Stop being grabby and entitled and using false arguments to try to turn your mother into your servants

[Youlittlenightmare]

Posting in AIBU for traction, not because I think I'm wrong - I know I'm right in fact :) But this is where many of the grabby, problematic mumsnetters turn up to have a whinge and make false arguments. So this is for all of you.

And let’s be clear, if you're a grandmother who genuinely loves caring for your grandchildren, good for you. This thread is not for or about you. If your own mother happily provides childcare and truly enjoys it, lovely. This thread is not or or about you either.

This is about dismantling a stubborn and deeply illogical belief that if a grandmother declines the burden of childcare, she somehow forfeits the right to see her grandchildren.

No one is owed childcare from their mother. End.

It does not matter whether she had help when raising you, other people’s sacrifices are not items on a balance sheet for you to cash in later. Older women are not public utilities, nor are their remaining years a communal resource to be allocated by their adult children. They are human beings with dignity, autonomy, and the absolute right to say no for any reason whatsoever.

They have already done the work. They raised their children. Their duty is complete.

But what is especially irritating is how often two completely separate things are deliberately conflated with the dreary refrain of “Well then she can’t expect visits from the grandchildren.”

This is a logical failure.

Childcare is work. It is labour intensive, draining, time consuming, and often physically demanding.

A family visit is not work. Bringing your children to see their grandmother, spending time together, sharing conversation and affection, that is family life. It is a relationship, not a work shift.

To collapse those into the same category is a false equivalence.

If you dislike your mother so much that visiting her feels like a burden, like work, then of course you definitely do NOT want her to shoulder the burden of your job of parenting. That would be quite mad, imagine wanting your children under the care of a woman you would prefer never to spend time with.

If seeing her is a chore and you consider it a job then asking her to work for you (generally for free) is absurd.

If she wants to see you more often than you can manage that is QUITE another matter, just see her when you can, like normal people do.

But if you love your mother, you will want to see her because she is family, because you enjoy her company, because relationships exist for their own sake.

That bond is not, and should never be, contingent on whether she performs even more physical labour after decades of already doing exactly that.

These are the three coherent possibilities - you visit your mother with the children because you love her and enjoy being together. Otherwise known as normal family life.

The second possiblity is that you do not want a relationship with your mother, in which case you would neither visit nor expect free labour from her.

The third possiblitiy is that your mother freely chooses to provide childcare, which is her decision alone and not something anyone is entitled to demand nor contingent upon anything else.

What is not logically defensible is weaponising access to grandchildren as punishment because she refused unpaid work. That's coercion dressed up badly in sentiment.

It's not complicated - family connection and visits are a relationship. Childcare is labour. These two concepts are not interchangeable, and one should never be made conditional on the other or compared to the other.

And finally those of you who claim the relationship with her grandchildren will be stronger if an exhausted older women is forced to do your job of parenting - maybe. Maybe not. Nobody has the slightest idea of how kids will feel about their grandparents or parents as they grow up and a lot of grandmothers would gladly relinquish a "closer" relationship with their grandchildren if it meant they could put their exhausted feet up after a lifetime of labour, or go out when they want as they want doing what they want, without first running it past their dictator daughters.

So, all of you who keep trying to confuse what is actually a very simple concept with this nonsense - just stop now.

If you are demanding child care from your mother and trying to couch it in any way as anything she "should" do because "reasons", trying to conflate famly visit with her doing unpaid work that she did for decades already - you're an awful person, and are perpetuating the misogyny of treating women like commodities to be shared.

Stop throwing a tantrum, get on with parenting your own kids and visit your mother, or don't. For many of you, not visiting would be doing her a favour.

I am an older woman who is happy to agree to the intensive labour of free childcare a couple of times a week because I choose to. An older woman who would instantly tell you exactly where to go if you ever asserted your entitlement or attempted to tell me what I "should" do with my own precious, irreplaceable and limited time on this earth. An older woman who will decline childcare if I want to, when I want to and be treated respectfully regardless.

