MIL not putting in effort and then complaining she feels “left out”.

[Conversationalcheddar]

We have two small dc, 3 and 7mo. From the start my mum has been by my side helping with the kids, having older dc over night when I went into labour, offering to take kids at the weekend to give us a break, and LOVES time with the grandchildren. She would be here all the time if she could. She calls every day, sometimes multiple times a day, to talk to dc. I’m so grateful, her attention to the kids warms my heart. Both dc adore her.

MIL isn’t really involved. She sends Christmas and birthday presents. She has met younger dc twice and sees older dc maybe 2-3 times a year. But we always have to go to her, she won’t come to us because she “doesn’t like driving” but will drive the same distance to her sister’s every week. Even just after younger dc was born, she asked us to come to her to meet dc. She doesn’t call. She never asks after the kids.

Without thinking, I Made a soppy post on instagram about how much I appreciate my mum and everything she’s done for me in 2025. My mum has instagram and i wanted to make a public acknowledgment of everything she’s done (I also bought her a very thoughtful Christmas gift and am planning something big for Mother’s Day). But MIL saw it (she doesn’t have instagram but her adult dd does so I’m guessing adult dd showed her). She has sent dh a long and aggressive message about how she feels left out and about how unfair it is and how unappreciated she feels. She said she feels like she “can’t compete”. She. Is. Not. Involved. She chooses to not make an effort. I said to dh, even if she just called once a week to speak to the kids, that would be amazing but she just doesn’t. And now she’s annoyed at not receiving acknowledgement for something she doesn’t do. Now, I appreciate I probably shouldn’t have made the instagram post (maybe) but honestly, I didn’t even think about her when making it. Again, because she includes herself so little in our lives that how it reflected on her didn’t even cross my mind.

AIBU for acknowledging my very involved mother and not including MIL in a token way? I appreciate it would have cost nothing to just throw in a token “and we are grateful for MIL too” as well, even if it wasn’t true.

YANBU, someone who doesn’t make an effort cannot expect to be thanked for being involved.

I'm the same thoughts. It's a pleasure to spend time with my grandbaby. I don't see it was giving a break to his parents.

It's important that grandkids actually knows you and feel comfortable with you to step in for "emergencies' so that poster is unlikely to have that problem either. Kids sense uninterested family members.

He should reply to his mum directly rather than allowing his sister triangulate and shit-stir.

He definitely needs to really think through what he wants from the conversation.….
At the same time his mother sounds like a very immature person. She is jealous of someone doing what she won’t and doesn’t want to do.
There is zero, absolutely zero, point in trying to have a constructive conversation with a person who is going to leap down your throat (which she will - where has SIL learned that from!)
Maybe he can open the door with “SIL said you were unhappy about Cheddar’s IG post, do you want to talk about it. Or was it just venting a bit and she shouldn’t have mentioned it to me?” Then it puts the ball in her court - if she doesn’t go any further just forget about it. Her emotions are not yours to be placating and soothing.

The other thing of course is about the quality of the time. My kids spent approximately equal time with both sides of the family. But with my parents it was always better because they were interested in the kids themselves as people. Until quite late in the teenage years they were seen by PIL as a task or burden, and it isn’t about which side of the family it was, there are great aunts and uncles that they enjoy visiting: because those people are interested in the kids themselves.

I had to have a little chuckle at that too! Being nearer 70 and running social media accounts for several organisations! BTW OP YANBU

OP I think I would either go with what a PP suggested and just ask her how she would like to be more involved or just ignore it completely.

I'd also be blocking the shitstiring SIl from my SM as well.

Maybe DH could get social media and he can do a soppy post. You can help him.

A woman who expects a newborn to be driven to her because she doesn’t like driving will never be reasonable!

This exactly.

You know what you are doing @Conversationalcheddar.

... in breaking news: People are different.

When my mum was well my children were her Ikigai (reason for being)
She loved it and was similar to OPs mum.

Not everyone is like that. We value family both as individuals and culturally.

If i was not wprking id personally rather join a different walking club and help out my.db and sil and spend time.with my niece / nephew one morning a week.

I hate when people come on here and disparage families being caring for each other or accepting support as weird / unnatural/ selfish.

As it is we now have zero help accept for paid and i dont prefer it, neither does my dm.

Everyone can do what they want but I think the OPs set up is much nicer / more loving for everyone.

No idea whether youre bring unreasonable or not, as we don't know the full story. Personally I always wonder why people post gushing #blessed #soproud #so whatever, and not just speak to the person directly to thank them?

maybe ponder why you need to post publicly, why does everyone need to know how wonderfully helpful and perfect your mum is...? Other people are dealing with their own shit, and these posts always seem a bit smug and self congratulatory and make me cringe tbh. And I can see why posting could come across as a bit of a dig to someone who for whatever reason isn't so wonderful or perfect.

