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?

Good heavens. My mum wouldn’t have rearranged watching Eastenders to help me with my kids let alone a paid gym session.

You already have every Tuesday. That’s a lot. My DM never looked after my DSs on her own. Ever.

I think you need to be grateful for what you have & realise your DCs are the responsibility of yourself & their father.

Yes - she’s obviously desperate or she wouldn’t have asked!

So, in your opinion even though her Mum gives a day a week of her time up to take care of her Grandchildren and even though she said yes to this request but at a later time than desired she should never again receive any help from her daughter?

If it’s only a run of the mill virus then the grandmother visiting in the afternoon for a lot of hours to help out should be of use then?

YANBU. I would have helped you. I will help my own children in future with situations like this. My own nana helped my mum a great deal when we were younger, we had a very close bond, so I grew up knowing I would want to help my grandchildren having benefitted from such help myself. I’m talking my nana moving me and my brother into her home for 6 weeks whilst our mum was recovering from surgery in hospital, taking us to school, cooking our dinner, taking us to visit our mum daily at the hospital on a bus because she couldn’t drive. That’s putting yourself out to help your daughter and grandchildren, what you asked for help with seems such a tiny thing to help with in comparison. It hurts when you ask for help and feel alone, and it is hard to be unwell with two such young children. I hope you’re feeling better now.

My mum would do this in a heartbeat. But I do appreciate she’s amazing and lots of grannies don’t do this.

Then he shouldn't have had children.

X 2

If she was that desperate her husband shouldn't have gone to work. The children are theirs not @Mkxxx's mother's.

@NeonLady812

lol she could devote her whole retirement to providing childcare on tap for her son/daughter and no guarantee they would look after her in her old age.

most people end up in a home regardless of how they patented.

Some of these answers are awful. I’d hate you to be my mother if that’s how you feel! Brrrr

If the mum posted they’d be after her head!

You chose to have children same as your husband it is on you both to make caring choices no one else

I'm sorry but it's not your mother's reasons to look after your child or to change her commitments. Also are you infectious? If so it's sensible of your mother not to come over
If I was too ill to care for my children when they were young my husband would take the day off, but usually I just coped and we all had a slow day on the sofa watching TV.

Leave the children and the husband out of it and I’d still expect my mum to skip the gym once if I said I needed her. Most mums would.

OP isn’t making a case out of it. She’s just hurt.

This is not your mum’s responsibility.

You have a husband. If he wanted to help, he would. He's in a senior role and could lead an attitude shift by showing his colleagues that even when it's difficult you put family first.

But no, just make another woman help you instead.

Actually….. My parents are in their 70’s and 80’s and they would still come round in a heartbeat.
Because that’s what families do, no?

Your parents are in their 80’s? How could you possibly know they would come and help you with childcare? I assume you don’t have any childcare needs? It’s a bit like the women commenting that they’ll always help their children out with childcare. Meanwhile their kids are 5 and 7 and they haven’t been working for 40 years and haven’t had decades of thankless childcare responsibilities or aged parents to care for or aged family pets that everyone wanted but that only they take care of or peri menopause / menopause or cancer etc etc. It’s hypothetical for a lot of the people posting. They don’t know what they’ll feel like in 20 years.

It’s the misogyny that gets me on these threads. Especially by posters who are absolutely oblivious to it.

WHERE ARE THE MEN OP?

your fil, your father, your brother, your brother-in-law, your husband? Because we all know full well that if a mother had the exact same job in the same company as your husband, she would take time off to care for her kids.

this casual misogyny, this constant blaming of only women for not stepping in, this lack of ability from fathers to demand their legal rights in the work place when mothers have no choice; its all so damaging to women.

Good!! Please delete it!! You’re out of order placing the blame with your mum, I don’t care how inflexible your husbands job is. He helped create your children. He takes
time off when they are ill. End of. If I was your mum I’d not be doing anything for your ungrateful arse!! Get your husband to pull his fucking weight

Well the get her husband to do it. Why is it her mums responsibility. She’s done her bit she should be free to enjoy what’s left of her life. Don’t be a fucking misogynistic twat

I’ve read and re-read the responses in here (I’m dealing with something similar) and I am so glad you posted this. My Grandma was the epitome of a good Mum: kind, fun, patient, loving, present. She took care of her own parents whilst still wanting her Grandchildren and children around her. I can genuinely say she was the best Grandma I could have ever wished to have and most of my childhood memories are because of her. A much better Mum than my Mum was to me and my siblings (not bitter, she did her best with difficult co-parenting etc) My own Mum speaks very highly of her also. She is in a care home. My Mum visits once per week max even though it is within a 5 minute drive, despite the fact that my Grandma visited her own Dad daily when he was in a care home, she took him out and pushed him in his wheelchair, my Mum has never taken my Grandma out. So to summarise, parenting / Grandparenting / Great Grandparenting doesn’t necessarily lead to receiving care in your advanced years even if you have earnt it. I am so glad you wrote this post. I have been wrangling with some guilt about not wanting to / being able to provide care for someone close to me and it’s helped me realise that the person I feel guilty towards doesn’t feel guilty about not seeing or doing anything for any of the people that did for them what they expect me to do for them.

You make no sense when you’re like this.