Grandparents

[PinkPonyClubb]

Am I being entitled?

One set of grandparents “We’ve raised children don’t expect our help.” Fair enough. We know where we stand.

The other set, prior to birth, wanted to be very hands on.

We now have two children.

”The hands on” grandparents are well, not hands on. Haven’t been since DD1.

We pay for all childcare as we wanted hands on grandparents to enjoy special time with their grandchildren and help when necessary. However, if we ask for help it all seems too much. An example - picking up from after school club once a week. PIL won’t, they don’t like the hassle of picking up but are happy to spend time with DC if hubby drops them off. We don’t get time together as a couple as we can’t always guarantee PIL will have the children. I get envious of friends who PIL will help with childcare so they can go the gym.

I know they are our children, I wouldn’t expect anyone else to have them. I just wish it was made clear that it’s always a no rather than saying they would love to help, make out to family and friends they are helping when they don’t. Am I entitled for feeling envious of others and expecting a little help? I feel the grandparents want childcare on their terms and never want to help? Is the normal? Am I just spoilt?

I love picking my kids up from school!

I sympathise and am in a similar position.
The grandparents that won’t help are the same ones who bemoan the breakdown of society and the family unit.
We live in such a selfish individualised society now. It’s hard to imagine a time when family actually helped one another out!
I will be doing things differently if and when my kids have kids!

Maybe it's just me that dreads the school run. Nightmare to park. Chaos in the playground. I can see why a grandparent wouldn't want to do this 'chore' and be more interested in the 'fun' stuff (or let me guess, on MN everyone also enjoys making tea everyday, homework night, reading, spellings too).

As others have suggested, can you drop the children off to the grandparents and arrange a set time e.g. Saturday afternoon for 2 hours? Maybe once a month? If they won't come to you, you could go to them to make it work and they wouldn't have the same barriers. They then perhaps get to do the fun stuff as grandparents and you still get a break.

Not all of us are obsessed with "parking at the gates" and stress ourselves so much we have to arrive 45mn because god forbid we would have to walk 5mn 😂

In most areas, parking is only a nightmare if you make it. Most schools have a strict catchment area, and many parents could walk anyway.

Chaos in the playground? Well, it's a school, children everywhere, but you only target the classes where you kids will come from, so it's not that exciting.

I genuinely don't understand what's to actually "dread".

This.

Its happened to me!
I had 4 of my own. Youngest only just in secondary. My eldest has a little one and i love the idea of doing days with her - but when it comes to it it knackers me out!

I don’t think you are being entitled @PinkPonyClubb i can’t see how you can build a relationship with grandchildren if you never blinking see or communicate with them, I pick my dgd’s up at least twice a week not because I have to purely because I love picking them up the sheer joy when they see me in the playground & little hands in mine as they chat about the day is priceless.
I help my dd because although she is an adult she is still my child & I will always be her mother I want to help her & give her a break I have them a couple of times a month for a sleepover which I love, spending time with them & giving them time & attention having fun, it’s so much easier than when I was parenting & felt as though it was a relentless hard slog at times, in return I have dgd’s who I know they adore spending time with us, I know what’s going on with them I even know what the latest meme are & can singalong to K Pop demon hunters.
I am lucky as they live close by, so it’s not difficult seeing them probably be much harder if the distance was hours rather than minutes, I dunno I don’t understand the hands off approach family is about helping & supporting maybe if I felt she took the piss I would feel differently, she doesn’t though & my life is all the richer for the bond I have with them. I feel for you OP.

It’s entitled to expect it, but I can understand being a bit jealous of those who have more support and I think that’s only natural. It can make your own life feel harder when you see people who have much more help.

