AIBU to expect my mum to cancel her gym session to look after my kids?

[Mkxxx]

For context: I (34F) have two boys (3 and 11m). I have help from my mum once a week on a Tuesday. 8am-5pm she’s at my house. All the other days I get no help and no help from my MIL either. I have managed my maternity pretty much on my own with my husband in the office 5 days a week. It has been hard with a baby and a toddler. My son only recently turned 3. Anyway I never bug my mum to come outside of a Tuesday because honestly it’s just hard work and not worth it. However right now I’m very ill. She knows I’ve been unwell too. I don’t ask anyone to help me unless I’m desperate. So I asked my mum last night to come today. She said she can’t come until the afternoon when most the day has gone because she has the gym. I asked if she could miss it this once since I never ask like this and she said no. Now im feeling so much anger because the lack in inflexibility shocks me. If my child had asked me for help I would go! Also she doesn’t work and retired to ‘look after her grandchildren’. So am I wrong for feeling annoyed and upset?

You are most welcome.
Glad my words helped.
Some comments here are coming from place of deep unkind negativity please ignore them.

I would never charge my daughter for my care its done with love.

I have no patience with Grandparents who do nothing for their kids when they grow up and have Grandkids but thats just me.

It might be better if you had an honest chat with your Mum and if it works better for her, to just help in emergencies and come over to bath kids once a week and have supper together as a family.

She might be relieved.

Regular contact without the pressure and a wonderful back up if needed.
Keep me posted and sending you kindness and compassion at this time.

Because I have a chronic condition I prioritise three exercise sessions each week, By keeping myself physically able I am more use to my family and have a better quality of life so I would have told you I would come after the gym session. It does sound that with your husband in a role with zero flexibility, you returning to work full time and two lots of self employment your time is hugely overcommitted. This will make you more tired, more likely to get ill and without a back up plan in place.

Hi again. I think the message has been lost along the way. I am very grateful for my mum helping on a Tuesday. She loves coming and seeing her grandchildren, and chooses this because she has said she won't see them otherwise. I have said I can go PT or extra nursery day when I'm back at work, but she has explicitly said no. FYI my sister gets the same set up. This is not the issue, I'm very appreciative to her.

The issue I had is not being able to miss a single gym session over your daughter being ill. I am feeling better now hence these messages. I was suffering from an illness from the past few days. I was out of it! So no, it wasn't viral.

And the issue doesn't lie just solely with my mum. If your friend, relative or anyone asked for some help cause they were desperate, you're telling me you would be like 'i'm busy' with the gym. Or you would say 'well you chose to have children!'. 'Use contraception next time'.

Surely you'd make adjustments? As a one off? Like i said i don't take the mick and there's many times I have gone through illnesses and cracked on. I go through extremely painful heavy periods with endometriosis every month and crack on. It was literally a one off cry for help which I needed from the morning.

Also I would always go to my retired mother before my working husband with a difficult company and manager. My mum said she was retiring to 'help with the kids', so why wouldn't I go to her first?

When my kids were younger, we also knew lots of other families from toddler groups or locally or friends with kids. If someone was ill - and no they didn’t have to have a terminal disease, feeling shit with flu type stuff was sufficient - someone would come and grab your kids. And then you would look after theirs in return when they had a crisis. We also took turns to have other peoples kids after school to facilitate work days or when people had funerals to attend. And, shock horror, when someone was bereaved or very ill, people would rally, take turns to have kids, make them meals etc.

does this mean we shouldn’t have had kids because we were ‘unable’ to raise them single handedly? Because we recognised and embraced the idea of a community raising all our children?

in my real life, many people have willing grandparent support. With love rather than resentment, as in the grandparents want to see the grandchildren. I honestly don’t believe the Mumsnet reaction is typical of real life.

and the idea that you can’t message on Mumsnet when you are ill is ridiculous. People have posted from a&e with very sick kids and from their sickbeds with cancer for Mumsnet support. Tapping out a text is very different from childcare for two babies for 12 hours straight.

Small children are exhausting. I’m rarely ill but on the odd occasion I was, I am so glad I had the support of willing family and friends who took my kids and didn’t judge me when I then sent them a text message from my sickbed/sofa.

And the issue doesn't lie just solely with my mum. If your friend, relative or anyone asked for some help cause they were desperate, you're telling me you would be like 'i'm busy' with the gym. Or you would say 'well you chose to have children!'. 'Use contraception next time'.

And yet you didn't ask your father, MIL or father in law for help and you chose to start a thread online to criticise the one person who actually does support you. That says a lot about how you feel about your mum.

