To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

[Notyourproblem]

AIBU to expect to get the same support from the grandparents as given to their own daughter?
I am married to their son. I am talking about child care time and effort (not talking about money)

YABU - no, it's common for parents to favour and support own daughter more.

YANBU - yes, same treatment for grandchildren support.

For context - we live closer that SIL and my husband is very close to his parents so no issues with relationships.

Case in point. I think this is what’s going over everyone’s heads; how it translates to the grandchildren. Unless you are conscious about treating all of them fairly, as a gp, you will likely show favouritism depending on the ones you provide childcare to. I actually think this is what gets to most parents really.

What an amazing mum, particularly with 5 kids to do that!

My parents definitely favoured my children to my brother’s. It didn’t help that he married a woman they despised.

That sounds reasonable, that you could offer to pay for care instead, but again, not everyone would have the capacity to do that.

This is one scenario I'm thinking of. When my DD was in hospital and worrying she could manage having a child, I told her she would have as much support as I could give her to help her and itemised what that could look like. She appreciated that, though I did caution her that things could change, so don't count on it, but that would be my intention.

As it turns out, one of my other children (I have a few with wide gaps) a couple of years later developed a medical condition that lead to serious immune suppression and she had to be protected from illness. They couldn't go around sick kids. Obviously, if I had grandchildren, this would have meant that I couldn't help if they were sick or be as available as I would have been when I had the first discussion. This younger child lives in my home, so I have to do my best to avoid sick kids myself.

Beyond my control, unpredictable. If I'd offered childcare to them, done it, and another child had a baby under the new circumstances, I might not have been able to be so helpful. There are other ways to support but it's not the same as the hands on, present help.

Sometimes also, equity and equality are different things.

I think it would be unreasonable to “expect” the GPs to change an existing commitment to existing grandchildren in order to accommodate your new children in the name of “fairness”. If this was important to you, it would have been a direct conversation I’d have had with them before having kids.

This is what worries me now since reading this thread.

I was in my late 40s when I became a granny.

My partner is 64 and has a teenager.

It is daft to think that we will be able to do the same if or when his dd has children. We will be at least 20 or 30 years older. He’s already almost 20 years older than I was at 64.

He has had 2 heart attacks and his ability to do a full day out is less than mine as it is.

So by the logic here, so as not to make his daughter feel resentful in however many years because we won’t be able to do it for her, we shouldn’t do anything for mine? How is that fair? Why should my children and grandchildren have to suffer because of a something that was nothing to do with me? (Him getting married later in life and him and his ex not having a family until he was pretty old.)

Yes.

My kids were shocked to find out that their cousins get carefully chosen birthday presents fitting their interests when my kids have always just had cash "because we don't know them well enough to choose anything"

Well yes if you choose not to spend any time with them, that will happen

You just the best you can with the circumstances as they are at the time. If that later changes, you do your best to fit with that. Any reasonable child knows things change and might not be the same.

It often reminds me a bit of the surname threads where lots of men mysteriously have lovely surnames and lots of women mysteriously have horrid names so it just makes more sense for women to change their names.

Somehow there's always a sensible reason that results in the daughter and her children getting more time and focus. You very rarely hear "my mum lives closer to my brother and he had kids first so she's just naturally closer to them and anyway my DH has his own mother to support us"

Not according to some of the posts on this thread.

It’s not allowed to be different. It has to be equal.

In my situation my husband is 10 and 12 years younger than his brothers. When he was in his 20s his mom actually lived with her nieces and nephews and played a big role in their upbringing. By the time my husband and I had kids, his dad had died and his mom had moved abroad and remarried. She’s never given a day or hour of childcare, although is very loving and interested from a difference. My own parents were our saving grace, but even when we had our third child, my mom said a hard no to any more childcare. She felt she’d done her time after my first two and because there was a six year age gap, she felt she couldn’t cope in the same way. My point being that circumstances change, people get older and sadly the more grandchildren come along, he smaller the slice of the pie you get. Not to mention novelty wears off. Tbf, I felt aggrieved at times, but now I’m getting older and my kids are, I can understand that I won’t want to be tied down once I eventually get my own kids off my hands. It’s a big commitment and often a thankless one.

@Drfosters not all GPs can afford to do that. What happens if circumstances change, and maybe GPs health, age can impact whether they can offer the same or equivalent to each adult DC. What if one adult DC didn’t have children, do you give them something, and if so when? I previously posted that there could be 20 years between age of children of DH and his brother. Health and circumstances of GPs have changed since then, do they still have to do something to make it fair.

If adult DC live further away when they have children, do GPs have to move so they can give childcare to make it fair? If other GPs provide childcare, then what do you do to make it fair?

What about the situation where GPs are still working when their first grandchild comes on the scene so can’t provide childcare (or are they expected to give up work so they can). Then their second child provides a grandchild after they have retired so they are available. Do they not offer with childcare because they couldn’t do it for their first grandchild?