Signed - an older woman who is sick of your entitled bullshit. We see you.

Stop it.

No thank you, we don't need to defend the indefensible. Everything was covered by the initial post.

This keyboard is sticky and not very large and I am posting on the go . I apologise for the typos.

Well ‘we’ do feel like it. You have made your points, others are making theirs.

All these grandparents refusing to help, I'm interested to know if you worked during raising your own kids or if you were a housewife that stayed home ?

My MIL never looked after my kids when they were little, we asked once when we were decorating the hallways, living room and stairs when our eldest was about two and into everything and she was honest and just said " no, I don't feel confident enough"
I'm so glad she just actually told us the truth, and not "oh I can't then but maybe next time, but I can't on Friday, but I might be able to on the 12th of blah blah "

We didn't ask her again, but she still came round once or twice a fortnight, still saw them and has a great bond with them, especially now they're older.
It made me actually think of her more as a friend than a MIL I think. I hope I have the confidence to say that if I need to and not people please so much.

She's 70 next month and honestly living her best life at last.

Just to add, we paid for nursery for ours and it's ridiculously expensive, even with the measly sibling discount lol.

Everything you wanted to say may have been in the original post. Other people have different views that they find also relevant to the topic. What did you think would happen when you post on an internet forum?!

I’m not derailing anything, I’m directly addressing points in your OP. You don’t like what I’m saying which is fine but it is totally relevant to what you posted.

Do you understand how a forum works??

You're absolutely right that grandmothers are not obliged to proved childcare.

But your argument about family visits and how a woman who doesn't want to visit her visit her mother because a family visit isn't much fun with her kids should not possibly want her mother to provide childcare is a crock, though.

A woman who is run off her feet does not have the same time to visit other people and make her children pleasant to be around for someone else's sake. She might have liked visits before kids but find that she is too knackered in the midst of toddler years with no help. Or that her own mother is not nearly as nice to her when the children are there. That doesn't mean she thinks her mother would be terrible at childcare. It means she's running on empty and her mother is not a positive addition to her life. If she's always hated her mother and then you're right - wanting her to do childcare would be foolish. But that's not a common scenario, at least on her.

A woman doesn't owe her mother visits with her children any more than she owes her husband sex. Both relationships are at risk if there isn't a mutual exchange of understanding and support, reciprocity and love. That support might not include childcare, but if that is all the woman needs and she isn't getting it from anyone she may just not have the space she needs to do the things others want of her nor feel well inclined towards them.

When my niece and nephew were younger and my sister was working my parents were giving childcare and it was a hassle for them and I did just think she was a bit entitled and should have arranged her own paid for childcare and if she couldn't do that then she shouldn't work. Just people can't always get everything they want. My parents didn't help me, maybe I would have worked when my son was little if they had

It doesn't, actually, matter of course, since the principle that older women do not exist as a resource for others is irrefutable.

But sure you can try to categorise women who choose not to give away their unpaid labour and irreplaceable time to others.

You won't get any sort of useful answer here of course, not even for such a straw poll, far too many confounding variables.

No, no, sorry but everything already covered by the original post.

A woman doesn't owe her mother visits with her children any more than she owes her husband sex. Both relationships are at risk if there isn't a mutual exchange of understanding and support, reciprocity and love.

I feel like the dynamics of these relationships are completely different. I don't think it's comparable really.

Lots of you seem to be ̶d̶e̶l̶i̶b̶e̶r̶a̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ ignoring this sentence - "If she wants to see you more often than you can manage that is QUITE another matter, just see her when you can, like normal people do."

It is deliberately terse since I wasn't about to allow a lot of hypothetical guff to overwhelm the core premise.

IIf you can't manage visits, tell them and do what you can. Or don't. Like a normal person.

The proposition is NOT "my mum wants more visits than I am able to or prepared to offer) - write your own thread on that if you like.

