiday together regularly. There are often 20+ of us. I regularly had childcare from my DM and DGP when my DC were younger - even though the latter were in their 70/80s.

Fully appreciate that some people would find it suffocating but we don’t, it’s how we prefer it and how we grew up. I never feel alone and know I have a load of people I could call upon in a crisis. Surely this is what is family about? We don’t live in each other’s pockets but having their support means I feel I can take on the world sometimes! ❤️

QueenOfHiraeth · 26/01/2023 21:00

Both!
I had no help at all
One child lives locally and we help with childcare 1 day a week plus odd extras of babysitting and emergencies
Another lives too far away for general help but we visit regularly and would go and stay in a crisis

autienotnaughty · 26/01/2023 21:09

I have 2 adult dc who will babysit their little brother occasionally so we can have a night out but they are both away at uni so it's few and far between. In-laws are about an hour away they might have ds a few times a year for a over night. But no help with work, illness, emergencies etc

heatdeath · 26/01/2023 21:09

we've never had any childcare but my parents generally have had a couple of sleepovers a month with one child at a time (we have 4). They also take them on trips out (e.g. they are taking the youngest two to the theatre on Friday), but never have all of them at once - I'm sure they would have in an emergency but it would have to be fairly catastrophic! My husband's family aren't interested at all. We've only recently started having childfree evenings etc now that our eldest is willing/able to babysit the younger three (we do pay her!).

All pretty normal, well adjusted kids (as are my nieces & nephews!) & my parents love spending time with them but we'd never have considered asking for/expecting childcare.

unicornsinspace · 26/01/2023 21:09

No help at all

MrsTerryPratchett · 26/01/2023 21:11

YANBU

None at all. It's very difficult and when DD was younger, we worked very hard on making friends so that we could help them and they could help us. Not 'using up' favours for smaller things, making time to do favours so we had goodwill. It was bloody awful.

If MIL hadn't got sick and passed away, I'm sure she would have done lots (lovely woman). We might even have had another child.

Username9898 · 26/01/2023 21:16

The family we are emotionally closest to are 3.5 hours away. They come to visit every 2-3 months or so and they’ll offer to babysit when they’re here, but we don’t always take them up on it. When he’s older maybe he’ll go to stay with them for a few days in the school holidays. That’s it though. No one for school runs, sickness cover, regular baby sitting. I’m very jealous of people who have that!!

Rockingcloggs · 26/01/2023 21:16

Both sets of grandparents are within a mile of us and from school. Mon/weds/Friday my mum gets him from school and tue/thurs MIL does. If any sickness occurs on their days they will have him, or if it's a bad bout of sickness which is rare I stay at home. They carry on these days in school hols also and they also take him away to their caravans.

Hafannedd123 · 26/01/2023 21:19

We are very very lucky in that i see my parents daily and they will look after the kids anytime we need as well as 9-5 few times a week for us to work. Also in laws who would help anytime asked. ❤️

Rosiepeta · 26/01/2023 21:21

YANBU....
plenty of family very close but no support other than 1 sister

S72 · 26/01/2023 21:22

Single mum here. One DS 11.

Family live 300 miles away so we see them once or twice a year.

Son's father lives in our town but refuses overnights and sees DS for around 3hrs a month, if that.

I work full time. It is hard without any support but we manage.

ReamsOfCheese · 26/01/2023 21:23

What about you? What's your situation OP?