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?

Responses will vary widely i imagine.

In our family, my mum would absolutely drop everything to help in this situation. She even has, driving four hour round trip and staying ivernight for one of her daughters in your exact scenario. Problems are very much shared in our family though.

Other families are very different, though!

💯!!

Parents can absolutely take a day off to care for their dependent children. In this case OP apparently couldn’t care for their children, emergency dependant leave is there for the husband to use in exactly these circumstances. It’s a legally protected working right. It’s not the 70s.

You don’t actually know how you will feel when your children are older. I am exhausted and I don’t want to look after my grandchild regularly. It is such hard work and I’ve been parenting for 26 years. I think you sound really ungrateful, a day a week looking after a 3 year old and an 11m old is seriously hard work. Leave her alone on the other days unless she offers!

I used to have my eldest grandchildren 2 days a week and I worked nights at the time, my daughter would never ask me to have them any extra times as she knew my days off were for me, and she’d never expect me to cancel anything to help her out even if I was happy to do so
it’s difficult when you’ve only got 1 person able to help, her husband’s mother never had the children, never not once has she had them

It's very simple - she doesn't owe you childcare.

Because she wasn’t really ill enough to warrant him taking a day off if we’re being honest was she? She’s posting on here and responding a lot and if she was so bad then he would have had no choice but to stay home. It’s just easy to ask Mum and blame her for being busy (the gym is important IMO) and saying you’re really ill will make more people agree and sympathise with you. It’s making me very worried how many people think grandparents should want to look after their grandchildren on a regular basis. I find it really odd to assume that something that every Mum in here agrees is really, really hard would be something a woman that’s already done it would want to do it again now that they’re older lol.

Hopefully you don’t need to be looked after by your children in your old age then

Even though she babysits every week?!? I mean I can’t imagine she asks for 9 hours of help a week from her daughter ever.

Let’s hope not.

Maybe given the OP can’t cope with two children and bemoans the fact she doesn’t get enough help, then OPs DM has made sufficient provision, like keeping herself fit by going to the gym..

I've only been unwell enough once for 1-2 days with a bug when I was supposed to be looking after our children where I physically couldn't get out of bed without being sick and just slept and slept and slept and slept - and my DH had to take the time off to look after them as I wasn't capable of it. If you were that ill, maybe your mum didn't want to risk it, especially as looking after children one day a week is probably quite tiring for her! My own mum gets ill really easily nowadays and picks up anything my children have. If I were feeling a bit rough and asked my mum to come over and she said she had the gym, I might feel mildly put out but I'd just ask her to come later / the next day to help me out a bit. If you were feeling unwell enough that you were incapable of looking after your children safely (rather than just a bit rough and it being unpleasant, but manageable, to struggle through the time), then your DH should have taken time off work - as is his legal right and his responsibility and a fellow parent to your children.

I'm actually going against the grain here. I assume your husband can't take a paid day off, or he'd have done it (and if he hasn't whyyy).

But your mum is obviously off, and all she would miss is going to the gym. It's an extraordinary situation and happens very rarely. I can't imagine a child of mine asking for help like this, and me just saying no. It's a cry for help for goodness sake!

I don’t know why people think the gym isn’t a good reason not to be instantly available (she offered after) it’s actually really important to stay fit and strong and a healthy weight into your advanced years. It’s also probably why she can manage a 3 year old and an 11m old for a full day a week because we all know that’s not easy.

If you read the OPs posts, it will tell you that the DHs employer is “difficult”, not sure that means he can’t take a day off?

Agreed! She’s offered something, others offered nothing and she’s the one in the wrong?

I wish her Mum could see this thread. She might just realise she not up to the one day a week anymore when she realises she’s being accused of being selfish. I can’t imagine giving up 9 hours a week of my time for free, probably at her own cost (fuel) just to be called selfish anyway 😂

Yep, as I said before no good deed goes unpunished!

She’d be better off doing nothing! But OP says she’s the only one who does help, but she doesn’t do enough!

It isn't misogyny. Whether it's a man ar woman at work they cannot drop everything if the one at home doesn't feel well. If they were hospitalised or seriously ill yes but for a run of the mill virus of course they can't skive off work.

It is completely normal and common everywhere other then mn it seems that family who aren't at work help out.

But OP was “very ill” and no one rise could help
out, so why shouldn’t their DF?

But the only family that OP is moaning about is her DM? No other “family”, the one person that does help
out!

Yes, they can. They choose not to.

It’s how we do things here. We have no idea what her DH does for work, either. Perhaps he’s a surgeon, or a teacher or had a hearing to attend.

It’s not easy for everyone in every position to just take an unplanned day off.

But needs must …