SIL isn't the shitstirrer here

I don't think DIL's mother would do what the op's mother does.

We will support our grandchildren significantly, but that support will not comprise wall to wall childcare in our retirement and following a combined total of 80 years of professional roles. We are mid 60s and whilst mentally agile, we do not have the physical stamina we had in our mid 50s. It would not stretch to running after toddlers all day after a broken night.

Good opportunity for DH to have a chat with his DM, explain that the IG post was you/your mum and nothing to do with her. Also to ask her why she feels left out when there's nothing coming from her?

Sounds like SIL and MIL were likely running you down...why would SiL show her dm the post in the first place? She likely knew it would kick off something unpleasant.

Sounds like you have a lovely relationship with your DP, your DC are very lucky. Similar set up to my DP. DH parents offered fuck all when our DC were young, MIL said what yours said too so I was very careful with what I asked of them. When she complained about DC never going to see her when they learnt to drive DH had that conversation with her about 'you get what you put in'. She wasn't best pleased.

Mil has reacted because she knows she isn't as involved and doesn't want to be.
Because your mum is she has had a reaction to this.
It's as simple as that.
Its about MIL leave her to it you can say thankyou as much as you want to your mum ignore the mil reaction if she is not as involved that's ok but it's her it's bothering.

She doesn’t want to be more involved - she just wants your mum to be less involved and stop making her look bad. So no concern for you, your DH or your kids’ wellbeing. I’d argue that she is a rancid cow, at least partly.

Have you actually read and understood the ops posts? Mil will NOT drive to their home, asked op to drive to hers a week or two ppl, doesn’t respond to photos etc, says she’s raised her own and will not be raising gc. Etc etc

I think it's going to be key that your DH speaks with her one-on-one about all this, about her having unreasonable expectations and also her bad behavior. We had some similar difficulties when our kids were baby/ toddlers and it would have become a much bigger problem if he hadn't set her straight.

OP's MIL isn't on any social media so OP wouldn't have expected her MIL to have even seen her post to her mum.

You are accusing OP of nefarious motives for posting a thank you to her mum on social media that her MIL never sees. You obviously think that she did it deliberately to upset her MIL but you have no evidence for that at all.

OP and her mum come from a different culture where grandparents are much more actively involved with their adult children and grandchildren.

I’m a Granny to a 2yo little boy, we’re the PILs who live 3hrs away, DDIL’s family live about 10mins away. Her parents, thankfully, do the childcare when both DS2 and DDIL are at work because they’re both nurses, working 12 hour shifts so I’m not sure how it would work otherwise. They obviously see DGS a lot more than us, but that’s logistics and he’s very loved by all of us.

DS2, DDIL, DH and I have a group chat on WhatsApp, that predates DGS’s birth. We all communicate on there, by sending photos, videos and messages to, but we obviously do communicate in other ways too when we need to talk about other things that we don’t necessarily want one or the other to see, like birthday presents.

When DGS is at home, they FaceTime us 3 or 4 evenings a week, after his tea. I don’t send the call, they do, because sometimes he might be too tired or grumpy, or not feeling well or his tea time might have ran over so he might not be ready. Believe me, just because I haven’t pressed the call button doesn’t mean I don’t want to speak to him, I desperately do.

Last week we were at their house because his birthday was Boxing Day. He climbed on the sofa with a book and said “Nanny (his other grandmother) read it to me” she said “How about Granny reads it, I read lots of books”, he was insisting she read it, so she said “I’ll just go for a wee, then I’ll read it…” she went upstairs, not to the toilet, so he’d give the book to me, which he happily did.

She takes him to a toddler group where he saw Santa and had lovely photos done. She got all of them printed off and framed for me and DH for Christmas. The kindness made me cry. She said it’s better that we all get on for DGS, and it’s true. She, also, said, when DS2 & DDIL have to work over Christmas, which they will do at some point we’re more than welcome to spend Christmas with her and her DH so we get to see DGS.

At the end of the day most grandparents just want to spend time with their grandchildren. Phone lines go two ways, as do roads. It’s all about give and take.

@Conversationalcheddar YANBU to have posted the post to appreciate your Mum - everyone can post whatever they want on their socials and you sending one appreciation post isn’t disregarding or exposing the MIL . (And im
not even in SM) I do find it strange that the SIL sent the post to the MIL - it’s so petty and juvenile.

If MIL is upset about her involvement she can act life an adult and say, “I’d really like to spend some more time with the kids this year, how can we do that so it works for everyone” instead of acting like another child you have to manage sending a long complex messgae and saying “I can’t compete.”