We’ve been there, or rather we are there, in that my family are amazing but don’t do any kind of regular childcare and nor would I expect them to, my parents retired young to enjoy their lives and I am so happy they have the chance to do that, we all enjoy spending family time together doing things which is amazing, PIL are useless and our child wouldn’t recognise them if they walked into our house right now, so no support from them either. In contrast we have friends with kids who have never had to pay for nursery because grandparents did it all, friends who use nursery but have grandparents who do all pick ups, inset days, sick days etc, we have friends who have a night off every weekend or every other weekend, we have friends who had a 7 night couples holiday this summer while grandparents had the kids. Everyone has different levels of support & family involvement and I do think it can be hard if you’re surrounded by people who have a LOT of support, when you really don’t have much.

I would love to be able to pick up GCs from school and take them to various clubs but because of distance it tends to be for specific occasions (inset days where I/we will stay for a week look after GC and if they are in school use the opportunity to do the tourist stuff). Added bonus of parents being able to go out for the night or even stay in a hotel for the weekend.
Dates are often planned well ahead so we can fit round our own social lives and hobbies.

Well to me it is a chore and therefore I can quite see why @PinkPonyClubb wouldn't mind handing this over to the grandparents one day a week and I am sure in the real world many of us find it a bind.

PIL won’t, they don’t like the hassle of picking up but are happy to spend time with DC if hubby drops them off. We don’t get time together as a couple as we can’t always guarantee PIL will have the children.

So you do have grandparents available who want to spend time with their grandchildren, but you only want them to do it when it saves you a job and makes your life easier.

Why can’t you have couple time after DH drops the children off at his parents house if that’s what theirs be happy with? It’s about nurturing a grandchild/grandparent relationship which should be important to you whether or not it means you get to go to the gym.

Difficult to vote, as I do think YABU to 'expect' childcare, as a right.

OTOH, there have been many times over the years where I have felt sad (yes, and a little envious of others) that my in-laws never wanted to either look after their dgc (even 1 at a time, on their terms, for a couple of hours), nor wanted to help us out when we were struggling.

Ultimately though, it is their choice. We paid babysitters if we wanted to go somewhere together, or if one of us wanted to go somewhere when the other wasn't available. You can only ever start from where you are.

We never expected any help when we had our children but it still felt shitty when other friends got weekends away while their parents looked after their children.

We even had father in law living with us and he still refused to babysit! Our children are 17-23 and I can still count on one hand the number of times dh and I have had away together. (The oldest 2 are autistic so we didn’t feel comfortable earlier)

thankfully in the real world many of us actually like spending time with our children, and enjoy seeing them happy to see us at pick up. They walk home alone soon enough.

yanbu, unlucky to have two sets of GP who don’t want to spend time with the kids. This was us, no help whatsoever but plenty of judgment and opinions (whilst sitting on the sofa, drinking tea and talking about their holidays and ignoring the kids).

but, it’s not going to change. Make a better plan that doesn’t hope for a solution that won’t materialise, they do grow up, it does get easier. Mine are not little anymore and I wish I’d enjoyed it a bit more and not wasted energy raging at something that won’t change.

I disagree, it’s not a chore getting my child. I love it. I asked grandparents as both myself and DH work late, one night a week so both young children (YR / Y1) end up in club until 6pm. Initially PIL were excited to help and said yes. Then decided it was a task so would not help. We can’t change our finish time. So both young children end up with a really late night. PIL live a few minutes away. It annoys me they initially said yes then changed their minds, I feel guilty on my children as they ask why PIL won’t pick up anymore as they live that time. I also feel guilty for being a working parent. I suppose though, the guilt and jealousy of others is my fault and I’m just being entitled. I just wish I had that little bit of help.

I had the same feelings re late ASC nights, exhausted kids. Honestly you do need to make peace with it, you’ve got to work. So make that night pizza night or half an hour of tv night, turn it around for them.

My brother and his wife actually moved to within walking distance of my parents (from the other side of the country) on the back of my mum's claims that, having just retired before her first DGC's birth, she was "so sad" not to be more involved, "wished she could help" and wanted to be hands on and wanted to support SIL getting back to work by caring for DN (her first grandchild), especially as things were tight financially for them.

