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.

OP, can you not have the scary, direct conversation?

Failing that, how about just acknowledging theyd like to do more but you want your family weekends...
"I know you want more time with DS. We'd like that too! Would you like to collect
DS from nursery, make him dinner, put him to bed at ours (eg) the first Wednesday evening, each month. DH & I will make sure to be it of your hair until 9pm or so. That way you can do the full evening schnuggles but without you being obliged to do it when you'd rather make other plans".

Of course I consider them family, but I consider my immediate family DH and DS, who I live with. They’re the ones who I prioritise at the moment because my time is so limited. It’s not like I’m sitting around for hours a day waiting for things to do and not seeing them out of spite.

It’s not transactional at all, unless you consider me saying they’d see more of DS if they did childcare transactional rather than the trade off of the decision they made. It’s not a punishment. Just that grandparents who provide childcare get several hours alone with their grandchildren per week and those who don’t don’t. I have a great relationship with my mum, we text multiple times every day and have done for years. I feel I see them very often because until recently we had lived nowhere near each other my entire adult life. And the idea that I should spend less time with my son than I want to because I might need them to look after him when I have a baby I’m not even trying to conceive, let alone am pregnant with is crazy! I’m pretty sure I’m one and done but if not I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Nope YANBU. My relationship with my mother isn’t great so my feelings on it are probably more extreme than yours, but I begrudge giving up precious time with my children just so others (who do absolutely nothing for us) can enjoy the best moments. No, I get those bits. Do they want to push a pram around in the sunshine, or have lovely bedtime cuddles? Of course they do. Do they want to hold my screaming toddler or baby whilst I shower or eat something? Or clean up an explosive shit? No. So they get nothing.

I have this with my MIL. She acts all heartbroken that our DC don’t go running up to her and don’t want to go for sleepovers, but she barely sees them. We will visit when we can, she will never visit us. My mum on the other hand does weekly childcare and regularly visits at the weekend, the kids love her and are super comfortable with her. I think your relationship with your grandkids is what you put into it.

Ooo have I touched a nerve.Weird comment that I would hate you ..very dramatic.Am just highlighting that the GPs have offered child care ! Absolutely nothing wrong with living abroad but this is not the scenario in this case .

You make it sound like my son will remember me beating them away with a stick because they tried to see him more than once per year. We see them once a month and longer if they’re busy or there’s holidays. We go on holiday with them every year. They’ll be there at Christmases and birthdays and other special occasions. He recognises them.

I have no idea what he’ll remember from his early childhood but hanging around at home helping me with laundry (pulling the clothes out), playing with his toys, batch cooking with me (stirring a empty bowl), going into town to return library books etc. are all nice things for him to do.

I completely agree with you OP.

I think a reasonable compromise would be to offer they could pick him up from childcare at 2pm when it suits, and bring him back ro yours and you can all have tea together. That could increase the visits to every 2 weeks.

I haven't read the full thread, I've just read your replies.

I think people are conflating stating a fact with being ungrateful and in this instance they are two different things.

If person A does childcare, they forge a more familiar bond as they spend more time together than someone who doesn't do childcare. This is a fact. The topic of GP childcare is contentious here, so people automatically lay an emotional response on top of this.

You have good boundaries for your nuclear family and your mental health. You know that you want to spend 48 hours with your baby as you spend the other days working. A weekend is a very short period of time. If you used weekends as a counting metric for a childs' life then you have very few. I respect your decision to appropriate them how you do and your gatekeeping - my OH works away in the week and our weekends are the only time we spend together and that isn't respected by others who expect our time without understanding the scarcity of it.

Your refusal for babysitting makes sense, from what you have said it seems that it is offered for your DM's benefit and at her convenience as opposed to for your benefit. She has had her time with her baby / or babies and she must respect your need and right to your time with your baby.

It may be that your Mum wants a closer relationship and is going about it in an awkward way by using her friend as an example - perhaps dig into that with her in a calm way, if you feel it's needed.

No, I don't think your response was without reason, or unmeasured.

This. You are being too rigid. There are definitely ways you could facilitate more close family time. Once every month or 6 weeks is.really infrequent. And I don’t really understand why you need whole weekends carved out like that, excluding close family, so it’s probably hard and hurtful for your parents to understand too. The grandparent/child relationship is really important and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to help develop that. It’s was really important to me when raising my DC that they had plenty of time with grandparents etc to foster those important relationships. My DC have great relationships with their grandparents now and really cherish having that bond.

