What happens when u don’t have a “village” to raise children

[WhatsMyUsername89]

I appreciate I’m going to sound like a moany old witch, but I just need an area to vent.

we have DD - 2yo, both sets of grandparents live 8-10 min drive away.

I work 3 days a week, however have compressed 4 days worth of work into these hours. So work 11hr days 8:30-7:30.

the other 2 days in the week I have DD!

Last week DD had Hand Foot & Mouth so I had to take days off work, I agreed this with DH because I earn considerably less the financial hit of me taking time off is less than if he did.

I’ve been booked into having a very painful wisdom tooth removed today (last minute appointment) but I have to work. I had so much time off last week I feel cheeky saying I need MORE time off for this.
But I can’t change it to the days I don’t work???? Because I can’t take my 2 year old.

we have no help from family at all, despite both sets of grandparents (neither work) always saying “we will help out always” but funnily when we ask they always have a reason why they can’t.

DH works long hours & is the main earner, we have found with the way things are going in terms of cost of living we can’t afford him taking time off.

so I just feel so stuck, I hear of friends saying “oh my mum/dad/sibling had my child so I can get nails done” and I feel so envious, I can’t even get any support for getting to a doctors/dentist appointment. (I’m very happy for my friends that they are surrounded by helpful - but I feel jealous)

How on earth do you get anything done when you have NO help.

also even if I had this bloody tooth out I’m going to be in pain for days while looking after a toddler and trying to work.

i feel so fed up, but also feel like such a little cow moaning about something that is SUCH a blessing. I’m blessed to have a job, have a beautiful Daughter, a loving husband & access to healthcare.

About I’m frustrated :(

Yes that's my experience too. My friend is a partner in a big law firm. Their nanny left but friend's seniority means she can run her own diary and work around the childcare they've been able to cobble together in the interim.

I totally relate and empathise OP. 11 years we've been doing everything on our own. Not a minute's assistance from any of the grandparents, all of whom are fully capable. It's left us as total shells of ourselves. I really don't know how to carry on.

@BarelyCoping123 sorry about your struggles.

There was the point made earlier in the thread that there are often genuine reasons why seemingly able grandparents don't help out with their grandkids , a lot of it because grandkids are much more likely now to be badly disciplined which is an absolute nightmare for others to take on, especially when you're older. Plus there can be bad dynamics with the parents of the child who like to forget about keeping in touch regularly and caring for the grandparents until they need them for something.

I can see you previously posted that one of your kids has always had an explosive temper. I don't think you can blame grandparents at all in such circumstances for not wanting to take that sort of childcare on.

Assuming no SEN/autistic/trauma needs, these sorts of problems are sorted out by proper discipline and if you choose not to discipline your child properly (which is your choice as a parent) it isn't fair to expect other people to put up with such violent behaviour. They also know that if they disciplined their grandchild in a way you didnt approve of, it will bring on the ire of you and your husband on them so I can completely understand them staying out of it and not commenting on it, in order to preserve their relationship with both of you.

@CottonC lol you are a sad nasty piece of work, who knows absolutely nothing about anything, but who clearly likes to kick people when they're already down. You represent the absolute worst of Mumsnet, and society 👍

@BingoMarieHeeler yes you should always be calm when you can but young children are not adults - until they get to a certain age, they learn mainly by association. They need to learn that doing good things=praise/reward, doing bad things = punishment. Their brain development is not at a stage to truly understand and act on adult monologues of 'this is why you don't do this etc etc'

That's why they instead continually do the wrong thing despite the parent explaining a million times 'don't do that', 'don't touch it' etc

When the child is older is when you do all the 'explaining/rationale' talk. A toddler/very young child doesn't get all that and they're not designed to. Older children and teens still need some form of punishment for sufficiently bad behaviour (as well as obviously praise, encouragement, active listening to their needs etc). Failing to discipline children is simply bad parenting and failing your child (and failing the society your child will be unleashed onto).

If you don't spend their early years establishing correct associations, children become much harder to discipline and certain behavioural patterns have become reinforced, including into teenage and adulthood. So much of early years influences adulthood. It's a large part of the reason why we're seeing so much bad, entitled and violent behaviour in children, teens and adults.

@BarelyCoping123 lol there's no kicking of you in my post at all, I acknowledged your stuggles and even said in my post that it's the choice of any parent whether they discipline their child or not. Ironically your over the top reaction is very telling and exactly proves my point on why grandparents in such scenarios don't bother to raise the real reasons why they dont help out, but just have to stay out of it.