Maybe, grandparents could just have a nice relationship with their grandchildren without having to provide childcare.

I'd hate to have to think the way some are suggesting. For example if I have a grandchild at age 60 and I want to help and enjoy spending time with them but I've got to always think "ah but I could have a new baby grandchild when I'm 80. Better not do anything that I wouldn't be able to replicate at that age". That seems a really negative and miserable approach.

MY mother will not have any substantial involvement with her (hopefully future) grandchildren. Despite being a "good mum".

I would absolutely understand you being older (if I was your DIL). But this?

I have 2 DILs and as much as I really really like them, they both have there own good mum's who I'm sure will be very involved when/if they have DC. ?

no, I wouldn't understand that. You are your son's good mother, aren't you??

It's not about expecting childcare, btw. It's about showing your sons and their (future) DGC the same amount of love and care as your DD's.

All of this.

We potentially could have over 30 years between grandchildren. My parents had almost that. My son was born when I was 16, and my youngest brother had his youngest at 42.

That’s exactly how I feel.

its interesting how much of the relationship with grandchildren is in relation to how much help and care is offered. When I was young I saw both sets of grandparents on a weekly basis. We went to them for tea or they came to us for the day. But they never cared for us. Similarly my own parents and in laws saw my children regularly, again it was social rather than care.

i see my granddaughter regularly and I did end up doing a lot of child care because it was an emergency but now I see her at weekends.

If feels like some people (by no means all) think of the grandparent relationship as one largely rooted in help, support and childcare rather than a social family relationship. It feels a bit transactional and mercenary. I’m not capable of looking after a baby or toddler now and I’d be very unimpressed if my value as a grandparent was predicated entirely on how much practical help I could offer

That's what my parents did. My mum wanted to offer 2 days to my sister but my dad said to her that would mean they'd need to offer me two days if I had a child, and then suddenly they'd have lost 4 days of their week. So they do one day for her, and as it goes I didn't need them to look after my DC so they've offered extra support to her if she wants it. If they'd told me that I couldn't have any help because sister is getting all of it, I'd have been hurt (given that our lives/income/children are very similar). To me, it's like saying you have your first child and give them everything because they're the only one. Then if you have a second, your first inevitably has to share the time and resources they've been used to. You don't just say sorry child 2, child 1 was here first and accustomed to having everything so I can't change that.

Obviously there are lots of other factors - if you don't talk to your adult kids about their plans and you have no idea if they even want kids then it probably wouldn't make much sense to plan ahead for it. But my parents knew we wanted a baby at the time my sister needed childcare.

Grandparents are obviously free to do as they wish and give their support as they see fit. But it's daft to think that won't cause resentment from their adult kids if they give one set of GC help and not the other.

That really depends on the circumstances. It would be a very unreasonable grown child who resented not getting the same help if there was a big change of circumstances between sets of grandchildren. Surely people have to recognise their parents as human who can't predict what life will bring and aren't immune to change?

Another approach could have been to offer two days and then offer to have all the grandchildren together on the same two days, rather than spread it over 4.

I don't think that is what most sil type posters are saying. I don't ever ask for meaningful childcare and I never have, a few hours every month or so and meet up as a family otherwise. We host everyone at holidays. The issue is when grandparents basically co parent one set of grandchildren and have little meaningful interaction with the others. If they were decades apart that is understandable, but is often not the case. That set of grandparents get so over involved in one set they loose all perspective on the others, prioritising meaningless things like returning some slippers over going to the school show, which isn't childcare. It is quite common for sil and extraordinaryly short sighted and emotionally immature

It’s about equity not equality. You can’t necessarily do the same for both due to different circumstances but in my view you can plan ahead and think this sort of thing through. My children are my absolutely world, I simply cant imagine not doing my absolutely best to ensure I treat them as equally as I can, even if involves having to use money rather than time to make the difference. Childcare is very expensive and I wouldn’t want to help one and then watch the other struggle.

Then there's the scenario that I would have felt completely suffocated if MIL had the same relationship with my family as she had with her DD. I'm glad she was busy there as I couldn't handle someone over daily, taking over my house and parenting.

Yeah I've said previously it's very dependent on circumstances and if one adult child is a single parent, has no support at all, or has a lower income, or if the child has SEN the grandparents aren't able to cope with or the grandparents are a lot older etc then that changes things. But in situations where that's not the case, giving one adult child dibs on all their childcare capabilities simply because their child had their kids first seems unfair to me.

The op hasn’t said what the age gap is between the grandchildren. And tbf her DH is a cheeky B offering up his parents for childcare without having even spoken to them.

@Drfosters that sounds like a good plan. I think my in laws have been very short sighted and because we have only ever attempted to have a few chats and still host etc they do not understand the depth of the issue. If they heard what my child had said when she heard whilst in single digit age that the other grandchildren who are both older and younger were going on the same big special holiday together they would have been devastated. Kids aren't stupid. It is only my son's manners that keeps us hosting at Christmas.