On the other hand, playing devils advocate - it is a lot easier for your mum to be involved being 10mins down the road and you obviously have a much better relationship with her so she as a result has more access to her dgc (which isn’t a problem) - but if your own mother lived an hour away would you be so annoyed if you had to drive down to see her now and again? I say this as my own mother lives nearly 5 hrs away and I travel down with my dc regularly despite working, she comes up (less so because she doesn’t like driving motorways alone) and we do do regular video calls. My parents eventually plan to move abroad in the future and as much as possible I will try and see them as I love them and want to see them and I want my dc to have a relationship with them.

It sounds like you’ve not got the best relationship with MIL anyway as you call her standoffish a lot and I’ve found myself it can be such a difficult dynamic especially when PIL are so different so expectations are different( I also come from a different cultural and ethnic background from my PIL). On the face of it your MIL is being childish and silly and people on MN wilk make you feel vindicated for that - but longer term, if your DH wants his parents to have a good relationship with his children then he needs to speak to his parents and and try and work out a way that this could work. Has meeting up halfway as you suggested been discussed in the past? He should explore why she feels like a SM post of you appreciating your Mum is a competition. He should ask his Mum if she feels like she isn’t able to see the children because you’re happy for her to see them at anytime but obviously the drive is prohibitive so it needs to be give and take. You’ve stated it makes your DH sad because he wants his family to be more involved so use this as an opportunity to have the conversation about that and try and put practical steps in place. I would be keeping one eye on the SIL and/or asking DH to have a strong word with her.

Why? Mil doesn't have SM. Shitstiring SIL showed it to her.

I think you just need to acknowledge the message by saying something along the lines of
”We’re sorry you feel that way, do you have any suggestions about how we can make you feel more included in DC lives?”
Lob the ball firmly back in her court. I hate driving, I can drive but if my sons moved miles and miles away that relied on my driving I probably wouldn’t visit as much as I would if I lived around the corner.
i may have missed it in your posts but I’m guessing your mother lives logistically closer to you to have the level of involvement she does.
Your MIL can’t have it both ways, she can’t not bother then moan that she isn’t included which is why I would ask her how she thinks she can me more involved.
My children barely see my IL, both sides made lots of effort with the older ones as they were the first grandchildren. Once my SIL had her children mine were pretty much left to it, despite us being closer to them logistically. It bothered me a lot at first, I would try and engage and not get anything back and I felt sad for my youngest one who is the same age as the others but then I just dropped the rope and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I leave it to DH to sort out any meet ups and he doesn’t because he says they are all self absorbed 🥴😂
I think my youngest has seen his parternal grandparents twice in the last year, the oldest ones perhaps once. If my MIL sent me a message about it I would shrug it off and carry on.

Oh we have similar with other half’s mum. Want to be treated equally yet each grandparents relationship is very different. So it will never be equal. She is same with his brother’s family too. I can’t understand what it’s about, she doesn’t want to spend much time with the grandchildren, she moans about them behind their backs and when she does see them she turns it into all about her and how she expects her grand children to behaviour. It’s so bizarre.

luckily she has directed her nonsense at your partner, try not to get dragged into it and leave them too it.

Exactly, is OP supposed to have secretly drafted SIL in to start shit stirring as well? Idiotic.

This has warmed my soul and is exactly what
it should look like 💕💕💕 you both sound like great GPs !

The other thing of course is about the quality of the time. My kids spent approximately equal time with both sides of the family. But with my parents it was always better because they were interested in the kids themselves as people. Until quite late in the teenage years they were seen by PIL as a task or burden, and it isn’t about which side of the family it was, there are great aunts and uncles that they enjoy visiting: because those people are interested in the kids themselves.

Good point @tpu

My DP engaged with the kids, played their games, on arthritic knees 😆, took them to the park, helped with homework, baked cakes, talked to them, showed them to tie shoelaces, explained tv programs...My in-laws on the other hand just sat there and more or less ignored them to talk to us about their latest shopping trip/gp appointments/the neighbours sisters daughters ailments...and MIL can't understand why DGC's don't visit 🤷‍♀️

MIL DSis would see our DC maybe twice a year at family gatherings, and she would engage with them, asking them about their lives, school, university, driving lessons (whatever) and MIL would try and encroach on these conversations by saying 'when I learnt to drive...' or 'there was no such thing as further education in our day...' her DSis would say 'I'm not asking you, I'm asking your DGC'. She had a face like a cats bum after that...I had to leave the room I was laughing so much.

So yeah, the engagement with little people is really important in building future relationships.