I was reassured by my mum that she would come multiple times a week and help etc and convinced me it’s ok to have kids.

Come on now, give over. No one has kids because their mum offers to babysit.

You've decided to treat your husband's time as sacrosanct but your mum's as dispensable.

There must be other behaviours that are making your mum push back.

100% this.

And the issue doesn't lie just solely with my mum. If your friend, relative or anyone asked for some help cause they were desperate, you're telling me you would be like 'i'm busy' with the gym. Or you would say 'well you chose to have children!'. 'Use contraception next time'.

so who else did you ask then?

if someone was desperately ill I would cancel my gym sessions, but I wouldn’t for someone who was getting over a bit of a bug which as you say your fine now was the case!

FYI my sister gets the same set up. This is not the issue, I'm very appreciative to her.
The issue I had is not being able to miss a single gym session over your daughter being ill.

So your mum provides childcare for you and childcare for your sister also. That’s quite a relevant aspect that you left out of your OP. She was coming over in the afternoon to help, it doesn’t sound like you were dying by any means and you’re making it sound like she said “tough luck i don’t want to help you”.

Also I would always go to my retired mother before my working husband with a difficult company and manager.
Good luck with that dynamic when your child is older than an infant and you’ve opted your husband out of any care.

Supportive or not any working adult in the UK has 5 weeks of annual leave and emergency dependants leave. It’s not a matter of his manager not thinking men have to parent, it’s a legally protected right.

How ridiculous, launching two side businesses!

Just why?

The issue I had is not being able to miss a single gym session over your daughter being ill.

If I miss a gym session, it can really throw me off my whole routine.

Not everything is clear cut, OP.

Also, your husband prioritised work over his sick wife. That's way worse.

All mother or MIL.

Such a cop out for men.

Gosh VIII, I think you are seeing this in a very tunnel visioned way. Pushing an odd gender agenda (why not dad or grandad) for some reason rather than seeing it for what it is - the OPs very understandable hurt when someone she loves chooses the gym over helping their child and vicariously her grandchildren. To you, that’s a perfectly normal reaction and I think that’s so sad. To me, there is nothing more natural than helping someone you love. It’s sad that you don’t have that and as a result don’t appreciate just how much of a difference it makes to raising children.

Just because something can be done single-handedly doesn’t mean it must be. Most things are better done as a team.

I don't see what's odd about querying why she didn't ask anyone else. She hasn't mentioned that everyone else works or lives too far away so why was it just the OPs mum who took the brunt of expectation and criticism.

She offered to come for the afternoon to help, she looks after her grandchildren on at least two days a week every week and yet the op is cross with her for not doing more but there is no criticism for the other family members or even suggestion she asked anyone else for help

And the issue doesn't lie just solely with my mum. If your friend, relative or anyone asked for some help cause they were desperate, you're telling me you would be like 'i'm busy' with the gym. Or you would say 'well you chose to have children!'. 'Use contraception next time'.

Your husband has two children as well, it’s his job, if he felt he could never step up because his work are “difficult” he should’ve considered that and the use of contraception!

And the issue doesn't lie just solely with my mum. If your friend, relative or anyone asked for some help cause they were desperate, you're telling me you would be like 'i'm busy' with the gym. Or you would say 'well you chose to have children!'. 'Use contraception next time'.

Honestly, this makes you sound pretty entitled.

“Most things are done better as a team”

Husband and Wife are a team, no? And yet the OP isn’t sad or starting a thread about the fact her husband didn’t have her back when she was sick.

”there’s nothing more natural than helping someone you love”

what, like the OP’s husband did for her?

This!
thisnisnt your mums problem

This.

Your kids, your responsibility and nobody else is obliged to help out and you are entitled to think they are. You have a lot more help than most people and a husband who should take parental leave. You are well enough and have enough time to be moaning on here so just crack on. You only have to manage for half a day as your mum said she would come in the afternoon.

I agree

This! I was more polite in my very similar reply. Lots of people here who obviously get no support sadly from family who are then triggered by your Post.

If i were you I would get the heck off mums net, know you are not being unreasonable whatsoever to ask your Mum to help when you are ill and then to feel hurt when she prioritised the gym.

Turn off your phone now and let these toxic people vent amongst themselves.

I got no help at all so think you’re very lucky to get one day a week! Maybe if you had asked her to help today while you’re sick and wouldn’t expect her on Tuesday next week so she could have her own time.

I (34F) have two boys (3 and 11m).

Not I
we

You're not a single mum

It always amazes me when people say they are ‘really ill”, but seemingly well enough to post extensively on a forum. If I am ‘really ill’, it would be the last thing I would think of doing.