To be salty… I know IAMBU

[13MAPARTHELL]

This is unreasonable but I cant help it 😂

my cousin lives next door, he has a child the same age as mine, the house is like walking into instagram, always pristine, with a tiny armchair pouf as a toy box, with 3 toys in.

they have alot of money, and rent the same as ours, and we are low wage. They do absolutely nothing with their child, and I mean nothing. They have never taken him anywhere, but my auntie has him every weekend and takes him everywhere, they use it as an excuse to not have to, we invite them everywhere, even my kids birthday parties, or events, they are always a no show, they flake when its child related, and then they post on facebook of them going to a fancy restaurant with their child sat watching the ipad, while we are at the farm, swimming etc.

they sometimes ask if i want to come over, but follow it with only me, not either of my kids, even though their kid is there, and the kids all love eachover when they see eachover in the street.

they work monday-friday full days, and even in half terms and summer, not one holiday day will be taken to do something with their little boy. It breaks my heart that they see him for an hour before bed & then ship him off EVERY weekend.

i cant stress enough, they earn around 150k together, we earn 40k together, and they have told me they do not have any credit etc.

i love their son so much, hes family, it makes me sad that they are not giving him the childhood he deserves with his parents, and they are constantly letting him miss out of stuff because they simply are selfish.

from now on, im going to ask to take him with our boys, im not sure what they will say but i feel a real connection to him as I grew up exactly the same way, and it resulted in basically no childhood at all.

am i out of line for offering to take him?

So, I agree with you that I probably should do that, I struggle more for it to not bother me, because he is my family.

Tbh it sounds like they dislike your kids.

They probably do things but don't tell you so you don't come along with your dc.

That’s a very big possibility hahah, my kids are abit wild. They dont meet with any kids, I think they just dont want to add to it, with having more kids around them, they are very much not ‘kid’ kinds of people, they like the quiet, they are a corporate couple, their words

That is strange!

If your kids are wild, there's your answer, they would probably decline you taking their dc out as well then.

@13MAPARTHELL
You do you. If you want to invite him out with you, that’s fine, but everyone is different and you don’t have to feel sorry for the child.

You can only be as you are, and that goes for parenting too. His parents evidently don’t feel comfortable with the things you feel are important to children, but they can’t simply change who they are and as long as they are kind, that’s perfectly fine.

They maybe can’t just rack up at a farm and immediately not be bothered by the dirt or worried at the child getting hurt or catching something.

They might know themselves well enough to realise that taking their child and then going on at him to watch out for the mud, or not touch anything would be worse than not going at all. They ask his aunt to help out where they struggle.

I am quite an anxious person so when it comes to some aspects of the outdoors, say paths with steep drops, I find it best to let someone else, in my case my husband take the lead. If we were both like me we just wouldn’t do that sort of thing.

Maybe, as the child grows and is able to access more grown up spaces, they will do different things.
I dislike many things designed specifically for children. I didn’t enjoy them as a child and also didn’t do them with my own kids. We did our own things and have a great relationship with them now as teens and young adults.

YANBU.

This smacks of affluent neglect; their treatment of him could have implications for his schooling - it could affect his MH, resilience and learning behaviours. In turn, that could impact many areas of his future life.

You will help alleviate that, but I agree with PP - how toxic is the atmosphere at home, and how much supervision will they grant him in terms of devices? Sounds a dangerous mix.