To say to my mum that providing childcare is the reason her friend sees her grandchild more

[HookedOnAusten]

Just upfront, I don’t expect my parents to provide childcare for my child and have never asked because I know they don’t want to do it. That’s not the issue here.

My husband and I both work full time, and our 15 month old is in a great nursery he enjoys. That makes weekdays really busy and weekends really precious to us. We try to keep two weekends a month just for our little family. One lowkey at home and one with bigger plans. We see my parents about once a month or every six weeks, but they’d like more frequent visits and often suggest weekly meetups which cuts into our weekends too much or daytime and overnight babysitting, which I’m just not ready for yet. I want to spend my free time with my son, not away from him.

My mum often compares herself to her friend, who cares for her grandson one day a week, with comments like “Bill runs right up to Jane, but Ben is shy with me”, “Jane had Bill overnight again this weekend”, “Jane loves seeing Bill so often”, “I probably see more of Bill than I do of Ben”. When she brought it up again after I explained weekly Sunday lunches don’t work for us, I was a bit grumpy anyway so said, “well she looks after Bill once a week so of course she sees him more.” My mum said she doesn’t have to provide childcare, and I agreed but said it’s not realistic to expect the same level of contact as someone who does. She said that she offers to babysit for us but babysitting offers aren’t the same. I already have to be away from my son for work, and I want to be with him in my free time. Was I unreasonable to say this? I’m just tired of the constant comparisons.

It isn’t selfish to prioritise that family time as it is precious. What a lucky child to have parents who value connecting with him whenever possible. This couple get just two days out of 7 to really enjoy their son without being stressed after work or worried about bedtime, 2 days to catch up as husband and wife and reconnect after having a baby, 2 days to relax without hosting anyone. Working parents are trying to do the
impossible. Grandparents are wonderful additions to children’s lives, my son loves all of his, but they do not trump parents when it comes to time to connect. They are extended family who are prioritised but are not the priority.

And I totally disagree that time with a grandparents equals an excellent relationship. My husband spent every weekend with one set of grandparents growing up and saw the others about three times a a year (they lived abroad). He was infinitely closer to the ones he hardly saw because of the effort they made to connect with him and his interests. They were so loving and really got him. Similarly, my parents see my son about once every 6 weeks due to work circumstances (theirs and ours) but my son adores them because when he does see them, he is the centre of their universe and they remember all his little quirks and interests.

I'm horrified at the people who think their parents should offer childcare, babysitting fine but childcare? If your child is already in childcare then why do you want your parents to do this, I'm assuming just to save you money?

The OP craves time with her baby and the GPs have only offered to take the baby away

I don’t think this is correct, it sounds like the GPs would be happy to come round and visit the 3 of them. The OP’s concern is that the visits would be too long and that her mum would monopolise the child while she visits so the OP would miss out on some 1:1 time with him.

Is she at death's door? OP never mentioned that. TBH I'm surprised that this is the first 'OMG you'll be sorry when she's dead' post. Just waiting for 'you are so selfish, my mum's dead and I'd do anything to have her back for just one day' posts that normally litter these threads.

Stick to your guns, OP. Seeing grandparents once every 6 weeks is a lot..... many see their grandchildren far less often.

I don’t understand what you actually want from your mum.
You made a dig at her but don’t actually want her to babysit, unless I’m missing something.

I think a lot of people are giving you a hard time but I totally get your perspective. We had a similar situation. We actually asked PIL if they would do one day a week and they say they would only do it of we dropped DD off on a Sunday afternoon and they did Monday. We too were working at the time and our weekends were precious and we weren't prepared to lose a half day with DD every weekend. Because they then weren't having her for childcare it did limit time they saw her as I refused to give up every weekend when it was the only time we had as the three of us. That said we then went on to have a second and they became a bit older and we got to the stage where they babysat while we socialised or had a break sometimes. The relationship grew when it was the right time but when they are very young is not the right time. Those not understanding probably don't work full-time because it is really tough to satisfy everyone when you are!

Where is OP saying that she wants or expects her mum to do childcare? She has never asked her to do this and never will.

She is saying that her mum's friend spends more time with her grandchild because she does child care every week. This is in response to OP's mum complaining that she doesn't see OP's child enough and offering babysitting at weekends that OP doesn't want or need.

Normally, grandparents that do childcare spend more time with their grandchildren than grandparents that don't want to do childcare.

OP just wants her mum to stop moaning that her friend, who does do childcare for her grandchild, spends more time with her grandchild and therefore seems to have a closer relationship with their grandchild.

Her mum doesn't want to do childcare but wants OP to find other opportunities for her mum to spend more time with her son. As this will eat into OP's precious and scarce time with her child in the evenings and at weekends, she doesn't want to do this.

Basically, she just wants her mum to stop moaning.

I’m not sure why so many posters are saying I’m denying my parents a relationship and stating every six weeks like that’s the most often my parents see him when the OP says once a month to once every six weeks, and ie clarified in comments that we aim to see them every month, and when it’s longer it’s mostly because they’re busy, or one of us is on holiday. They have a relationship with my son and he loves and recognises them. It might not be the relationship you’d want (and I think devastation is too much) but people are acting like they see him for ten minutes once per year.

