'Dad's side of the family'...is it really a thing?

[TheolderIgetthelessIknow]

I read recently, not on Mumsnet but somewhere similar, a young woman stating categorically that she would not take on responsibility for communication (such as making arrangements, sending birthday gifts, etc.) to her husband's side of the family. I was a little shocked to see in the comments that most of the respondents wholeheartedly agreed with her, even if it meant that communication with that side of the family dwindled to nothing, assuming that many men are not that bothered about keeping in touch or even remembering birthdays, etc. I'm an older woman with a daughter and a son, both married. My daughter keeps in daily contact with me but has virtually no contact with her PIL. As a result, I see a lot of her children and know what's happening in their lives. My son, on the other hand, literally only gets in touch when he wants something -usually money- and I never hear from my DIL at all. I only see their children when I visit them (self-invited); they hardly ever visit me and my DH although I've invited them lots of times ( they're always 'busy', often with DIL's side of the family) and said that they can come whenever they want to. Birthdays, mothers/fathers days and Christmas are a bit hit and miss regarding presents and cards from them, although I always visit with cards and gifts for them.
So, my query is: am I being unreasonable to expect at least some sort of regular input from them, regarding the children at least? Is it definitely a thing that young mums now refuse to take on the burden of keeping their MIL up to date and maybe sending birthday cards or whatever? It might make me feel a bit better if I know it's just my son's laziness (not that that's any excuse) rather than antipathy from my DIL.

This. Work on your relationship with her and your grandchildren. Have a good chat with your dd too. Call out in his bs.

And to the perpetually angry poster who quoted me upthread, you didn't understand zilch from what I was saying. Meh... Don't have the energy for you sorry.. 🤷

I buy cards and gifts for my in laws, because they buy for me, and I like them and want to gave a relationship with them where everyone is comfortable. We keep in touch but I expect visits to be discussed by DH..

Not always easy, but possible.

This

A full and complete answer.

That's just good manners. I don't know what my DH has planned for the weekend, or maybe he just wants a quiet one. Once, when I told my mother I'd check with DH, she sarcastically replied, "Why? Can't you decide for yourself?" Not impressed. There are two of us living in this household them coming for a full day affects.

I always trie hard to communicate and keep in touch with my MIL and made a real effort. A few years later when I couldn't keep in contact with my own family my husband followed my example - so I am glad I set an example to him.

I send updates to my in laws on the daily of their grandchild. I also update my MIL when my husband is sick. I also treat my in laws out for meals and cook all their meals when they stay over.

My husband regularly calls his parents even before me. So I think his relationship with his parents is key, and I like this aspect of him being family oriented hence we are together.

Depends on your relationship with your son really.

Things that might help you build better relationships with your grandkids.

1. Offer to babysit and allow your son/DIL go out for dinner etc. for a break if you can.
2. Cook a nice meal and drop over when the family is sick.
3. Start a family photo album (there is an app you can share amongst family).
4. Start a family group chat on the phone
5. Throw nice Christmas lunches
6. Bake things and drop over.

Do the little things to get into the fold. Never over impose.

But it's never just about a birthday card or two, is it? It's all the other secretarial shite that women are always expected to do and men dodge, so we are now pushing back on lots of stuff. This is just the bit that's visible to the inlaws.
I hope my daughter never falls into the trap of family dogsbody. And if my son tries to dump stuff he's reponsible for on my future DIL, I'll be right in there backing her up.
OP - your DIL will love you forever if you call out your son on his shitty behaviour and make it clear to her you know its not her fault or problem.

Yep just what I was thinking . Don't any if you have " normal " relationships with your daughter/ son in laws?
My sons and daughters probably keep in touch more by phone bur their partners keep in touch and show interest too 🤷‍♀️.
As far as gifts go I have received gifts chosen by son or ddil ( as far as I'm aware they don't see it as a burden !!) .
If my son stopped calling I am sure I would still hear from dils and same from sil if I didn't hear from daughter .
I feel lucky with the family I have but surely that's more the norm than the exception . Thread after thread on here seems to be full of posters who seem to just want to say whatever it takes to disagree with OP 🤔

I call my MIL at least once a fortnight since having our children (15 years) I sent her copies of the scans, updated her on first words and 1st steps and school success. My partner is incharge of gifts, cards etc but is not great at calls.

My MIL doesn't bother contacting us at all, we recieve birthday cards and gifts but she never visits and its always upto me to arrange the visits including staying in hotels as the FIL doesn't get on well with having too many in the house!

