I’m a SAHM with three children aged 6, 3 and a newborn. Since my first child was born, my mum has been very involved, both in a “fun grandma” way and in a very practical and supportive way, especially around births and during particularly intense periods. My husband runs his own business, works long hours.
Around the time each baby was born, she was the person who came over to support me. She cooked, cleaned, did laundry, held the baby so I could rest, and made sure I ate. When my second was born I had a difficult and quite scary birth, struggled with breastfeeding, was bleeding a lot, leaking milk, and walking around bra-less most of the time. My mum was the one who dealt with the messy realities, washing bloody sheets, cooking while I fed the baby, and generally helping me get through that phase. I simply would not have felt comfortable with my MIL doing that, and realistically she would not have offered anyway.
Outside of those periods, my mum still comes over more often, largely because we have a close relationship and we want to see each other. She also tends to come with the intention of taking some of the load off me. That might look like coming over to do some cooking so I can take the kids to the park for longer, helping out on a rainy day during holidays when looking after three kids indoors feels like a lot, or doing the school run if one child is teething or unwell. It is very much about practical help rather than being hosted.
Because of this, my mum has naturally spent more time in our home and, by extension, with the children. She is not coming over specifically to see the kids. She is coming over to see me and help out, and the kids are part of that. This is also not something that started because I had children. Even before kids, my mum would come over to see me, although less to help out and more to just hang out, see her daughter. My MIL never really did, and the relationship has always been more formal and distant.
In contrast, my MIL tends to come over expecting to be hosted. She expects a cup of tea, biscuits, and conversation. She wants the visit to be pleasant and sociable for her. She likes the kids to engage with her and perform a bit, showing her things, playing nicely, and interacting on her terms (ie she’ll sit on the sofa and want the kids to play around that sofa, keep telling them to be careful around her hot tea and not to bring anything mildly messy near), but she does not come over to take pressure off me. I generally find her visits more work than help.
Recently my MIL has started making comments that the kids are closer to my mum than to her, and implying that this is because I have not made enough effort to foster that closeness. I find this upsetting and unfair. I am already stretched thin with three small children, and I do not feel it should be my responsibility to engineer a relationship when the difference seems to come from fundamentally different approaches. My husband is also taking MIL’s side because in his eyes he provides very well financially (which is true) but at the expense of working very long hours and he simply doesn’t have the time to come home at 3-4pm so that MIL could have a decent length visit before bedtime. He sometimes works on weekends, and when he doesn’t we try to enjoy family time or squeeze in activities that we’d like to do as a whole family, like a short holiday or an event.
I also feel that, particularly with young children and a newborn, it is reasonable to prioritise support over entertaining guests, and that it is natural I gravitate towards the person who genuinely helps and the person I’m comfortable to be myself fully around.
So am I being unreasonable, or is my MIL being unfair by blaming me for a dynamic that has largely been shaped by her own behaviour?