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.

Apologies if you have already been asked this, @HookedOnAusten, but would it work to invite your parents along on things you do with your son at the weekends - a trip to the park with a picnic, lunch at somewhere with a soft play, a walk in the woods then a quick lunch at a cafe, the zoo, the beach, etc?

That way your son would be out doing things he enjoys, and if your parents got involved with pushing him on the swings, playing in the sand, looking at the animals etc, finding sticks, leaves and creepy crawlies, that would help him get more comfortable with him, because he’d already be having fun and would see them as part of the fun.

It would also mean you’d still be doing family things, and you’d be in control of the timings from your side - eg. you meet them at the park and play there, then have a picnic, and when that’s done you say “We’ll have to be heading off now - he needs his nap/we need to go to the supermarket/there’s a load of DIY and laundry waiting at home”.

The grandparents cannot win here . The OP refuses any offers for babysitting and OP is happy with son in nursery,and wants to spend her weekends exclusively with husband and child 🤷‍♀️I am not sure what the Grandparents can do and what the point of her posts are TBH .

Surely you can spare 1-2 hours and have Granny tag along to the park / pop over for tea and cake / take him to the library whilst you do housework for an hour or so / have her pop round and supervise him in a paddling pool for 30 minutes while you crack on with making lunch to all have together, have her come round Tesco with you, or let them have tea and toast in the café whilst you go round...

The above is typical of some posters on here and it makes me see red. OP wants the time to spend with her DS because she is a full time working parent. And posters like the one above suggest that it's somehow a good thing for her to hand that time to the grandmother so that OP can do housework, make lunch or do the shopping! Hellooooooo - can you not see that OP wants time to play with her DS, cuddle her DS, read to her DS - not do more bloody housework!!!

Honestly, some people don't have the sense they were born with. OP, I totally and utterly understand where you are coming from and you are so absolutely NBU.

That's not fair. The OP wants to spend her weekends with her son. She doesn't want him to go to his grandparents then - she misses him when she's in work, so why would she hand him over at the weekend?

She hasn't refused any offers of babysitting - her parents don't want a regular commitment. If they did, she'd accept it.

Is there anything stopping them picking your son up 2 hours early from nursery on a set day, going to the park with him or do a tea and play before you get home? This way you have the childcare in place when they can’t or don’t want to do it

They could still do one day per week with their grandchild and holiday, as parents you have 8 weeks leave between you to cover and still have a holiday yourself. They just don’t want to. They can’t have their cake and eat it. Seeing a grandchild regularly builds a bond but not everyone has that great relationship with their parents to do this, I don’t and can understand. Grandparents visit outside of the holidays here so they don’t need to spend the time with their granddaughter, then can’t understand why they don’t have a bond with her

Exactly. Also OP's DS is going through a stage of difficulty sleeping, where a disruption of his routine has consequences which inevitably affect OP as well.

There's nothing wrong with OP prioritising herself, her DH and her DS.

I don't understand why she can't get your DS early from nursery semi regularly, what would be the harm? She could pick him up at 2ish on sunny days and they enjoy some time together without eating into yours?

If it's because you can't bear paying for any nursery hours you don't end up using, it might be best to consider this as the least bad option, does it really matter?

OP may have jumped at the chance to save some money by her mum having her grandchild one day a week but her mum made it very clear that she wasn't up for providing any sort of regular child care so OP made arrangements to put her child in full time nursery.

Her mum's offers of babysitting are turned down because OP wants to spend all her weekends with her baby as she hardly sees him in the week. She is posting because her mum is complaining that her friend has a closer relationship with her grandchild than OP's mum does with hers. That is a natural consequence of her OP's mum's friend providing regular weekly childcare and OP's mum not wanting to do this. OP just wanted to check that she wasn't being unreasonable and 90% of posters think that she isn't.

I couldn’t disagree with you more. The OP wasn’t mean or petty in her response - she simply stated a fact. I absolutely understand the want to have the weekends and evenings with your child when you’ve been at work 5 days a week. When they’re so young, you feel like you miss out on so much. It sounds like OP’s mum wants her to make all the effort and have the contact when it’s convenient for her but wouldn’t make adjustments to her own life to accommodate seeing her grandchild more. I think OP had every right to factually point this out.

YANBU at all OP. I have quite a similar issue only the comparison I get is between my parents and my in laws. My mother would see me weekly if she had her way but she only ever wants me on her terms (i.e. bringing the kids to her house over an hour away, making no mess, not annoying my dad with too much noise, her largely ignoring the kids because her nose is in her iPad anyway). I go to hers about once a month because we're just too busy for more. Like you, we like to do things at the weekend or we need the time to keep house, body and soul together.

My in laws see a lot more of our kids because they fit in with us where we are. They'll come to us, they're happy to fit in with plans, they help out a lot and they do childcare.

