Expectations of grandparents when visiting

[Firsttimetrier]

What are your expectations of your parents when they come to visit your children, or you go to theirs to visit?

AIBU to expect the grandparents to help with childcare if they come to visit or you have gone to them? Could be playing with them, offering to do bath time, or even sit with them during their dinner?

I think some people are confusing “the provision of childcare” with “hoping that your parents might want a relationship with their grandchildren”.
I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope for the latter. What is the fucking point in an extended family otherwise? For ancestry.com only?

Equally, if you’re staying round someone’s house, then it’s the polite thing to do to offer help in some way, especially if they’re cooking for you and generally hosting. To expect someone to cook you dinner whilst already exhausted and run ragged from looking after small children is completely unreasonable. Regardless of the presence of children it’s a reasonable expectation for people to be a good guest.

Completely missing the point but it's blue arsed fly ( blue bottle) not horse 😁

Do you have nieces and nephews or young cousins/second cousins you provide care for?

When I visit my son DIL they do most of the catering but I always take home bake goods and often a bag of nice odds and ends, money is tight for them and I love to cook. Tbh I tend to walk through the door and get swept away in a tide of grandchildren I love to play with them help them do homework anything really. I have mobility issues so I can’t actually bath or but them to bed. But often one of their parents takes them up then sends them down in a towel so I can put the night things on brush hair and snuggle tell bed time.

at mine I’m in a bungalow so can pretty much do anything that needs doing and I love it. They often stay for the weekend, mum and dad will come into the kitchen to find them up dressed and making breakfast or even moved on to crafts or something. They help me cook wash up no any chores, I take over pretty much all the child care and do most of the cooking (though they clear ). It gives my DS& DIL a break and though I’m exhausted when they go, I love spending time with them

my other grandchildren come 3 or 4 days a week after school, I give them dinner pack lunch boxes do homework if asked and generally take care of them until 6.30/7

I love all I do, my health isn’t good so I don’t know how long I will be able todo everything I do, hopefully at least a few more years

Mind help a lot

I think it is very age dependent. My DS’s GP weren’t all alive when he was born. The ones that were are quite elderly. The youngest would have been mid 70’s when he was born.

They have all had other grand children who are now adults and while they had a close relationship with them because they played an active part in their upbringing, they don’t have anywhere near the same involvement with my DS as they feel they are too old to provide a similar level of support.

There are also no other young children in our extended family. Our DS is 4 and the next youngest is 19. This means we don’t really have a “village” created by our extended family so instead we have gravitated towards other families we’ve met through baby/toddler groups who are in broadly similar circumstances.

We’ve built up a fairly decent network of families with young children who also have little to no GP support. We all help each other out and I’m eternally grateful for that.

My DS is too young to really notice that our arrangements aren’t typical however I hope he grows up appreciating just how much these people have helped him and us.

Maybe they've come you see YOU rather than the kids? There is no rule even for a grandparent that it's all got to be about the grandkids. Your own adult " kids" Ardmore important to you than their offspring. Or should be

I have none as they are their person first and foremost they dont exist because they are an extension of what i have decided they need to do

I do actually, on the other side of the family. Even if we visit them for the afternoon, we all kind of group together and help each other out. From getting drinks, sorting dinner, tidying up and playing with the kids.

We used to babysit a lot before we had our own children too.

If they were being disengaged at the time and ignoring the toddler's attempts to engage with them you should have said something at the time not messaged after

But they came to offer to help babysit etc?

This

visits have become less regular.

I wonder why …

Which they did, is this more about you finding the jump from one to two DC hard?

I don’t agree with Pinty.
Anyone who has brought up children surely knows how difficult it is to manage children at the same time as hosting, and my own view is that parents who are fit and able are not good parents if they can just sit there with the expectation that they will be waited on hand foot whilst watching their child run ragged when trying to do everything.
The more I read on here the more I know and appreciate how kind my own parents are. When they come for a meal they leave it to us in the kitchen and give all their attention to the children so they aren’t bothering us. Even now in their 70’s they are happy to play anything from football to board games. The children are desperate for a sleepover but that’s where my parents have drawn their line and I respect that.
They do school pickups twice a week and yesterday I came home to homework done, the washing brought in, mum looking like a pantomime dame because she’d been to the littlest’s salon and dad serving the pasta sauce that they had brought for the children’s tea.
Our generation may find that doing all this will not be possible but I’d like to think that if I’m ever a grandparent I’ll be mindful of my own children’s needs and do whatever I can to help entertain their children while they are looking after me.

Not their circus, not their little monkeys!

Babysitting in when you are out though. That's not what you are saying about in OP

YANBU. My DM used to visit and sit fiddling on her phone the entire time, ignoring the kids (even when the older one was talking to her). As she also ignored me as a kid, I found this very triggering. We’re NC for this and many other reasons.

I think you’ve summed it up for me, and this is the experience we have with the in laws.

I’m not expecting them to do childcare 5 days a week whilst I work. What I was expecting was for them to engage and interact with my children when they came to visit.
If I’m trying to breastfeed the baby and the toddler is hanging off of me because he’s hungry and wants dinner, I’d expect them to offer to distract the toddler for a second instead of sitting on the sofa and waiting for me to finish, to then sort the toddler’s dinner out and then their dinner too.

YABU for your message, and for your "they are not bringing anything to the table" comment. I can't fathom grandparents who don't enthusiastically engage when around their grandchildren, but saying they don't bring anything to the table makes you sound self-important and entitled

And they did babysit, allowing you to go out.

They babysat in the sense of sitting downstairs whilst they slept, yes. I agree there.
However, they offered to come mid afternoon to help out but then didn’t do anything.

They know I’m struggling with going from 1-2 and having to say to someone “can you play with the toddler whilst I try and breastfeed without them hanging off me” just adds onto the mental load.

I think I’m disappointed and frustrated that there was help without having to ask. I feel like in those situations you should be able to recognise and see what’s happening and just do things off your own back.
However, I’ve learnt that’s not always the case and we’re just really lucky that the in law’s are like that.

I think it’s just a visceral reaction to the intense disappointment that your parents don’t want to engage with their grandchildren, and that they are content to see you suffer.

I have two preschool age children and haven’t invited my parents to my house for two years because the thought of it just makes me want to curl up into a ball. Their expectation for us to host them whilst also looking after the kids is breathtakingly entitled. Of course they complain that they don’t really know the younger one. What can you do?

Have they replied to your text yet, OP?