How often to visit DM and DF

[lolacherricoke]

My parents live just over an hour away from me and are both retired.
myself and DH work full time.
we have 2 sons age 9 and 11 who are very active and spend Saturday mornings at sports clubs. My mum is always aggrieved that we do not go and visit them, they never come to us, how often do people visit the DP’s we are approx every 6 weeks and for my DM it’s not enough!
should we visit more or is that the norm?

That’s about how often we see in laws who are an hour away and they mostly come to us as they have more time to travel compared to us with children’s activities constraints

It seems unreasonable - if they want to see your DCs and are retired, they need to put the effort in to come and see your DCs.

we see my DPs all the time (often several times a week) but they are very happy to integrate into our family life and recognise that if they want to see us it makes sense that they just sort of join in with what we do. DF will come and help DP in the garden, DM is happy to watch the kids, comes and watches them do their activities etc.

if we were expected to carve out specific ‘visit the grandparents’ time it would be A LOT less frequent. I think in your circumstances every 6 weeks is reasonable.

My DPs do the same with my DBro and his family. They are amazing.

Approx every 6 weeks sounds like quite a lot to me. But the point is that you visit when you want to - if it's once a year, then it's once a year. It's really not fair for your parents to emotionally manipulate you, so just stick to whatever suits you best, OP.

An hour really isn't that far!

Could you plan to meet them half way for lunch after Sat morning clubs monthly? As the weather is getting better, there'll be opportunities for picnics & trips out.

Maybe once a month or so, but they should make the effort to visit you as well.

We see my parents once a month but if they didn't come to see us it would be every second months. It's a 3 hours travel for us (train) and a 1.5 hour travel for them (car).