To charge my MIL for childcare since she’s stopped helping halfway through the summer holidays?

[CookyPsych]

Bit of a WWYD/AIBU combo here really. MIL offered to do 3 days a week childcare over the summer hols to help us out as I’ve gone back to work FT. All smiles and “of course I’ll help” back in June. Great. We sorted everything round that.

Fast forward 2 wks in and she’s suddenly “too tired” (she’s 62 and quite fit tbh) and now only wants to do one day. No discussion, just dropped it on us Monday morning. DH is useless and doesn’t want to “rock the boat” 🙄

Cue me panicking and having to scrabble round for emergency nursery cover and begging favours off other mums. It’s cost us £300 already and that’ll keep rising. We wouldn’t have booked her in if MIL had stuck to what she agreed. Feel like we’re being taken for mugs.

WIBU to ask MIL to contribute to the cost? I’m not expecting full whack but surely if she pulled out of what she offered halfway through, she should at least chip in?

DH thinks I’m being harsh but I’m just knackered and stressed and feel like she’s left us in the lurch. Honest opinions pls before I actually say anything to her.

You can’t charge her. Suck it up and pay for your childcare.

Your MIL should reconsider providing you with free childcare one day a week,

In light of how grateful you are, I think your MIL would be well-advised not to provide any free childcare.

I think your MIL is shitty tbh.

SHE proposed to look after the dcs.
She waited until the very last minute to tell you she doesn’t want to do it.
Its crap behaviour.

Can you ask her re payment? Well it’s likely to be very badly received.

But I would have no issue in telling her 1- how hard things are re organising childcare with no notice and 2- I would actually not trust her at all and wouldn’t trust her to actually have the dcs during the hols. I would tell her that she won’t have the dcs at all over the summer.

Oh I would involve your dh. Because if we’re honest, if you can’t cover all the days needed now, then he’ll have to take some hols to cover. (Because just as clearly you won’t be able to).

This was exactly my first thought.

The second was that OP sounds bonkers.

So you basically want to charge her for providing one day of free childcare per week and disregard the fact that has she not offered to do childcare you would have had to pay for all the days?

Wow.

Wow - one of the most unreasonable posts I’ve seen here! She’s in her 60s for crying out loud! She probably wanted to be helpful and just found it all too much. Which is entirely understandable.

I would remember this next time she offers to help out say no in fact if you can remove the one day a week obligation from her shoulders to spare her energy I absolutely would and I would discuss with your DH about getting support in for her because she is clearly struggling

Of course Op (& her husband) would have to pay i MIL hadn't offered.

They would also have already organised it & not be scrabbling around last minute.

If I were MIL I'd be offering something as I would feel so bad about letting you down.

I mean, the OP should be grateful that her MIL offered 3 days but decided to not do that with no notice at all??
Leaving the OP in the shit scrambling around to find alternative childcare.

Sorry but in my world, being reliable is a thing.
And if you can’t be reliable, you dint propose the moon and then say NO.

She could easily have said she was going to do adhoc days instead.

That sort attitude is not help. That’s not being kind. That’s adding stress agd problems to people.
I would actually not not trust her again with any proposal of ‘help’ tbh.

Did you actually sit down Roth her and talk about exactly what help you needed or did you just think as she’d offered to help out it was ‘x’ amount of days, when she was only thinking it was ‘c’ day. It may well be a miscommunication- you assumed and never bottomed out.

however, your child and therefore your responsibility. I’m only 50 and find looking after our DGC exhausting so YBU

No you can't ask her to pay. It's annoying that she's let you down short notice, but you'd have to pay it if she'd said no from the start anyway. Besides, it sounds like she didn't offer, you asked.

YABU

Talk about cut your nose off…

First post nails it.

Except it’s likely that the OP is going to pay much more now because she’ll have to organise different things for different days vs if she had gone with one ‘provider’.

It’s hard enough to find CM etc…. To do so with no notice is 100x harder.

X post with you!

And you weren’t even paying HER for her time!

Still not a reason to charge the MIL

What a weird concept!

Omg no. Your kids your childcare cost. Did you really think this was a reasonable question to ask?

The first answer is spot on - why isn’t your h organising alternative care if it’s no big deal?

I think that MIL shouldn’t have to pay but you need to not take her future offers seriously.

No of course you can’t charge her!

But this is not the same scenario, because you didn’t offer 3 days per week in the first place.

OP, are there no holiday clubs you can put the kids in?

I always think parents are fully responsible for their children and relatives don't owe you anything but I just think if you say you are going to do something for someone, you should do it really, especially if your dropping them in it by pulling out.

I don't think you can really ask her for the money. I think your husband needs to speak to her. "They're our children and they're our responsibility but if you agree to look after them for x amount of days, we will be relying on that and pulling out at short notice has put us in a really difficult position. We've had to spend x amount of money on holiday clubs unexpectedly, and it's been really stressful making arrangements last minute."

If your husband won't be accountable for managing relationships on his side of the family, he can be fully responsible for resolving this mess that you have been landed in. If course he thinks it's not a big deal, he's not the one scrambling around solving the problem.

In my opinion being "too tired" isn't a good enough excuse for a short term commitment like this. Fair enough if her circumstances had changed but just being too tired, she's letting you down massively.

And personally, I might give her the benefit of the doubt and think maybe she bit off more than she could chew and that she would make a more realistic offering of childcare next time but if anything remotely like this happened again, I would choose not to rely on her for childcare.

This!