To just want to go home after work?

[ManukaNourished]

I would genuinely like some outside perspectives here as I am not sure who - if anyone - is BU.

I am a single parent to one child and work full time 9.30 to 5.30. DS is 8 and attends After School Club until 6pm three days a week. The other two days my DP collect him straight from school and look after him.

Due to my commute I cannot collect him from After School Club on time, so my DP pick him up and take him back to their house.

So he is at his grandparent's house every day after school and I am very grateful for their help and support and active involvement in his life. I arrive at their house at about 6.30pm to collect him.

My DM has made it very clear that she expects me to stay and socialise with them. She gets upset and offended if I only stay for long enough to say Hi etc, then collect DS and go.

So I usually stay for at least half an hour, usually an hour or longer. It is not unusual for DS and I to get home after 8pm.

Sometimes I really want to just get straight home and be at home and relax, but I recognise DPs are massively helping me out with DS. I don't want to upset DM and have her think I am taking them for granted and just using them for childcare.

One day last week I was at their house after work and felt particularly frazzled and, thinking I was alone, I whined aloud to myself "I just want to gooooo hoooome". My DM overheard me 😳

Now she is really angry and upset with me. Is she reasonable to feel like this or am I reasonable to sometimes want to just quickly scoop up DS and leave without feeling like I am being rude?

@OlderandwiserMaybe I pick DS up from theirs every weeknight. Two days they have him from 3pm and three days they have him from 6pm.

Reading what I have written here I am starting to feel ashamed of being so entitled when I am so lucky!

Does it make any difference that DP relocated when they retired and asked me to move here too so as not to miss out on their grandson, and they promised to help me with childcare?

I stay and be sociable probably 80% of the time. I think I am becoming quite fatigued though, so it's getting to be more of an issue for me. I hate it that my DM gets so angry and upset with me for having different needs to hers.

@OlderandwiserMaybe sorry crosspost

Could your DP go to your house with your son once a week. At least you are home and in your comfies then?

I'd try and find a compromise. I can understand they don't want to feel like they're just childminders where they look after the kids all day but don't deserve 30 mins of your time, but it's annoying getting home at 8pm all the time - I speak from experience as often do 10-12 hour days and then go to the gym (which I really don't feel like doing but keeps me from getting fat lol).

Yes I think I'm going to ask my employer to reduce my hours to maybe 30 or 32 per week so I can do that. They've been amazingly good and understanding so far.

I know my DM will get upset and see it as me rejecting her help though. I will have to have a good talk with her, as many of you have helpfully said.

I understand how you feel - I’m in a very similar situation. My parents have DS before and after school everyday, which is their choice (mum got very upset at the suggestion I used paid childcare). I do go in and socialise a couple of nights a week but mostly I just want to get home! I’ve been at work all day, I’m tired and I need to decompress. I don’t think my mum gets it. She seems annoyed when I try to just grab DS and leave. I do love spending time with my Mum but I’d much rather see her at the weekend for a proper catch up when I’m not exhausted from work.

@Tomselleckhaskindeyes No they won't do that. I live in a rubbish little top floor flat on a main road and they have a lovely big house and garden, and naturally they would rather be comfortable at home.

I think they are being unreasonable tbh IF you make a good effort to spend time with them at other times, so you're not just using them for childcare. As you've said you do this at least every other weekend or so I think that's absolutely fair enough.

If they're not happy to do the childcare, which would be completely fair enough, they should tell you that and you can make other arrangements. They should surely understand you must be so tired at 6.30pm after a full day of work and commute and want to get your child home, that's not unreasonable at all.

For context my DM cared for DC1 as a baby for about two years one day a week, and now since they've started school she has them one morning for half an hour before school as well as 2 days after school for about 3hrs. She doesn't expect me or DH whoever is doing pick up to stay there. In fact I think shes actually just quite glad to see the back of us all for some peace as she is also tired by then and wants to have her dinner and to wind down.

We have always seen a lot of her outside of the childcare arrangements though of course which is super important. Like you this is at least every other weekend but in reality it's often a lot more than that because I work PT and I have our youngest off in the week a bit so often go round with them then too etc.

Could you perhaps compromise and say to your parents, 'sorry mum can't stop now but let's have lunch together this weekend?'