Would it be practical for gran to babysit during the week as and when she wants? Keep the place at nursery but if she wants to take him for a day or am afternoon she is welcome to? Would stop the complaining as she has option and wouldnt interfere with your time at the weekend. Also less pressure than every week.

When my DS was at nursery I asked MIL if she could perhaps pick him up a little earlier than normal pick up once a week just so he wasn’t having such long days, she would just take him back to our house and they’d play and she’d give him a diner I’d put in the fridge. It didn’t save us any money in childcare and if she couldn’t do it one week because she had a holiday or other engagement it wasn’t a big deal, but it meant she was getting to see him and it did help me in those days as I wasn’t so rushed to leave work to get to nursery. Perhaps that would be a good compromise and give her a little one on one time.

I totally agree with OP.

To be honest, my parents went a bit OTT with their first grandchild. My mum clearly really wanted to recreate being a stay at home mum with my kids and went overboard - used to suggest madly inappropriate things (putting very young kids on a plane unaccompanied to see them for the whole summer etc) that she would have been judgemental about any other mum actually doing and was always trying to go very hard on new stuff and treats to buy affection. A lot of it was insecurity that she would not have a good relationship with them - now they are verbal and older much clearer to her that they love her and are affectionate to her in their own particular love language and she has calmed down. This kind of thing and the digs at you can be wildly irritating, but comes from a very primal love I think. That doesn’t mean you can’t draw boundaries though - I’m really a once a month person for my parents, but in reality there are times of the year when it is once a fortnight and times when it can go a couple of months.

It’s literally one of the main reasons why grandparents offer childcare. YANBU

YANBU, I completely understand. My DPs are not really people you can pop round for lunch with, we're expected to be there from 11am to 6pm, which is really difficult when you're trying to fit a million things and a bit of downtime in over the weekend.

My DPs felt looking after DS1 for a full day would be too much, but they used to pick him up from the childminder at 4pm three days a week, give him his dinner and then DH or I would collect him on the way home from work around 6pm. It definitely took a bit of pressure off us, as if we were running late it wasn't an issue, they would hang onto him. When they were on holiday, he just stayed a bit longer at the childminder. They did that from when he was about 2.5 until he started school at 4.5 and they do have a lovely relationship. Could you suggest something like that to your mum?

By the time I had DS2, my DPs felt they were too old to help (they were mid-late 60's) so they don't have as close a relationship with him. Now both DC are older they do stay overnight occasionally and when we have had middle of the night emergencies I know can drop the DC off anytime, which is an absolute godsend. They have also finally understood that it's not easy to work full time and then fit everything else in at the weekend, but I see them most weekends for a couple of hours for a coffee and a catch up. Sometimes I take one or both DC, sometimes I go on my own, but it works for us. I'm sure they would love to see more of the DC but they do now understand it's difficult to juggle everything.

It will get easier as your DC gets older, but your mum needs to stop comparing her situation with her friend's, as it just puts more pressure on you.

Her mum is also being pretty rigid and restrictive, and expecting the OP to facilitate everything. She doesn't seem to be making any suggestions except 'change your plans to fit in with me'. Honestly, a parent who complains about not seeing grandchildren enough but makes little effort on their own part to see them is pretty tiresome. I have had to do ALL the running and facilitating in the last 10 years and frankly it breeds resentment. The OP is focusing on her own relationship with her child and there's nothing wrong with that. Granny can maybe step up when she's ready to actually play some kind of role in her grandchild's life.

You don’t see them very often though?

Sorry I'm a bit confused...you say that the reason they don't want to do childcare is that they don't want to be bogged down so they can go on holiday.

But then you say that you haven't even suggested that they do childcare when they're not on holiday incase they just don't want to?

Surely just asking them to have the kid when they're at home, and assuring them that you'll never ask them to change their holiday plans will put this to bed?

If they're not willing to have their grandchild under those terms, then it does seem to lean towards them only being interested in contact while you're around to do the heavy lifting. I'm sorry if that's the case OP, not very nice at all x

I can totally see your point about overnight babysitting, it doesn't sound like she has a close enough relationship with him where that would be a natural thing to do for everyone involved (unlike her friend who has a close relationship with her grandson), so I actually think they are being unreasonable pushing for that, it certainly isn't in your DS best interest at the moment.

