to wonder if all these parents who expect family support have given family support

[lesserspotted]

I'm always amazed at the people on here who add " we don't have any family support" to their posts, as if "family support" is an expectation, and you are hard done by if you don't get it. It seems like people expect their relatives to come and do work for them, child care, housework, DIY, etc.

Surely relatives have their own lives, and their own work? I don't know how people are expected to find hours of free time suddenly just because someone they are related to has a baby.

"Family support" is not something I have ever witnessed or experienced in my own life, as a child or a parent, or among friends.

I wonder if the people who are upset they don't have any have actually given "family support" themselves when relatives have had children

We got masses of support
TBF I was only part time and we paid for childcare
But both sides babysat any time we wanted to go out ,in school holidays etc
My MIL did all my ironing and FIL did the gardening
I will try and do what I can for my DC if they have DC

I think offering whatever support you can should be the norm. This might mean practical help, if physically able to do this, or emotional help; someone to turn to in a crisis.

Most families I know work like this.

However, in my own family, my mum had no help, and was a full time working mother of 4, at a time when it really did entirely fall on the woman regarding child & domestic duties. Her own mother didn't live close by but even still, would barely help (she stayed with us when my mother had the youngest, a very premature baby & she was very ill); she waited to hear that the baby was born & then drove off leaving us 3 there alone before my father came home from the hospital.

I really missed that support when my DC were little - my mum was still working, then by retirement didn't feel like coming up to where I lived. It was ok as I was used to it.

But I see lots of her friends flying around the country delighted to help, so plenty do.

I'm a single parent & she has helped me out hugely recently financially - it was the only way through a horrendous divorce.

But there hasn't been a crumb of emotional support, not a kind word. It's been so hard. She has her own issues but for me, that 'shoulder to cry on' would mean the world.

I look at my DC, and wonder what I'll truly be like? I hope that I will always do what I can & be clear & honest when I can't, to try to avoid those awkward dynamics.

I see lots of families locally who have this easy 'pop in' type relationship, ad hoc help with kids & it's lovely on both sides, I think.

YANBU and not sure why people are saying no one in their family has children as if that's the only time someone could expect support or saying they will look after their grandchildren if their children have children rather than discussing the help they give family members who help them.

Eg I am childfree and for years I looked after my sister children as she worked shifts and I am freelance and work from home. One day she said she'd be a couple of hours late picking her kids up from my house as she had to go to Tesco. My car was at the garage and I asked her to pick me up bread, milk and sugar. She said she wouldn't have time to do all my shopping as well as hers. I messaged her that night and told her I didn't have time to take care of all my responsibilities as well as hers and could no longer provide free babysitting six days a week across three shift patterns as I had been doing for 9 years for 4 children.

When I read the title I thought it would be about elderly parents demanding support.

My mother is extremely needy and expects to receive a high level of support from me. There are frequent dramatics about how other daughters help their mothers every day and she is unlucky with me as I only see her 2 or 3 days a week. Interestingly, she never provided any help to her own parents in their old age and she didn't help me when my children were young.

@Wzn I agree it’s a shame people who want help with childcare are often reluctant to give that help or any other help.

just out of interest what was your sisters reply ? Did you really stop babysitting?

I think YABU. Often people are explaining they don’t have family support in order to head off comments resolving their “issues” that say “can’t you get help from family?”

Not everyone has family support, but why do you suggest this is somehow their own fault?

If their parents are deceased, live 300 miles away, have disabilities, other issues that prevent them from being able to support, that’s just how it is for them.

Most people I know whose parents/siblings are healthy and local do what they can to support each other. It is usually appreciated but I wouldn’t say it’s expected.

It sounds like you have a specific problem with someone. Perhaps you should explain what that is and posters can advise?

I did a lot of looking after my nieces and nephews when they were kids and have a great relationship with all of them now they are in the 20s
You reap what you see

But remember, for many people moving away for jobs is the norm?

I have to go back 4 or 6 generations (mum's side/dad's side) to get to people who stayed within the same area as their parents to raise children. Many people have always had to move to where there's work. My family has generations of experience of grandparents being hundreds of miles away from grandchildren (or even in different countries). That's not unusual.

"Family support" is not something I have ever witnessed or experienced in my own life, as a child or a parent, or among friends

Really? Really really? You must have an incredibly unusual - and likely entirely white and well-off - group of friends. Family support of one kind or another is the norm in most of the world.

I think the real question is also about the support that the grandparents (or other relatives) have received themselves.

My parents come from a culture where they were expected to do all the care for an older generation, not vice versa, and it would be even more unfair than usual to expect grandparents to do a lot of childcare when they never got it themselves. They have intentionally saved a lot for care and organized their housing as they don't want me to be physically responsible for caring for them if/when the time comes as my mum had to for her relatives, but as the only girl I do expect to be sorting a lot of it.