SIL and DB both got jobs near our parents (SIL three days a week) and moved across the country. My mum assured them she was excited about caring for DN (her DGC) three days per week - then changed her mind the second week, having realised that an 18 month old wasn't compatible with her vision of long lunches with friends, being on committees and going to hairdresser/ nail appointments.

She claimed she hadn't realised that DN was "such a handful" but there was nothing unusual about DN - perfectly average 18 month old. She just hadn't remembered what it was like looking after a toddler all day and had some kind of rose tinted fantasy of being a grandma admired by all her friends and toting a compliant, self contained little person around who'd sit at her feet or at the table in a restaurant contentedly colouring in for endless hours.

SIL had to give up her new job as DB had naively believed our mother would keep her word (yes, probably DB should have been the one to give up his job but it was the old story of him being full time and earning more).

It's the lies/ misrepresentation that are the reason YANBU.

It's fine to say no - not fine to promise then recant or lie and misrepresent to extended family to make the parents of f the grandchildren spund useless/ demanding/ ungrateful or make others think they receive endless help when they don't.

Did you PIL work when they had kids? I had an interesting conversation with my mother a few weeks ago when she was surprised about the number of grandparents she’d seen doing the school run. She was clear that isn’t something she would do even if she did live locally. Seeing the children would very much be on her terms rather than a childcare offer. It was clear from our discussion that as she was a STAHM the idea of grandparent care was alien to her and that very much impacts on her opinion now - whereas I who have struggle as a lone parent juggling full time work and before/after school childminders said it wouldn’t cross my mind not to help everyday if I could because I’m painfully aware of how difficult it is being a working parent in 2025

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable at all! I think you were expecting something that, for whatever reason, isn’t happening. Of course that’s disappointing.

both myself and DH work late, one night a week so both young children (YR / Y1) end up in club until 6pm.
Lucky you! I'm the same sort of generation as the grandparents in this case.
I had to work late / commute every night of the week, as did DH. It grates that you complain about your kids "ending up" in after school care - ASC was rare as hen's teeth when mine were young and I was very grateful that I managed to find a school that ran it.
The phrase "you don't know you're born springs to mind". Your generation continuously moan about boomers but seem to have no idea of the problems we faced. The world was not as accommodating of youngsters and their working parents back then. Be grateful for what you have.

Sorry OP sounds pretty normal to me. We get no help from PIL or my parents. The only time we're free of the kids is when they're in bed (neither started school yet). The only time I've ever been away from them was when I had a section with the second, which my partner stayed for an hour after the surgery then had to go home for DC1, and when I had to go to A&E after a fall 🙄 that's not a brag. I'm f#cking exhausted. I would LOVE even just a couple of hours!

Exactly @autumnevenings25 if my dc have kids, they’ll get a lot more help. It was brutal at times when they were small.

@TheFiveLakes shudders - so glad we didn’t take seriously any of the ‘if only you lived closer’ stuff - I’ve got friends whose gp live the other end of the country and still come up regularly and attend school event, babysit for weekends away and are still working themselves..commitment is the key thing.

Yes I was going to say, threads on mumnset are fine but if you have real life mum friends, try and have fun with them as everyone finds it hard on some lines even if they have GP help - maybe they have bad sleepers, a dc that catches every bug, one that hates schoool/nursery or they’re worrying about their relationship or how they’ll pay their bills etc. etc. maybe their grandparent help comes with a price tag of undermining and snide remarks.

I say this as the anger driven by tiredness mostly fixated on the lack of help for me for a couple
of bad years and really, it makes you come across as no fun and gets in the way of building a network of mum friends.

You say you wouldn’t expect anyone else to have them, but your whole post is how you expected your in laws to have them.

Being envious is not being entitled. It’s just being envious.

Expecting your parents to look after your children is being entitled.

Maybe they don’t want a regular weekly commitment, but are happy to babysit on the odd occasion. At least you don’t have interfering in-laws!