Lol.

It's a bit different if they're already going to be at home, and they probs enjoy seeing the grandkids. Nobody wants to be walking in the door a couple of hours before bed and still needing to shower/eat etc.

@TuesdayWhistler you sound nice.

My DP are hardly "some people" and I "put myself out for them" rather a lot, actually.

Aww thanks.

Shouldn't you be working? It's 12.58 on a Friday.

Maybe you could ask employer to reduce your work hours by however long you spend on MN during work hours.

I’m just a few years I expect your ds will be able to walk or cycle home from school and let himself in (my dd quit after school club in Y6).

In the meantime you deserve to be able to go home after work if you want. My mum would have understood, your dm sounds like hard work.

Id say to dm that you are struggling a bit to do everything- get laundry done, housework, admin, showering and cooking etc. hopefully she will understand.

Set the habits of communication now… when they are old they’ll have you round for four hours changing a light bulb for them then staying “for a quick cuppa” (check out the Elderly Parents forum).

I think for an 8 year old, not getting home until 8pm most school nights is probably too late. It's not just about you (or your mum), it's also about your child, who has spent all day in school, then ASC, then to grandparents and then probably also wants to go home. Kids need time to decompress and it's hard to do that in someone else's house.

FWIW, my grandparents used to pick me up from school and have me until 6pm or so every day. My mum might chat for 10 minutes, but most days we went home. I think you just need to be honest and say you're tired and need to get home and get life sorted, sit down, start getting ready for bed and not stay around and socialise every night. Make plans to stay for the evening one night a week and actually enjoy it together instead of being in a rush here and there.

I am taking annual leave this week, I booked it because it meant taking only 4 days off because of the bank holiday. But I am sure my employer thanks you for your concern 🙂

I think your mother is really out of order here. You are coming home after a full days work, still need to get ds home and sorted and not fart around with chit chat. If it was mine, my dm would have given my ds a proper dinner and have dinner packed for me to pick up, would make sure ds has his bath and ready to go home. Anyway, I guess she feels you owe her somehow. Is there any other arrangement you could make with ds?

You’re on MN yourself so unless you don’t work then perhaps your employer should do the same.

And even people who work are allowed a lunch break you know.

I completely understand where you are coming from and would feel the exact same way as you.

But they are doing you a massive favour and there is absolutely no expectation for them to do so, so you sort of have to suck it up if you want it to continue.

Its likely that a big part of why your DM is so happy to have him, is because she gets lonely and enjoys your company at the end of the day.
If you just pick him up and go then she may feel like nothing more than a free babysitter.

I would say you are trying to get DS bathed and settled earlier as he’s not sleeping well.
Perhaps chat about it in conversation and then prepare her beforehand that on the days you pick him up later, you will leave straight away.

Then after a couple of months you can then say you have online training on one of the days and need to be home by X time.

Hopefully it will then become a routine where you stay for a while on 1 or 2 days but then leave earlier on the other days.

(Obviously if you can condense your hours or sort something with your employer then that would be even better!)

YANBU and your parents are out of order expecting you to stay on for an hour or two every night after a long day at work and a commute. That would crack me up having to make small talk 5 days a week after a long day at work, I'd suggest you tell your parents that you will drop in one night and stay for dinner but the other nights you have to go home so can't come in. The current arrangement would drive me insane - you have to see them every single day of the working week and then also spend a weekend day with them? When do you and your DC get some time to yourselves?

It wasn't passive aggressive. OP thought she was having a moan to herself.

I don't blame you for wanting to go home, it's exhausting but can also see from your DP point of view. Does she cook you dinner?

I would speak to mum and just explain you are finding all the rushing around exhausting and sorry if she took that comment the wrong way and it wasn't aimed at not enjoying her company etc.

I'd then suggest that one day in the week you stay later and enjoy a nice family meal together and the rest you'd like to get home so you and DC can start getting earlier nights as it's all catching up with you both. Hopefully she can find reason in that.

@trampoline123 DPs often offer me dinner and I probably eat with them about once a week or less.

I've found that if I have dinner there I get home even later, because usually cooking starts after my arrival and then I feel obliged to help clear up afterwards, otherwise it feels as if I am expecting them to be my housekeepers as well as my childminders!