AIBU to think our current grandparent visits are fair?

[Pinkmondays]

Trying to keep this as short as possible, is the following - in your opinion - adequate time with family (we have 3 sets of grandparents). There's me, DH and our son.

-Grandparents 1- live 5 mins drive away..we see them on average every other week, sometimes more.
-Grandparents 2: live an hour's drive away, we see them once a month for a full Sunday usually

• Grandparents 3: live a 2 hour flight away. We see them at least every 2-3 months for a week, and the whole summer holidays plus every Christmas.

Is this fair? I'm asking because grandparents 2 make noises about not seeing us enough!

It's not surprising they are fantastic with him you are giving them huge huge amounts of time with him to build that relationship while giving his other grandparents a fraction of that time.

Sorry OP but you are massively selfishly prioritising your own parents because they are important to you, to the exclusion of his other grandparents getting a look in
Be very careful what you model to your child - is your child a boy? You are modelling to them that it's ok for grandparents on the paternal side to be ignored and may find yourself as the grandparent who is ignored in years to come as your son dutifully agrees to spend a load of time with his wifes parents and none with you, because that is what you modelled to him!!!

Surely it’s up to the ops dh if he isn’t happy with the time split.

but honestly this is a lot of time. How old are your kids? When do they see their friends, play sports, go to birthday parties and spend time in their own house?

This. So much to-ing and fro-ing, you can’t get much time to yourselves?

I was continuing to respond to the poster who said if OP's ds copied her dh it wouldn't be her fault, as if that made it all OK, and just making the point that sitting back and watching that happen might not work out well for her long term. I'm not suggesting she should force it, just that she perhaps shouldn't just shrug and say not my problem, not my fault (even though it isn't, whether that's due to less effort from her dh or him just being less close to his parents). Like a PP said, it's worth modelling what you would like to see when you're the gp.

Re the OP's split of time, one thing to consider could be that in years to come going to another country for the whole summer may not always be what's best for her ds. There's a lot to be said for good chunks of summer playing out with friends, even from primary school age. Maybe the time with gp3 will be front-loaded to the baby/infant school years and have to happen a bit less later on, so it will even out eventually.

Does your dh also spend those weeks with your parents or do you go on your own with your dc for some of the weeks?

Is there anything stopping him visiting his mum without you?

I think you are doing a great job to see them all regularly, despite distances, and dh not pushing for more time with his parents.

I think you are doing amazingly well to spend approximately a third of your life with one or other of the grandparents. That's just a huge amount and I bet most people on here criticizing you are not spending anything like that amount with them.

I spend vastly different time though with my own parents, I enjoy spending time with one of them, the other not so much, I wouldn't dream of spending large chunks of time with people I didn't get on with.

If your husband's parents aren't happy then they will have to come more, or he has to take the children to stay occasionally on weekends.

I think you already spend probably too much time with grandparents, and I suspect that's because your own parents, your mum and dad, tend to do childcare and help so much that staying with them is tempting, people visiting occasionally is a different dynamic and that's just the way it is.

A full day once a month isn't unreasonable on it's own, but it does seem harsh if they never get an overnight stay (e.g.: an actual full day in your company from morning to evening, including adult conversation with their child after the kids are in bed).

Good lord - there’s enough visiting going on without throwing overnights into the mix!

If someone started moaning that I didn't see them often enough it would make me want to see them even less.

Does it make you feel the same?

Like it's not really polite to demand more of people's time. You can invite them to stuff and then accept it if they decline and that's about it. And be happy for the times you do spend together.

You sound like my SIL OP. It causes a lot of upset here. My FIL makes every effort but comes second fiddle to my SIL family.

It’s pretty crap when you see an 80 year old man upset, but it is my BIL that lacks backbone to stick up for his family.

I don't think relationships are something that needs to be "fair" and I think it depends how each of your families worked before children. So if you were used to visiting your parents that continued, and he didn't visit his mum that often. Especially since you moved from your country to his, you aren't just visiting parents but also home, and allowing your son to experience too.

Or, his parents: 38 days. Hers: 70 days.
it’s still more, but surely up to DH if he wants to see his parents more? Once the children are older, the week long visits will be less possible, I’d go while you can.