I get lots of snark from my mother about the difference, which she considers to be entirely down to favouritism on my part. She won't countenance the idea that it's because my in laws are so much more present and helpful.

You’re not being unreasonable. I am a mother and grandmother. My grandchildren all live between 3 and 5 hours away; I’d love to see them more but seeing them every couple of months does not mean they don’t love me any less than their friends love their DGP who see them weekly!
I didn’t babysit any of them before they were two years old!

I consider myself close with my Mum. We text multiple times per day, and generally have a close relationship. It might not be coming across on this thread because it’s about something which annoys me (and I think almost everyone has something which annoys them about their parents, no matter how close). I only moved closer to them in 2022, before that DH and I moved frequently and have lived abroad so we’re not used to having a pop in relationship. This is the closest I’ve lived to them since I left for uni 20 odd years ago. Visits have always been more infrequent and longer. That’s probably where my mum’s just a bit longer attitude comes from too. Her and DS are close from my perspective, but I think because he’s not as outgoing and affectionate as her friend’s grandson (or me as a child by all accounts) she sees that as DS not being as close.

Life is short. Family is important. If there hasn't been rift, my advice would be to make time for everyone. As much for your own relationship with her as your son's.

My parents love it too. It’s very different for us siblings. We do it for our parents, out of duty. We would rather not.

This is the crux of the issue: differing expectations of what family life should look like. Everybody wants to do what’s best for them. Nobody wants to compromise. It’s really difficult, especially when you add in spouses and in-laws.

OP has refused offers of babysitting . Written quite clearly in her earlier posts .
Am just saying that OP is very resistant to her parents having regular contact with their grandchild.
How about OP invites her parents on the odd family day out? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

As PPs have suggested, why can’t your DPs take him out of nursery one afternoon or morning a week or occasionally? It’s annoying that you would still be paying for nursery if they can’t commit to doing it 52 weeks a year but you would be no worse off than you are now and a close relationship with his DGPs would be of huge benefit to your DS.

If he has a strong bond with his GPs, he will be happier to be left with them for babysitting in the evenings so you can have some me time after he is in bed once in a while.

You are stating the obvious truth and it’s not your responsibility if she’s not okay with it

By family I mean my household - my partner and child. My mum is family of course - so is my brother, but when you marry and have a child your core family is your partner and children. If DS marries and has children himself, his focus will be more to that family than me, as it should be.

I want my son to be close to close to his grandparents and he is and loves them. Spend a full day, and often with an overnight stay once a month is far from never seeing them! Clearly we have different perspectives on weekends. I didn’t say we don’t see anyone, but we go into the weekend with no plans. Sometimes we’ll see local friends, sometimes we just potter around the house and garden, sometimes we’ll see if one of our parents are free if we’re in the area. But for me going into a weekend without knowing I need to be at X place at Y time is one of the best things I’ve done for my mental health. It was my New Year’s resolution in 2017 and it’s the only one I’ve stuck to. Not saying it’s for everyone but it works for me.

It’s not unreasonable for you to point out a fact. And the fact is that your mums friend provides weekly childcare and so spends more time with her grandchild.

But she's offered to babysit when it's OP's free time, in which she wants to spend precious time with DS herself.

I'm with OP here. YANBU

I’ll ask the nursery. They said that while they’re settling in that being picked up as hoc isn’t good for them because it doesn’t let them adjust properly and they come to expect it. But now he’s settled there I’ll suggest it to them. They hadn’t suggested it, and it hadn’t occurred to me either.

Why don't you say to your mum that she's welcome to pick up your child from nursery a couple of afternoons per week and take him to yours for tea (as long as she wouldn't stay all evening) - if she then went on holiday he could just spend the rest of those days in the nursery?

My MIL is similar. Lives on the other side of the country, literally never rings or messages or visits, answers or reacts to any of my updates about the kids.. or shows interest in general really .
We schlep out to visit them a few times a year for a few days each, and she barely interacts with them.
When we do visit she goes on and on about when are we sending the kids out to stay with her for school holidays. No fucking chance, they don’t know you !

My mum on the other hand offers childcare regularly, phones them up, is genuinly interested in their lives and as a consequence is very close to them.

Enjoy your time with DS in your terms. As he settles or starts primary maybe there’s some opportunities to change the routines a bit if your DM is up for it, but it sounds like she wants the joy without doing the work, which invariably means more work for you.

Your ‘do-nothing’ weekends sound great. I do very similar. A number of people, including initially my DH, didn’t ‘get’ it but it’s wonderful to start Monday without feeling drained.

I have seen the phrase on Mumsnet often "comparison is the thief of joy" and I think it applies to your mum. She's not appreciating what she has got due to her jealousy of "Jane".