MIL wants to attend funeral but is supposed to be my childcare

[tinatsarina]

So my MIL has the kids for me next Monday while I have 3 job interviews that afternoon. she's now told me she has to attend her sister in laws, brothers funeral. My parents both work so can't cover my childcare (half-term here). Told my partner to tell his mum she can't go but he said she's entitled to and people don't owe me anything. He's now potentially taking the day off even though she had already agreed to the childcare first AIBU to be annoyed that they are prioritising this funeral over the childcare?

For anybody doing a funeral who is told you can’t have one for weeks, have a church service in church. And do the committal at the church doors. Then the funeral directors will take the coffin away and will arrange cremation at an off-peak time.

if you’re at a crematorium the body doesn’t generally go through the curtain and straight into the fire; they cremate in batches.

This way you avoid the ghastliness of a crematorium, you get to go straight to the wake, it’s all in a beautiful building, and you don’t have to wait for weeks to organise a funeral.

Wow....yes you are! My mum is my child care and I'd never even question that, me or my husband would make alternative arrangements to care for OUR children and book annual leave

YABU and pretty unkind OP. My MIL picks my DC up from school once a week and provides childcare. If she can’t - she has a holiday or another commitment - she tells us, we sort it. It’s a favour.

Your DH is taking the day off anyway, so what is the problem.

Lets hope no one thinks the same thing if your partner ever passes away suddenly. How you treat others is a reflection on yourself.

99.9% of the time the MIL might be reliable, but life has a habit of throwing up occasional unexpected events which means anyone, paid employee or not, might not be availability on a certain day. She didn't "cancel late in the day" she gave them a week's notice and plenty opportunity to organise something else. Her son tried to find alternative arrangements, her DIL said she should not attend a family funeral. In this scenario the only person being unreasonable is DIL.

If you are depending on 1 person for your childcare, paid or not, you have to be prepared that very occasionally something will crop up that means that person isn't available. The huge majority of the time they will be available, as MIL has been, which means in order to keep a good relationship you accept the .1% and make alternative arrangements without throwing a tantrum.

I'm.sure the deceased didn't die to inconvenience you OP. Unbelievable

You’re very in the wrong here it’s a funeral have a heart.

How on earth could you know that the link is 'tenuous'?! The MIL may be very close to her SIL -the partner of her husband's sister.

When my dad died I had friends who had never met him offer to come to the funeral. Because they care about me, wanted to support me at a difficult time. Similarly, people who hadn't met my dad for years wanted to come to pay their respects to a man they admired.

People go to funerals either to pay their respects to the deceased or to support the grieving relatives. Not to crash another family's grief, or whatever you said in one of your previous posts. I don't even know what you mean by that.

I can't believe the OP is so ungrateful towards her MIL. If her MIL wants to go to a funeral then she really shouldn't have to justify the reasons, especially when she's not even being paid for childcare.

YABVVVVVU

and yet i used to see my great aunt once every 5 years or so. But i went to her funeral to support my mum, her only surviving relative who used to visit her once a fortnight, rain or shine.

It is fine for OP to be disappointed. She should, as pp said, have reliable backup for sudden issues with childcare. It is not up to anyone to tell MIL what to do. It is up to MIL to decide for herself. As for telling her son to tell her she can't go? if my DIL tried that she'd definitely be getting regifted Bayliss & Harding gift sets for Christmas from here on in. That would show her!

I think the OP has to get overself and realise that HER kids are HER responsibility - funeral or not. If working causing issues be a SAHM. Simple as that. You are owed nothing by anyone. Whilst doing so look up the word empathy. That is obviously an alien concept.

Your husband is right - she doesn't owe you anything! I get it's a frustrating situation but it's a funeral, and she wants to go and pay respects, and YABU to tell your partner she can't go. How rude!

We see this all the time on here…..

OP: “am I being unreasonable?”
Mumsnet: “YES”
OP: “no I’m not!”

🙄

You are BVU!!! Theyre your children your DH will have to take time off!! This is a funeral!!! She wont have the chance again. Jesus!

I know a few people have said about the MIL letting the OP down because of the funeral.

Well even paid childcare may have an emergency 'can't cover that day' - a childminder's parent, themselves or one of their own children having an emergency hospital admission, one of their own kids coming down with chickenpox or measles, the childminder themselves getting flu or Covid and feeling like shit...or even...a funeral with a week's notice! Just because childcare is paid for doesn't mean the same scenario wouldn't happen. Sometimes we, as parents, just have to suck it up.

And yes, relying solely on parents or friends isn't a good thing. But paying for childcare means it's reliable 99% of the time. Life happens in the other 1% of cases and childminders or nannies are only human at the end of the day.

Funny how the mil must support her family, anything to support sil, but op is being literally attacked as inhuman for wanting support for can't change the date job interviews that the mil promised. Only goes one way i see, to the husbands relatives and not the dil. The vitriol to the op is quite something. I've also never thought of funerals as a gathering of anyone who might want to come but for people who are grieving and close to the deceased.

Let's not forget the mil wouldn't go to the funeral if I stopped her son working. Only her dil from getting the permanent job. So she's not actually bothered about the funeral. If she was that wouldn't be her answer. Op job isn't important apparently.

She probably doesn't want her to work because she knows she'll be more "childcare"

Have you read the OPs posts? The one where she says that her DH took tone off because the MIL wanted a trip away? Does that not show that it's been her DS that couldn't work.

So I think what you're saying is incorrect and you're cherry picking what OP says.

I will admit that if my DIL told me that I couldn't go to a funeral and insinuated that as a perfectly functioning woman that I can't go, because it was inconvenient to her, it would be the last thing I ever did to make her life easier. How dare you assume the MIL is going to a funeral to get at OP, she's going to pay respects.

You've got an equally shameful and disrespectful attitude as the OP, luckily you're both in the vast minority.

The OP could pay for a babysitter to look after her kids in this one off circumstance. It sounds like the MIL provides a lot of childcare support to OP, unpaid. Yet you're suggesting she shouldn't even be able to go to her family member's funeral. It's unbelievable.

So what? Don't be so obtuse. Things crop up suddenly in everyone's life, nobody can foresee everything that will happen (or perhaps you can).

I bet you've had to cancel plenty of commitments in the past if something unexpected cropped up. I repeat again for those hard of thinking: they're the OP and her partner's kids - they should have thought and planned for this eventuality, rather than seek to blame someone else who is probably being paid a pittance of what it would cost if professional childcare were in place.

Your DP's employer should not consider parental leave or emergency leave to be the same as sick leave when applying sickness absence procedures.

Ask to see his employer's policies on this.

Yep. Definitely this. It shouldn’t be treated as sick leave, as parental leave is a statutory right. However, the employer is entitled to refuse single days of parental leave unless it’s an emergency, as it’s intended to be taken in blocks of at least a week. And if the employee gives less than 21 days notice, the employer is entitled to refuse, or ask for it to be postponed if it affects operational requirements. So if his employer is difficult, it could be tricky.

I don’t think it’s this at all. The OP is going to interviews and MiL is offering to miss the funeral if her DS is risking his job by taking the time off to look after the children. If not, then she’ll go to the funeral. One way she gets to go to the funeral, and either way, OP gets to go to the interviews doesn’t she ?