Grandparents normally love helping out in some way with their grandkids. Yes there are certainly uncaring grandparents out there but it's extremely unlikely that all four of both sets of grandparents (assuming no other barriers to them helping) would happen to be toxic and uncaring, which therefore points to the reason being much more likely to do with the parents themselves and/or the kids.

It's unfair to criticise an older person for not wanting to look after a violent child. I'm not an older person but if I wasn't the parent, even I wouldn't be able to handle that sort of extreme behaviour, no matter how much I loved the child. I'm simply explaining what the perspective could be of the grandparents you're criticising. Part of self awareness is thinking about other people's perspectives i.e. in this case the grandparents, not just your own perspective.

@CottonC you throw around false accusations when you know nothing about anything. So many of your accusations are the exact opposite of reality. Talk about lacking self-awareness - please go and self-reflect about why you need to make up lies to try to make other people feel bad 🤷🏻‍♀️

Grandparents normally love helping out? You should relay that info to the "I've done my bit" lot. I can quite easily imagine someone could be unlucky enough to have both sets of Grandparents like that.
And Grandparents moaning about lack of discipline, ime they actually often just mean "they're not parenting exactly as I think they should".

That is precisely the situation we find ourselves in.

Our DS is well behaved and relatively low maintenance for a toddler.

Both sets of GP say he’s the best behaved of all their GC when they were the same age and by far the easiest to deal with. However he is also nearly 15 years younger than the next youngest GC and both sets of GP make it abundantly clear that they feel they’ve done their bit with previous GC and can’t or won’t go through it all again.

I suspect they also believe that as we are older parents we are also more able to cope without their support in part due to our financial circumstances. They expect us to pay tens of thousands in nursery fees yet provided free FT childcare for all their other GC.

We are now left in a situation whereby they have never so much as cooked me a meal since my DS was born and have never done a minute of childcare between them.

At the same time they still provide support for what are now adult GC. This includes buying them cars, funding their uni, and in one case one of the GC actually lives with them.

When we point out the disparity they just shrug and say that they are too old to start the same journey with our GC.

We’re used to it now but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t strained family relationships not just with our parents but also our siblings.

The frustrating part is that we don’t want or need the sort of financial support our siblings and their DC received and still receive but an odd bit of childcare every now and then to allow us to deal with stuff would be nice. If you’ve ever sat in a solicitors office trying to get a will drafted with the additional “help” of an inquisitive 2 year old you’ll understand my frustration!

Personally I'm not bothered about the childcare, we've sorted out outsourcing that years ago, I just can't understand why they don't want to be involved at all. Mine are the only grandkids as well, I'm awaiting the day golden brother has kids and they're suddenly grandparents of the century.
My mum got quite upset over Christmas when my oldest, who used to worship her, wasn't interested. Well, yeah, that's what happens if you think a birthday card and a couple of 2 hour long visits is a relationship. But it's their loss.
We focus our energy elsewhere now, like MIL, who despite being thousands of miles away actually makes an effort, and is receptive of our efforts to be involved.

@Butterdishy I think the issue is that they never expected to have another GC.

They structured their entire lives both logistically and financially around their other GC and felt they didn’t have capacity to do any more for our DS.

They excuse it by saying they’re older now and that we are far more established in life than our siblings were when they had children therefore we need no support.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they need help and care. I’m not sure DH and I will be at the front of the queue if I’m honest. No doubt that will cause more strife with our siblings who are bound to claim everything should be equal when that time comes.

I've never had any help either. But the benefit of that is no interference either!

Have you got any friends from toddler group who could help out sometimes? I made a friend this way and we help each other sometimes. I mostly had to juggle things with their dad. It sucked being ill with babies and toddlers. I'll never forget the birthday when myself and my toddler had a sickness bug so my day was spent either mopping up sick or throwing up myself!

Mine both have autism so I couldn't leave them with babysitters. So if I really needed someone to look after them their dad would have to step up.

Good luck

I'm in the same boat as you. No help from family, both sides at all. Tried to share baby sitting with new mummy friends, but they just wanted non reciprocal help! I've been through the hard bit, as one child is now old enough to baby sit the other for a very short length of time. I used to be very jealous of seeing the school kids get collected by nanny/grandad. Life does feel hard without any support. Obviously you can't ask your husband to keep taking time off work to help, because his job comes first (unless it's an emergency).