However my in-laws had huge amounts of help from their parents growing up - entire school holidays spent at grandparents' houses, and you barely see a picture of the kids without a relative somewhere in the background - yet despite being fairly young and in good health, they've never even looked after the kids for an hour while they watched TV, and that does feel unfair.

Yes I stopped babysitting! She called me a selfish bitch because she would lose her job. I ignored her. She 'told on me' to everyone and was told she was an idiot basically. She hasn't spoken to me for 7 years, doesn't come to family events if I go, ignores any conversations where I am mentioned and basically acts as if I don't exist. Which is fine by me, it's better not to exist than to exist solely to be used.

Ah I add this to my posts sometimes and I don't mean 'somebody should help me', it's just short hand for 'they're dead so can't'
I'm also not in a position to offer support to anyone else unless for now and then. Work FT and barely keep my own head above water !

This

I find this a very racist, snobby and inaccurate response

Another for this. I thought this was sort of the point of family...

Sheesh! Her follow up actions have proven further that she was a user who only wanted a one sided relationship with you, so once you weren’t of any “use” to her she showed her true feelings!

That’s a shame but well done for putting your foot down. I’d have done the same!

We had a relative announce that it would be lovely to share babysitting with us after the birth of their first born.

Our oldest was by then 16yo and youngest nearly 10, so we didn't need a babysitter any more... And they had shown no interests or offered any support whatsoever in the previous 16 years.
I think dh may have laughed and pointed this out.

When I have written about not having family support in the context of childcare, it's not been in a negative way, just factual. I didn't expect support in that way, they both worked full time & I didn't expect them to spend their free time looking after my children. On the odd occasion they have. And they have always supported me emotionally & in any way they physically can.

I like to think when I become a grandparent I'll be able to offer more physical support, but that all depends when they have their children. If they have them young like I did, then there's a big chance I'll still be working myself.

I always think it’s weirder that it’s announced as if everyone else has family support, in the same way people announce we got no help from our family to buy. I only know one person who got help from family to buy, and I know very few people who have parents capable of helping out with young children!

My own GPs died either before I was born, or when I was a toddler so my parents had no family support. I remember having a weekend with my uncle and auntie maybe 3 or 4 times.

My mum was involved when my DC were born and wanted to help out but she was unwell with cancer and died when the eldest was 4.
PIL had been very involved with SILs family and lived very locally to them. They told me the novelty had worn off when my first DC was born, although they had them overnight maybe 3 or 4 times (ages 0-13)
Hopefully if my DC have children I'll be in a position to help (if they want it)

I gave a lot of support for my siblings in childcare back when they thought I was going to be the single childless aunt who would leave their children some money. I also supported my DP extensively. When I had a child none of them returned the favour

Is the census racist and snobby? Because that data confirms that:

1. It's unusual to know not one person providing significant family support, when over 10% of the age 5+ population is providing unpaid care - and on top of that, 1 in 5 children receive 'informal childcare' from a relative or family friend
2. Unpaid / familial carers are far less likely than the general population to be white, and to be well off.
3. Most of the world is an even more exaggerated version of this. There is a ton of writing on this, if you don't trust me, or know enough people from other places and backgrounds, just check out the International Labor Organization.

This gets exhausting - there is a huge amount of straightforward racism and class prejudice on MN, which makes it more ironic that it tends to be called out most by people arguing that white people (and often privileged people) are the victims.

In this case, I was not making any statement about what was better, nor who was better. Did you assume my in-laws are white? They are not. Family care can be lovely but has its own challenges, and cultural expectations are massively onerous and often deeply unfair and sexist. However it's also the norm, outside very small and well-off parts of the world and of society.

Does family support only run one way? How many of you help your parents out?

We had no help with our DCs as one set of parents lived too far away, and the others, while a tad nearer, weren't interested.
I love helping my adult DDs out. Having the grandkids when needed, just being able to leap into action and help out if they have a problem. I like to feel useful.

But lovely though they are, any request that they might help me with something when they have time (I'm widowed and live alone, and some minor jobs around the house need two people) though met with ' sure, no problem!' are never followed through.
I know they're busy, but still...it saddens me sometimes.

I’m more interest to know if these people who want / expect ’family support’, are also willing to give and/or have given these ’family support’ to others?

Often it’s very one way street….

@saraclara You’re right that family support should be mutual, but I know many families IRL where it isn’t. I won’t get started with examples, some make me quite angry, tbh.

""Family support" is not something I have ever witnessed or experienced in my own life, as a child or a parent, or among friends."

Well that's incredibly sad. I appreciate some people just don't have anyone, but for you not to have seen such support amongst anyone you know is very depressing. Raising a family, and frankly just getting through life, is incredibly hard to do alone. I would have hoped that it's still normal for families to support each other, very sad if that's becoming no longer the case.