The thing is on average every month has four weekends. Even if we dropped one of the weekends to ourselves (which we end up doing about half the time) that’s one weekend with my parents, one weekend with DH’s parents, one weekend for us, and then only her weekend where we often do things like the zoo, or Centerparcs or visit our siblings/cousins/friends. I can’t magic up more weekend time.

People (not you but while I’m replying generally) have said I’m rigid, but the only things I’m rigid on is not wanting DS to be away from me in my free time and wanting one weekend per month free of plans. Not everyone gets that, and that’s fine, but that’s one of the things which keeps me from burning out. My parents are such planners we have weekends together planned up until November! It’s not as easy as suggesting we meet up on the free weekend because more often than not, they’re busy anyway. And because I’ve dangled DS time in front of them, they want to rearrange for a time that works better for them and seem put out when we can’t make that work.

The first line of my OP. Not sure how much clearer I could be that this isn’t about me wanting them to do childcare. It’s about how I balance the time when he’s not in childcare.

Just upfront, I don’t expect my parents to provide childcare for my child and have never asked because I know they don’t want to do it. That’s not the issue here.

I’m surprised there’s not been more of that too. My parents are both fit and healthy in their early sixties. Probably in better health and DH and I because they have so much less stress, and more time to eat well and exercise, but no suggestions that they should back off because we could drop dead and they can see more of him then

I want her to stop making comments adding to my stress and guilt about her not seeing DS as much as she’d like, along with comparisons to how much her friend sees her grandson, with me coming up short in comparison. There’s a reason that her friend sees so much more of her grandchild, and that’s because she’s made different decisions. It’s the comments I want to stop, not an offer of childcare.

Her friend does the hard job of caring for a toddler a day a week, along with the time burden that goes with that, and the flip side is she spends hours per week with him. My mum feels her childrearing days are done, and doesn’t want to be tied down for a day a week. Perfectly fine decision, but then she won’t have the same amount of time with DS.

@HookedOnAusten my own parents are dead but PIL have never done any childcare for us because they don’t live close enough and to be blunt they are a bit too old to cope with two active preschoolers.

But they are still loved and an important part of our children’s lives. It does feel a bit transactional to me - well you aren’t looking after him and that’s fine but then don’t complain that you don’t get to see him. Yes, technically true but there are many ways to develop a loving relationship without providing actual childcare.

He does see them!!! They have a loving relationship without them providing childcare. I don’t see it as transactional but it’s just an outcome of a decision. If you care for a child when their parent is at work then you’ll get hours of time with that child on your own every week. If you don’t, then you’ll see them with their parents when it suits them, and since we work full time that means that weekends are precious and have a lot of demands on them. There’s only so much time. I don’t want them complaining they don’t see him because they do see him. It’s frustrating when so many people are saying they don’t. Clearly not as often as they want, but to say they don’t is totally wrong. It’s not like I’ve said to them you won’t see him until you offer childcare.

The comments are annoying but you are unlikely to change her. Try to stop yourself feeling guilty about it. Reassure her "dc loves spending time with you too, if only there were more days in a week" and reassure yourself by telling yourself 'lovely that mum enjoys time with us. We see them as much as is managable there is nothing to fix'

You don't sound like you like your parents much .you sound like your trying to punish them for not fitting in the box you want .
She could easily come for lunch on a Saturday and that would still give you the rest of the weekend for family time.
Your parents are still your family
Saying this as someone who's dad died in April this year ..it makes you think of the lost opportunities when they were alive

I think it’s a good idea to promote a good relationship for your DCs with their GPs.

Your DCs are not your possessions to be guarded jealously. Why can’t you do a family day out with your parents? Or ask if they would like to babysit if you and your DH have a night out.

Suggest that she ha you all round for dinner on a week night to help you out and see Ben more.

I think just as your parents make choices and have to be OK with that, you also make choices and I’m not criticising those choices. Honestly though it does sound like you’re upset about something but I’m not totally sure what.

I do promote a good relationship with them. We have a weekend most months with them. We have days out together then, how have low key time together at either ours or their house. We spend every other Christmas with them, and Boxing Day when it’s my in laws year. We celebrate he birthday together. We all go on holiday together.

I don’t want them to babysit because I don’t want to apart from my son during the limited time I have with him. He’s difficult at bed time and at the moment I settle him best because he’s feeding to sleep at the moment.

I think a lot it is I would like more time with him, and so when she’s saying she’d like more time with him I’m thinking well so would I.

I do understand but I am not sure why it has to be so binary: you think that either you get the time with him OR she does. If she comes round to yours, can you not both play with him together? Is there something in the way she behaves with him that crowds you out?

I can understand that.

To be honest, I think working full time with a baby is really hard. I’m not judging your choices there and they probably aren’t even choices; my part time request was initially turned down so I was full time for around ten months after maternity leave. It was hard and even now I feel sad that there aren’t many pictures between age 10 months - 20 months of DS whereas there are hundreds of DD. I don’t think DS missed out on much, but I definitely did.

Your mum was a SAHM, she got all the time she wanted with her dc. She now can’t deny you the limited time you get with your own DC as a full time working parent.