She is a toxic person but I want my children to know both sets of grandparents and I will do all I can to ensure that they have fond memories of their grandparents even if I don't feel the same about them. I never leave my children alone with them. We see them perhaps once a year as they moved to the other end of the country as soon as my partner was old enough to be self sufficient. They also left a disabled child with learning difficulties alone under the care of social services without ever visiting! As I say they are toxic but my children will have limited and controlled positive experiences with them.

Its hard for me to keep in contact like this and it is all for the children not for the inlaws benefit. I'm sure if you spoke to them they would have a very different story! But they are alcoholic, abusive, neglectful and very selfish.

I think you have to have a good relationship with them all if you want your IL child to make the effort. I always did (and was the only one making the effort) for over a decade. My MIL was awful, treated me as invisible, so I decided to be invisible and told DH it was now on him to do all the stuff I did to maintain their contact. And why was I the thread holding them together, while being treated as so unimportant? I reminded him the first year when things were coming up and he sent something. I didn't remind him after that and he sent nothing.

I regularly am in touch with my parents. If my family in law wanted to get in touch with me, I'd reply. If they were interested in me in the slightest, we'd have a relationship. I they hadn't been abusive, I would have at least stayed a passive participant. In our case, they have the relationship they deserve with me and the relationship (or lack of) their son makes the effort with.

Sometimes it's not good for a GC to have any relationship with a toxic GP. My eldest remembers the time we were in touch with her GM and her memories are all negative and painful. Definitely good space was created for their sake.

This really isn't about whether people have "normal" relationships with their in-laws. Some do, some don't. FWIW, I absolutely bloody loved my MIL, who is sadly no longer with us.

The issue is more about people expecting the DIL to be the keeper of those relationships. She is apparently the one that is supposed to do all of the work to maintain family relationships because men are allegedly "useless" at that kind of thing. Despite apparently being competent to deal with far more complex issues in other areas of their lives.

It really isn't about whether you're happy to give your MIL a quick call to update her on the grandkids' latest endeavours, or whether you'd be happy to pick up a card for FIL when you pop to the shops. It's about not wanting to become the designated person with primary responsibility for maintaining the relationship between a grown man and his own parents. And it's about expecting men to step up in their domestic lives, and not only in the workplace, and to stop taking women's unpaid labour for granted.

If people really can't understand this that this has nothing to do with hating your MIL and everything to do with wanting a genuinely fair and equal relationship, I despair.

The toxic behaviour is not something the children will see or know about. They drink heavily but we stay in hotels and are gone before they are drunk, they constantly ask us for money which we can't afford so we don't give, they have little intrest in things that don't give them immediate satisfaction so actually the kids seeing then for short periods (5-6 hours) once a year or so they actually show an interest in the children which makes them feel loved.

I absolutely know what you mean but I'm very careful and watch them like a hawk! They have ice-cream, play games, eat cake and get to tell their stories. I never leave them alone and would leave probably never to return if there was any sign of problems. I absolutely agree with you though and I hope that your child isn't too affected by the experience.

My child is fine and remembers me standing up for her, so she felt safe.

Unfortunately, for us, it wasn't little things but outright favouritism between grandchildren and belittling/scapegoating (I suspect my DH is their scapegoat and they also had to pick one of his kids to inherit that). Maybe that's why he didn't make the effort himself?

You sound like a strong mother ❤

My position was always that I would keep MIL up to date with goings on, and she would write back weekly (didn’t have a computer but loved typing) so we heard their news often. I would remind DH to call her for birthdays etc if he didn’t remember at times.

as another poster said I didn’t want MIL left out of knowing what was happening in her grandies lives. I thought We got on very well and I just thought it’s a polite way to conduct myself as mum to her grandchildren. We went and stayed a few times without DH tagging along.

However not long before she passed away, I received a horrible letter outlining something upsetting she claimed I had done to her daughter from afar.

I was shocked so called her immediately. I asked her if she had seen the particular thing I was accused of creating, she hadn’t but took her daughter’s word for it.

I said why would you think I would do such a thing and she replied well why would (her daughter’s name) lie…? I was so upset I couldn’t talk through the tears and hung up on her. Damage done and that was it for me.

to my way of thinking, I had invested in my relationship with her and thought we had something special that was mutual. DIL’s often know they are not ‘family’ but there is an expectation of us.

I don’t think we feel that our in laws will ever have our back if push comes to shove. mine didn’t and she went to her grave early the following year. That was around 20 years now and it still hurts.