The point is that your mother wanting visits is QUITE a different proposition from you inflicting unpaid difficult and demanding labour on her OR ELSE.

But you already knew that didn't you😏
Hope this helps.

Well I mean, obviously :) When all else fails try to collapse two categories into one and make bizarre comparisons. It's the same game they're playing with the "no visits for you" threat, attempting to compare it to the actual hard labour of childcare.

There's actually no argument against what I said, so illogical comparisons are the grasping at straws last gasp of the entitled dictator daughter.

Ok, I might leave it there and maybe come back later - or maybe not as I am satisfied that there is no flaw in my original post. The only arguments have been illogical comparisons and attempts at derailing.

Like I said, I posted here for traction, not because I thought for a second I might be wrong :)

Breeching the armadillo armour of the entiled dictator daughters, one post at a time - I fervently hope. 😉

I don’t understand why nearly all the criticism is levelled at the daughters. There seems to be an assumption that only daughters are responsible for organising childcare. Where are the children’s fathers in this?

I think it's just the reality that a lot of men don't play a part in organizing any of it

If you love your grandchildren spending time with them is precious and if you love your child helping them is also fulfilling and rewarding. It is ALL part of family life.

The bond between grandmother and grandchild will never be the same if built over just “family visits” vs time alone between child and grandmother. It’s never going to be as close.

why did you have children if you despise this work so much ? Did you not think that eventually you’ll have grandchildren?

I agree grandparents don’t owe childcare.

However your post suggests that there is no link between whether grandparents offer childcare or general support, and whether they get visits. You set it out as if they are entirely separate decisions. I don’t agree.

If my parent makes it clear that they don’t want to spend any of their retirement time helping me with my kids - even if I am on my knees with non sleeping kids and a demanding job while they are healthy with very few demands on their time - then that is inevitably going to affect how I feel about them and how much I feel like going to see them. I am less likely to feel close to my parent and want to see them lots if they put themselves first during my difficult times, I don’t think that’s exactly surprising.

Moreover, the kids are far more likely to enjoy seeing a grandparent who they see regularly, who has toys at their house, who knows their routines and what food and stories and songs they like, whose home is a second home to them, than a grandparent who only sees them on visits and has very little experience of taking care of them. This will also affect how keen I am as a parent to visit.

This isn’t saying “no childcare so no visits” in a tit for tat way. It’s just an inevitable consequence. If you choose to do other things with your free time, that is entirely your prerogative, but you must expect that that you will have a different sort of relationship with your adult kids and grandkids than a grandparent who chooses to spend their time with their grandkids. You can’t expect it not to affect how keen everyone is to visit you.

I think you need to look up the definition of 'straw man'.

Your OP fits the bill.

I’m not a Grandmother but have 2 young adult daughters.

Reading this thread has made me feel a bit sad about the dynamics and how systems operate based on a lot of expectations, it seems.

I care so deeply about their welfare and as things stand at the moment, would want to be available and supportive for them in their lives. What I hope we’ve laid the foundations for is open communication and that there is no simmering resentment towards myself or others because they feel like they are owed or deserve particular things.

If I have grandchildren, I’d feel my main role is to look after my daughters well being, knowing how busy she’d be and what pregnancy and childcare costs emotionally and physically. Having good relationships with grandchildren I feel is to do with bonds, not babysitting and being free childcare. I will help all I can but not to my own detriment and I can’t imagine either daughter not caring if it’s inconvenient, too much or us not being able to discuss it all in detail to rule out any ill feelings on either side.

I really hope that my daughters have adequate support systems in their partnerships , friendships and communities too as that’s what makes a difference on the day to day basis.

Why? You can accept that a woman doesn’t owe sex but can’t accept that she doesn’t owe her mother visits? 😂

Honestly this post just makes you sound unhinged. I'm sure you have a valid point but come across as a person far too angry and unpleasant to engage with.