To have reached the end of my tether being asked to do life admin for a stranger

[GotMooMilk]

I’ve been struggling recently, like a lot of us really. 2 small kids, juggling 2 jobs and study to increase earning potential. Good DH who helps out but still carrying a lot of the mental load. Every week feels like a struggle at the moment and like we are both dashing from one thing to another spinning plates. Money is tight and causing a bit of stress. Working bank shifts to make extra. What lots of people are experiencing I suppose.

Anyway a friend of MIL messaged me asking if a random relative of her could get in touch with me as she’s moving from far away to near us and wanted advice on the area/schools- fine I said. MIL a few days later messaged me this girls number and said she wants to speak to me about it- I said fine both you and your friend have my number, give it to me and I will message her.

Saw MIL today and she’s asking have I messaged X, she really wants advice on schools etc. I didn’t lose my temper but was exasperated and told her I don’t have the time and energy to chase a stranger to give her life advice. She can message me, she can Google, she can look at ofsted. I’m not going looking for extra admin tasks helping someone I don’t know and will never meet move house. If she contacts me I’ll reply. MIL and DH both now think I’m grumpy and being a bit dramatic but aaaargh! When I moved her I did it all myself! I don’t mind helping her but she needs to message first- AIBU?!

I would say she can email any queries if she wishes

It would only take a few minute to send an email saying that X school is good for sport, Y school has a new headteacher, my kids go to Z school and like it. That's not life admin

Well I am not really quite sure that you could give any meaningful information to her, apart from the schools your children go to and the immediate area you live in.
She needs to contact you first with specific questions that you may or may not be able to answer, not just some airy fairy request for info about schools/area.
You could spend hours write an essay about every single local school and area which is unlikely to be helpful.
Tell your MIL and her friend that you will answer specific questions to the best of your ability or message the girl and say the same thing but tell them you are simply too busy to do any more than that.
Tell them, and her, that she would be better asking for info on the local Facebook page to get a wider view.
Do not feel guilty.

They probably assume she wants friends if she's new to the area. She probably doesn't. I'd send a message saying
Hi, it's terryer, kids go to x and we are very happy with it! Let me know if you need anything and good luck with the move, T x

How can you message her first, when you don't know exactly what her questions are? Backside formus.

Not something I would be worked up enough to start a thread about, and generally, yes, it makes sense, if and when she has a specific question for her to message you but you put in your OP that you said you would message her, so maybe she is waiting for that ?

THIS is the part that would piss me off. Why isn’t MIL asking her own child to do this favour? She clearly assumes little wifey has nothing better to do with her time.

What you’ve done is blow up at the extended family for asking you to do a small thing in the scheme of things. It happens to be a big thing to you because your bucket is full. The anger should be directed toward the thing that is making your bucket full (DH not pulling his weight) not the in-laws.

Well not really, as this other person is a woman so may want a woman's input. The OP is perfectly free to tell her MIL that she's delegated it to her dh if she wants

I'd be pissed off at your DH saying you're grumpy. Tell him you're not doing it and if it's so important to him, he can do it.

I get where OP is coming from. Plenty of people want stuff but won't take the initiative.

I recently had some high profile success within my specific career field (features in national press and TV) and a friend got in touch to say some random woman she vaguely knows was starting a podcast and wanted to interview me, I said sure pass on my email, got a message back saying "she says please tell Flurbubbly to email me." NO! You're the one who's asking me for a favour, you bloody well email me. You've got my email address, YOU email ME. I'm not doing the chasing just to do a total stranger a favour! So rude.

I think it's a power play sometimes.

Although it's very possible the MIL is interfering and the friend isn't all that fussed about advice.

@Terryer this woman isn’t after a review of the OPs new moon cup. It’s about schools/the local area. So why is a woman’s opinion on this different to a man’s??

Yes. If the MIL was my mum it would be her creating drama out of nothing and not the other woman's fault.

You really don't owe anyone anything.

When/if you do get any time spare, I would spend it on some quality TLC tbh.

You're being completely reasonable. You've agreed to give advice, if and when the person contacts you. She hasn't contacted you. It's not your responsibility to reach out to her.

I actually had something similar with my mum. Her coworker's DIL was diagnosed with something tricky. I live near to the Mayo Clinic in the US. My mum mentioned that to her coworker (why, I don't know) and offered for me to research the condition! And was very put out when I explained that the internet would give DIL the same information I could find 🙄 I'd be happy to give her advice about places to stay if she happened to be traveling here for treatment, but medical research....not a chance.

I've told my mother (retired, no responsibilities whatsoever) never to volunteer my (FT job, three kids) time again, without checking with me first.

It's probably only going to be a few paragraphs though. Anywhere School is great. The Queen Victoria is the best pub. We love the Crazy Cat Chinese. Etc.

Less time an effort that the average mums net post really

Feels more like the straw that broke the camel’s back rather than the MIL asking for a favour being the actual issue. My mum was like this during most of my childhood, she’d get disproportionately stressed and cross over minor issues all the time. It wasn’t fun to live with, but it wasn’t until I was older I realised it was because she was stretched so thin all the time. Maybe have a think/chat with your DH about how you lighten your load a bit. If it’s not this that’s winding you up, there’ll be something else that’ll come along to infuriate you.

It wouldn't exactly take long to just give your opinions on the schools - as others have said, you could have done that easily in the time it took you to write your original post in this thread. It's not very onerous to try to share your experiences with someone who is new to the area.

May be it’s a power play sometimes, but I think more often it’s a matter of people being insecure and not wanting to put themselves out there and be rejected. Which doesn’t make it okay, particularly in your situation. Someone doing a podcast needs to be comfortable handling rejection if they’re going to get anywhere.

There’s also the issue of it sometimes being more about the person offering your services than the person you are being asked to help.

I have a friend who seems to know everyone and the minute you mention doing something she’s suggesting someone she knows who can offer advice/help you out/etc. You might not have expressed any sort of need for help, but she will be nudging you to talk to them and nudging them to talk to you. She’s great in many ways and she puts lots of effort into helping people out herself, but she is very free to offer other people’s time and expertise to friends who might not have expressed any real interest in that help.

This could well be the truth.

Letting her contact you is a no brainer.

Some of the older generation do not fully realise how busy work,study,house, children can be, and adding to the load randomly is not appreciated.

Let your inlaws think you are grumpy, perhaps it will make her think twice about volunteering you for something.

If she does contact you, directing her to a local Facebook group is a good idea.

I think only people in an actual school can give you an accurate view of it.

If you were going to make such a song and dance about it, why did you say you’d message her? I’m sure your life is busy but you shouldn’t have offered, not done it, then had a tantrum when asked about it. If you’re genuinely too busy to provide text advice then say no - people aren’t mind readers.

I would tell dh to contact her. You have to break the mould that he can’t possibly know anything about the school because he is a man!

It’s not this one request that has broken the camels back it’s the million that came before. You are reaching burn out
Take time off if you can

Instead of this thread… you could have just dropped the friend a line to say “not sure how much help I can re schools as only experience of the ones my kids go to. And I’m happy with it. I referred to Ofstead reports and joined local parenting Facebook group (this one is good) and you can post to garner opinion. Good luck. It’s a great place to live”

but nope - you start a thread and get prefer to seethe

It’s accumulative op. It looks unreasonable to someone has never felt this mentally drained just to send one message. But it’s one message too many and then you will be dragged into someone else’s relocation etc

I wouldn’t do it and ignore any further requests.

It’s the fact your DH is a bit 🤔 that makes me think… passive twat