You may think they won't be party to it, but they can pick up on things. My DD screamed every time she was near my MIL when she was tiny because of how she behaved towards my DH on the second visit he made to them. They remember vibes. It was months before she'd go to her.

Also, if it's been 15 years since you became a mother, your DC are getting to a much more independent point. At 15 I was visiting my grandparents on my own. Under my own steam, I travelled to them myself by 17. If you really have only created positive experiences they will want to see them and you won't be controlling the experience anymore.

Be careful. You're never in control of toxic people.

I don’t think many of us do believe that our men are “absolutely useless at this sort of this”.

They aren’t useless at it. They make up the majority of our surgeons, CEOs, political leaders etc . . . They certainly have the wits, intelligence and foresight to set reminders in their phones to buy presents and arrange family meet-ups. They just don’t do it. That’s a choice.

I think it’s unfortunately a very female thing to feel responsible for preventing things from going wrong in situations where others should (and easily could) have done so themselves. This tends to land us with extra duties that are often unseen/unappreciated.

I personally see no reason for this inequality between the genders to exist and want this to change. So I am quietly declining to make it my responsibility to pick up the slack.

After all, it is not me that is deliberately letting relationships suffer. It is my husband. I am simply not making it my responsibility to paper over his cracks.

If your husband is bothered about the relationship, he'll make the effort in. It's not our job as wives to make them be bothered about all their relationships. There could be reasons they don't want to put the effort in, and by us "picking up the slack" what were actually doing is forcing a relationship they don't want/need.

Their relationships with people are entirely upto them.

Due to their extreme location there is no way for the children to visit them without driving and even when they can drive its a 9+ hour drive from home. They lived
4 miles away from us in the same county before abandoning their children at the earliest legal point. So I can be sure that the kids are very unlikely to visit them under their own steam.

The time they spend together is positive enough and they have memories of grandparents but not exactly something that they will be wanting to do on their own steam!

They never phone or write and the grandparents haven't replied to the few text messages they have been sent by the children thanking for gifts etc. I'm absolutely sure there will be no contact as soon as they can stay home if we visit and if im honest without the kids being there we will have no reason to visit.

Then it sounds like a lot of effort just have "memories of grandparents". My DH doesn't remember his grandparents on his dad's side because they died when he was tiny. But he knows they were nice. He vaguely remembers the ones from his mum's side but knows, despite everything being "positive" when he was there, that they were not nice to his mother and he often wonders why his mum would take them to witness that. He's the driving force behind not letting DD be in the toxic environment that happens when his mum goes off on one for that very reason. He's also told his dad that we only go over for him, because otherwise we'd keep her at arms length.

He remembers that people were tense. He remembers his parents being on edge. He remembers that the "positive" felt forced.

Blood doesn't mean they automatically need to be in your kids lives. Sometimes the right thing for kids is to not be around certain family members. Not be taught "these people abandoned your dad aged 18 but we have to travel 9 hours to let them see you".

I went through a phase of seeing MIL more than my DH saw her because I would take the kids to see her when he was at work.

I come from a big family where in laws are included on family holidays etc, I grew up seeing this so it would he important to me to have a good relationship with my MIL and I'm lucky because she's a diamond.

My sisters DH makes hardly any effort with his mother, though my sister keeps that relationship going and she takes her MIL out shopping weekly, sorts out birthdays etc. They have a good relationship and her MIL did a lot of child care when their children were small so I think she's probably she feels she owed her a lot too. Though my sister has a heart of gold so she'd do it anyway.

I think it's just personalities and their own family backgrounds. We value family and nurture those relationships and get the same back so it's definitely a two way street.

Exactly, every word of this!!

I like my in laws. I have no problem exchanging messages and getting the children to make her a birthday card. But if we have a month where me and DH are both exhausted and both drop the ball on communicating with our respective parents, I’d be pretty unimpressed to get complaints from my mum and his mum, as if it’s all ultimately my responsibility.

Does anyone else feel that all the cards / presents and flowers are a bit of a faff and a waste of time for adults?

Not because they don't care about the adults but because the cards end up in the recycling and the flowers die and the presents are things you could buy yourself or take up space or end up at the charity shop.

I feel like this. Maybe men feel the same way. When I get this stuff it makes me slightly stressed as I realise I ought to respond in kind.

I do agree though that extended family relationships are very important. Mainly in terms of meeting up and get together and phone calls though. But yes best if each person takes the primary responsibility for their own family.

This. 👏