To expect my mum to look after her only grandchild on her own for 2 hours a week?

[Welshlady89]

My mother is 75. She is relatively fit and healthy and leads an active lifestyle.

I am 35 and have one child. She will be an only child for various reasons, including health reasons (I have a heart condition and also had bad PPD).

My child is 1. She is the only child in the entire family as both my brother and my DH’s sister aren’t going to have children.

I work freelance. One morning we have outside help with my child, one morning MIL comes down to help, and one morning my mum helps.

My mum also sees my daughter everyday for an hour or so - she comes to have lunch with me in my house on most days.

Whenever she has my daughter for the morning I can guarantee she will be difficult with me when I pick her up. She is tetchy, snappy and talks about how difficult it was, how tired she is and she is almost resentful at me. She adores my daughter, and I appreciate that she is getting older, but 2 hours isn’t that long considering it’s only once a week.

Each time I go and pick my daughter up, I make a big effort to be chirpy and in a good mood. Today, despite very little sleep for 4 nights, I tried my hardest to not put a foot wrong. Yet still I was met with complaints. I suggested I had lunch alone, to give her a break from my daughter as I could see she was in a bad mood and I wanted to avoid a big argument.

It didn’t work and she became even more agitated and then sent me a barrage of 20 messages about how she wouldn’t look after my daughter again and how disrespectful I was etc etc.

I don’t know what to do. AIBU? Should I send my daughter to nursery instead for the morning my mum has her? I can’t stand the feeling of resentment much longer. When I try to talk to her, she just snaps and denies being in the wrong.

I would appreciate your advice.

You shouldn't expect anyone to do anything, especially if they are 75.

75 is old. 2 year olds are hard work. Respect what your DM is telling you.

I hear you. It's hardly a choice is it. So many ridiculous comments on this thread!

It's hard to lose your mum so young x

That's not what she said. Read all her posts.

I am actually shocked that people are telling OP to 'respect what your mum is saying' when all she's doing is being horrible?

She has every right to stop the childcare arrangement whenever she chooses, however she has insisted on having OP's child and then continually made an issue of it.

In my eyes, grandmother is in the wrong here. She should be speaking to OP, telling her it's too much, apologising on insisting on this arrangement in the first place seeing that its dissolution has now left OP in the lurch and trying to find new childcare, and - if she wanted to be generous - giving OP a couple of weeks to find an alternative.

I can't see how OP is in the wrong? She's done what her mother wanted and insisted on, and got nothing but grief for it.

But this woman isn't saying it.

Instead, she's snapping at the OP and sending multiple angry texts. The OP is in the position of playing "Guess What's Wrong".

Yabu. Just take pps advice, get paid childcare.
I'm not having a go, it's obviously not working.

I don't think you're being unreasonable in thinking that an able bodied woman who is in control of her faculties should be able to look after a waddler for a couple of hours. That said, your mum is clearly finding it far too much for her so she is also not being unreasonable to be tetchy and cross after the time.

I would try to find a suitable nursery for your DD and revert back to your mum being Granny and only available for short visits or activities where she isn't the sole carer of your daughter.

I would also make a mental note that if, after I made that adjustment, my mother was still tetchy and cross, that I would significantly reduce the visits to her as it wouldn't be good for my mental health after a day at work.

Why is it "awful"? The woman is 75, and it's too much. She didn't know it would be too much until she tried it. It's not "awful" at all!!

You'd have got totally different responses if your title said:

To be hurt that my mum insists on looking after her grandchild for 2 hours a week but then holds it against me

And if your post mentioned from the get go that your Mum offers this but then is resentful. Literally 98% of posters would have agreed with you. But people reading the title and the first post it does sound very entitled.

People can read "all the posts"? I see this a lot and wonder if posters can't see all the posts?

It seems like a lot of posters don't see or read the ops posts? It could be that they don't hence the repeated replies when the Op has already explained her position. It must be very frustrating for the Op and not just on this thread.

Problem is a lot of people come on and see a post and respond to the initial opening post rather than reading all the updates first.

Lots of posters do not seem to understand that this happens. A parent/ IL will offer to help. Then be upset about helping, but when you offer to find alternative childcare be angry/ upset about it.

It's not that you are being unreasonable, or she is. It is that it does not work at the moment.

I also think that if your mother offered this and also by way of her offering suggested you move home to be closer to her, she really could be doing more to look after her grandchild but as someone else up thread suggested, the offer is one thing, the cold reality of it all is something else entirely.

I would have a conversation with her and tell her that you're looking to find a nursery for DD and it will start out as 1 day (the day that your mother has her) but you will be looking to increase that over time to 3/4/5 days a week as DD gets older so that it will prepare her for when she starts primary school.

Last thing I'll say is if your mother suggested that you move closer to where she lives, could that have been done with an ulterior motive for her as she is getting older? That you might be the one looking after her (in time)???

OP, you may not have meant to come across that way, but even your title came across as entitled. Perhaps using words like "expect" is making you come across in a way you don't mean to. I'm certainly not of the normal MN thinking that no grandparents should help with anything ever and to think that they should is entitled, I actually think family helping out is normal and live in a country where it is very much the norm. However, something isn't working here and it's probably best if you do make alternative arrangements. It's nice to not have to pay for childcare and to rely on family for it, but if it's going to cause resentment or problems between you and your mum, it isn't worth it.

75 doesn't mean an old person with a stick, no, but it is a stage in life where things can become a bit much, even if you want to do them. My mum is in her early 60's, very fit, looks 10 years younger, but I have noticed a change in her even at that age. She's more anxious and doesn't deal with stress as well. This is a woman who was working in an extremely demanding corporate job. People do change as they get older and your mum isn't the same person as she was 20 or even 10 years ago.

A lot of interest in my lunches with my mum.

We have a close relationship and even before having my child, we did this.

She often picks stuff up for lunch, or I do. When she comes over, I often prepare the lunch and she plays with my daughter.

It is not because she’s lonely, or doesn’t have a partner (my dad) but because we get on well.

That’s why it’s upsetting that she behaves like this after having my daughter.

For those of you who haven’t read my updates, my mum insisted on helping me one morning a week (2 hours).

Ultimately OP’s mum needs to use her words and communicate clearly and politely that she has found it too difficult. She loves her grandchild but cannot commit to doing a regular babysitting slot every week. All she has to do is communicate clearly instead of being irritable and passive aggressive.

The OP can then move on, without resentment and find an alternative solution.

Op. You seem very close and have great contact. Have you asked why she is so resentful about looking after your child for 2 hours?

That would really get on my nerves, that she’d insisted on having the time with her grandchild but is then unpleasant towards you regarding it.

I’d veto it personally, life is too short for unnecessary battles like that. Whatever your mothers problem is, it can remain her own, not yours.

My parents were able grandparents when my children were very little. They lived too far from us for it to be an option, but I would never have expected them to mind my children. They exhausted them when we spent Saturday afternoons with them!

My Mum has never looked after my child. MIL looked after him for 10 minutes once and said she couldn’t cope so never again.

We take him to nursery and have never had any time away apart from that.

There are different meanings of ‘expect’.

A demand: I expect you kids to lay the table before dinner.
An assumption: I expect it will rain tomorrow.

Perhaps given that the grandmother insisted on babysitting, the OP is right to expect/assume the weekly childcare will
happen, (‘expect’ used as in the second example).

So? How is that relevant here?

Agree with all of this.

The op stated that her mum is willing to look after her child but is complaining and resentful when op picks up her child.

Fitness and age are completely irrelevant.

She did agree to it in advance - and encouraged the OP to move house near her so that she could help!!