I do think you are being unreasonable with regards weeknights though, the good thing about weeknights is they are on a timer (bedtime), if you do it Friday evening there is no drama about routine for Saturday morning. She could pick him up from nursery, or come to yours after tea for a couple of hours to do bath and bed - the pre-curser to having him overnight, don't make it every week otherwise it may become a chore, but I do think you should give her a chance to have a 'pop in' relationship with your son.

If you carry on being so possessive about your own little 'family time' every weekend and most evenings then your son will never have a close relationship with them and then one day you're parents will be gone or not able and you may regret being so protective of your me time.

if you saw them more you may not have to have 6 hour visits every time you do see them too! It could be that overall you see them for less time, but more often.

I think you’re being totally fair. Surprised how few people on this thread acknowledge how exhausting working a full working week is when you have a baby. Totally natural you’d want to spend a fair bit of your weekends chilling with your family unit.

It sounds like your mum wants contact but on her terms. Does she have a history of being like this? It’s great that she wants to spend time with the baby but the guilt tripping must be a lot to deal with.

You say that you have a good relationship so then I’d have a proper sit down chat with a cup of tea. One of the hazards of first time mumming is not realising that everything is a phase. In a few months or a year you might bite her hand off to have some help on weekends, so do bear that in mind. She should remember too that just because you don’t want overnight stays right now doesn’t mean that she will never have them.

Another of my mum’s friends used to look after her grandchildren full time and my mum said then she wouldn’t want to do regular childcare for grandchildren because she wants to be free to holiday. She’d mentioned it a few times and this was before I was even pregnant. Our nursery is really popular and we were having an issue that they couldn’t commit to five days and my parents knew this and didn’t offer. I didn’t ask because I know their position and since they haven’t offered it clearly that hasn’t changed. They’ve got a boundary there and I respect that and don’t want to make it awkward by bringing up something they don’t want to do.

Should men also commit themselves to unpaid full day work for their children to be included in the community? Or is it only women?

Yes men too! Granddads and grandma's alike!

I don't have male relationships so i didn't factor her dad in 😭, but it seems to be the mum who is complaining here

@HookedOnAusten pay no heed to all this here telling you you’re being mean and hogging your ds to the detriment of his grandparents. He’s only 15 months old, too early for many mums to consider overnights at grandparents especially if he’s still bf. You and your dp work ft, so of course you want to have a relaxing weekend with your family without specific rigid plans. She has had her own dc and was a sahm - presumably with no idea how hard your life is in terms of time away from lo, pickups/ drop offs/ chores/ life admin etc. Suggest they might like to pick up dc and bring him home if it suits you. But really, a visit once a month for a whole day and an overnight is fine! Perhaps explain it more fully to your mum and ask her to stop pestering! It’s your life and your little one.

@HookedOnAusten I absolutely see where you’re coming from. I think we must have similar relationships with our parents and the same demanding jobs etc.. I was exactly like you - valued my weekends as a family (me DP & DC) once I was back working full time, and got somewhat fed up with family members offering to babysit when DC1 was young, as if it was helpful when actually I hated every minute of being away from them! I love my parents, but I wouldn’t want to spend all my free time with them. They have their lives and I have mine. I saw them about the same amount you see yours and I think that’s fine.

I have an aunt who has run herself ragged looking after all her DGC and my mum occasionally mentions how close she is to them…but thankfully has the sense to rationalise what my aunt has given up to have that relationship - something my parents with their hobbies and holidays aren’t willing to do.

My DC are slightly older now (6,3) and my parents are more than willing to do childcare while we have a few nights away or over the school holidays when we’re struggling and it is VERY much appreciated. I overheard my mum say how much she loved doing it as it was a novelty to have the DGC all to herself since she didn’t provide childcare for us. So I think, in the future when your DC is older and you need the help, you might find your relationship with them is actually better thanks to setting these boundaries now.

YANBU - 4-6 weeks is fine, your low key weekends are necessary, your parents relationship
with your DC will be lovely and eventually you’ll take them up on the babysitting offer. But right now, keep doing what you’re doing!

So they aren't the kind of people that can just pop round casually? It always needs to be a full 'state visit'. That's annoying. I tried to get my MIL to visit more so she can be more casual and we don't have to entertain her, but she will only ever visit every 10 months! Then seems miffed when he doesn't know her that well. But maybe you could meet in the middle and meet at a park or something? And make it clear you only have an hour? To try to make things more easy going. Also the idea about her picking him up early from nursery sometimes seems a good one.