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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

...about my mum leaving my daughter in a creche?

159 replies

keyhole · 07/03/2008 10:51

My mum looks after my 3 yo dd once a week whilst I work (my eldest is now in school). To be brief,my mum recently married a man 10 years younger and is on a quest to be 25 again - hence obsessive gym attendance. The other day she took my youngest to go to a session and left her in the creche. She had previously mentioned she might do it and I had said I wasn't keen.

So when I returned from work on Tuesday to find she had left dd at the creche I was fuming(inwardly). Spoke to dd about it afterwards and she said she 'cried when nanny left her with the ladies, that's cos she wanted nanny'.

So am I being unreasonable to think that my mum should devote her child care time to my dd and put my foot down or leave her to pursue her quest to be 30 years younger? Inicdentally she refuses to see/have children on weekends due to her devotion to her husband who is not keen on children .. or me really! Am on dodgy ground as have temperamental relationship with mum as it is.

Would appreciate any thoughts - am i being unreasonble?

OP posts:

Original poster

keyhole · 07/03/2008 12:07

I appreciate opinions and thanks to everyone who has helped me to think of what I should do now. I was unsure - now I am not. Perhaps original post did look as though I was acting spoiled. But it is difficult to see your mother change so much... in personality and looks (she has had plastic surgery to look young, encouraged by her husband). Just felt her obsession was impacting on my daughter - particularly as she was left crying in the creche.
Trouble is if my mum doesn't look after her then she will NEVER see her my other dd or me!

OP posts:

Wisteria · 07/03/2008 12:09

which is keyhole but ultimately her choice.

I'm sorry you feel like this and I do know how it is, my Dad is the same but sometimes we just have to accept it and move on to find happiness and fulfillment in our own lives.

Original poster

keyhole · 07/03/2008 12:16

Thank you. I do appreciate what you are saying. Find my mother very frustrating and I do miss the person she used to be. The creche issue is one of a long line of things she has done which I haven't been over the moon with. I will talk to her about creche issue and give her consent - have a range of forms to fill in asking for my permission.

OP posts:

Wisteria · 07/03/2008 12:18

Maybe she misses the person she used to be as well (before the person you know) and is trying to regain a bit of it....

Cam · 07/03/2008 12:20

Well said keyhole. It is hard when your mother changes direction. I know my adult dd1 found it hard when I got re-married and, even worse, had dd2.

Original poster

keyhole · 07/03/2008 12:27

Well she certainly has changed direction!!! Gone from being a caring, loving person to her family being a bit of a nuisance really! She was embarassed of me at her wedding when, in conversation, it came out how old I was. You would have thought I had shot her!

If she wants to be the new Zsa Zsa Gabor I will try and let her get on with it!!!

OP posts:

Cam · 07/03/2008 12:30

Oh dear she sounds like she is trying to completely reinvent herself and rewrite herself

Cam · 07/03/2008 12:30

may I ask how old she is?

KristinaM · 07/03/2008 12:35

if my mother looked after my 3yo one day a week for free i woudlnt think she was a bit of a nuisance. i woudl be very grateful

Original poster

keyhole · 07/03/2008 12:39

She is 60 next year. Kristina - I don't think she is a nuisance - quite the opposite. Would love her to bother me!

I am grateful to her for looking after dd which is why I have not talked to her about the creche. The problem I had was that she did it when I wasn't very happy and my dd told me that she had been crying there.

OP posts:

Cam · 07/03/2008 13:02

Just guessing her keyhole but presumably you are between 30 and 40?

Mum1369 · 07/03/2008 13:11

I don't think you are being unreasonable, I think you are being incredibly restrained under the circumstances. I would have been furious.You had not seen the creche and had even gone as far as to tell your Mum on a previous occasion that you weren't keen. Which bit of that didn't she find clear ?
I agree it is good of her to look after your child but at the same time, that does not give her the right to make those kinds of decisions - paid or unpaid.

morningpaper · 07/03/2008 13:13

Staceym21AtLast · 07/03/2008 13:20

morningpaper · 07/03/2008 13:23

Cam · 07/03/2008 13:31

frankie3 · 07/03/2008 13:39

I agree with you and I would have also been upset. My Mum looks after my DS once a week and I am fussy about which creches and childcare I put my child into, so I would be upset if my mum left my DS somewhere that I hadn't agreed to. However, my mum did once leave him with a friend for a few hours as she was busy. I knew the friend so I wasn't too worried.

Lots of grandparents only see their grandchildren once a week, so I wouldn't be upset about that. But what happens if you invite her round on a weekend for a birthday celebration etc, does she come?

Hulababy · 07/03/2008 13:42

YANBU

You had said you didn't like the idea so she should have respected your decision for your child.

If your mum feels she can't look after your child for one day aa week any more, because she wants to do other things with her time, then fair enough. That is her choice and she should be free to spend her time as she sees fit, regardless fof what thers thing about it.

However she should come out and tell you this so you can make alternative arrangements that you are happy with yourslef.

Ineedacleaner · 07/03/2008 13:53

I don't know I am kind of torn on this one. I felt the same as you when a friend was doing me a huge childcare favour for FREE once a week while I worked a Friday afernoon, I took over form her at 1pm she took my dd away with her and she took her to a friends house and I was
I spoke to my dad about it and he was very rational and said that if I truseted her to look after dd I had to trust that if she was taking her to a friends house I had to trust that she was taking her somewhere she would be safe.

I am sorry to say this but I cannot help getting the feeling that because of the resentment you feel towards your mother you are cutting of your nose to spite your face a bit, had you had a better relationship would you be trying to exert so much control over what your mother does with your dd?

Yes it is only once a week she sees her but really that is a lot and it is a regular commitment and a big ask and I think if she wants to go to a gym class then that is fine, thousands of mothers do it every day and it is a amll amount of time out of a whole day once a week.

Original poster

keyhole · 07/03/2008 14:27

MP - cool??? She's a blimmin nightmare!!!
Ineedacleaner- you have hit the nail on the head! I was pissed off that she took a decision like that knowing that I wasn't keen.
Thing that is most worrying is they say women become like their mothers....

OP posts:

Cam · 07/03/2008 14:34

Dh and I have worked out that everyone becomes their mother eventually, even the sons

Original poster

keyhole · 07/03/2008 14:38

Cam....my children should be scared...

OP posts:

Wisteria · 07/03/2008 16:40

I suppose (having read through all the posts again) that your Mum is trying to recapture her youth; you don't like it because you feel in some way that it invalidates your role as her child.
None of us know how we will approach our later years at this stage and I would hope that my children will accept the direction I choose once they have left my care and are settled with their own lives - I also really hope that they will not be judgemental either.

No doubt I will be a geriatric hippy living in a tumbledown cottage in the country with 20 dogs -

I have no doubt my children (dd1 anyway) would find this rather unpalatable (they do not exactly embrace my hippy values now ) but I would hope that they would respect my decision and if they chose to ask me to look after their offspring, would not expect me to conform to please them .

beeper · 07/03/2008 21:29

YABU - pay for childcare, or mind your child yourself.

Too many grandparents are taken for granted.

She is allowed a life.

alfiesbabe · 07/03/2008 23:13

Agree with beeper. I know you think some of the posts have been harsh, but tbh, if you are that unhappy and resentful of your mum, then why are you using her for childcare? Sounds like you're quite happy to use your mum for when it suits you, and dictate the terms.
There's a really simple alternative to this - find proper childcare and pay for it.

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