They should’ve raised sons who wanted to see them more then 🤷‍♀️

Why is it whenever there is a thread about MILs you are on it and always in defence of the MIL. I recognise your username from so many threads over the years. Are you a grandparent and so find it easy to place yourself in the GP position because you deffo could be leading the MIL defence society 😂

Yes this happens to me with my mum. I see her once a month maybe once every 6 weeks when we’re busy. But we have weekends away, holidays together etc. She never asks to pop over to see me. But she still makes comments about how she never sees me and I find it infuriating and think well I can’t win anyway, so maybe I won’t make as much of an effort

My parents do a lot of childminding when I'm there. Yes, it's my home and my child is fully bilingual because we go so often.

Can I just say in response to those who accuse me of being "shitty to my in laws"- we spend every Easter with them, I often cook dinner parties for them and it's me, not my DH, who arranges these visits to them.

If GP2 contains your children’s real grandmother I would swap the frequency of GP1 and GP2 visits. An hour really isn’t a long drive — see them every other week and see your husband’s dad once a month. She’ll be happier then & I’m sure your husband’s dad wouldn’t mind

I personally think spending every holiday with your parents is overkill — you’re basically living with them for part of the year at this point. Ask them to come to you, share Christmases and summers.

So you see your parents for the equivalent of 6 days a month or thereabouts, and MiL for 1 day a month, and FiL a couple of times a month.

That's a substantial disparity. How would you feel if your son went on to do the same, and you're the MiL?

I answered the wrong post. Sorry.

If I was the GP seeing the DC every summer holiday, every Christmas plus extra weeks I would be telling my DC that it wasn’t fair on the other GPs, matter how much I missed DC and grandchildren. Do your parents ever say anything @Pinkmondays

Surely if the DH's parents want to see more of them- get him to visit more! Did he used to spend more than one day a month with them prior to having children?

My guess is you spent a lot longer with your parents than he did with that particular parent, and that you as the woman are driving everything as usual, and that your parents also do childcare for you.

You are raising your child as bilingual and that is impossible to do on 12 days a year, so 'evening up' is simply not possible.

He can up his own contact, effort and arrangements with his own family, step back as the family manager!

So it's not just visiting your parents, it is also visiting your home country?

That makes it very different. Another way of seeing it is that you spend 3/4 of your time outside of your native country, and 1/4 within it. All of a sudden that doesn't seem so unfair.

@Corvidsarethebest the OP would be speaking to their DC in her language, isn’t that the way you bring them up bilingual? Can FaceTime GPs and speak in their language.

Ok, we will do it by hours then.

GP1 - 26 times a year = 52 hours total (assuming 2 hour visits)
GP2 - 12 times a year = 120 hours (assuming full day 10 hours)
GP3 - 5 or 6 times a year = 300 hours (assuming perhaps 4 hours together each day).

Well it seems GP1 miss out the most!

If you are in the UK and an English-dominant language, I think you need more than OPOL, plus the absolutely best way to be totally fluent is to require children to use it in everyday life- like with the grandparents! Facetime is not the way to learn a language, as small children can wander off/be disinterested/reply in their other language.

The only people I know who have brought up truly bilingual children have spent portions of the year, usually extended summers, in those countries, everyone else either hasn't, or has children with very strong accents and a disinterest in using the language, especially if the main language is English as it dominates everything.

see the gp3 abroad one less holiday per year and divide that one between the other two that gets it more inline.

also as gp2 are mil and stepdad your DH can go a second time per month to see them with the kids without you. So they get an extra visit from their son and you get a break.

we have parent issues ourselves! Currently low contact with all parents but before that we have my mum, my dad and step mum who all live the other side of the country. We were seeing my dad the most but he and my step mum have now divorced. And my dp has dad and stepmum who currently are nc with us and his mum who at times has had an awful partner that we had to tolerate. It’s easier seeing none of them!

Honestly I like what a previous poster said, you’re not a pie, you don’t have to be split fairly.

Make an effort to see everyone, which you are, but it’s not your problem how much your DH sees his parents. You just spend time with people you enjoy spending time with. If your DH is concerned with with equality he can arrange some extra time with his mum. You’re a person who gets to spend your time how you want. I can’t understand any of the replies telling you you need to make it fairer. No you don’t. Your trips home are enjoyable, it’s like a holiday and you all enjoy it. It’s your home country.

People have different relationships. Your DH isn’t close to his mum, just because you are doesn’t mean he now has to see his mum more than he wants to. Your relationships are different and shouldn’t be compared