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?

Yep everyone saying “why won’t your husband do it?” is missing the point. Husband may be useless, or may be genuinely unable (everyone is acting like everyone can just take parental leave because it’s the law - which is too naive for words).

But the OP is hurt shes not more important to her mum than a gym session. Thats the bottom of it and it doesn’t matter how you spin it, that’s what this shows. Is it her mums right to say no? Of course, but it hurts.

Some people on here are so disgustingly rude and unkind.

OP I feel you, I’ve only got the 1 child and there’s been some awful times where I’ve been poorly and I don’t know what I’d have done without the help from my mum or MIL on the very rare occasion when my DH was away with work.

In the 90s/early 00s I spent so much time with my grandparents and that same input it just not there now so it’s made raising a family so difficult.

I can understand the later retirement age may be part of it for some grandparents not being able to help, but it’s a non issue for grandparents if they’re already retired and in good health, why leave your daughter/son to struggle?

But then, looking back our parents palmed off us kids quite often to grandparents, so maybe it’s shouldn’t be too much of a shock they don’t want responsibility now either… something to think about.

What about some kindness to OP's mother who provides a full-day childcare every week from 8 in the morning for OP and the same for her sister and she did go and help OP just a bit later than OP wanted .
I also think your generalisation about older generations is unfair. I had absolutely no help with my children when they were young my parents were never in a position to help and it was the same with my friends we helped each other and either had to cope when our children were ill or our husbands stayed home .
I think far more grandparents provide childcare and are expected to now than they did when my children were young. The playground when I pick my GC up from school has more grandparents waiting for pick up than parents.
I have provided childcare for my GC for at least a couple of days a week since they were babies and sometimes more they also often stay overnight but it's exhausting and gets more exhausting the older I get. So I also have my own commitments and my own interests which I have to do for my mental and physical health. My DD understands that and would never expect me to drop everything except in a real emergency. But some people on this thread seem to think that grandparents are not allowed to have a life of their own.

She asked to do it though, most grandparents actually enjoy spending time with them. No one’s saying op shouldn’t be grateful for that days childcare but I can’t imagine my daughter being ill, needing help and I say sorry I’ve got Pilates. Threads like these make me so grateful for the support I had from my mum

I'm a grandmother. I resent the entitlement that you think she's your first port of call for when you're sick. The children's father and you have full parental responsibility. Is he not trusted to take care of them? You already have an enormous commitment from her which you sound totally ungrateful for. She's the only active grandparent. And probably tired of watching your husband go to work while she absorbs the childcare expectations because she's a woman who retired and realised she values her own wellbeing and life. Give her a break.

She's not more important to her husband either

Maybe she’s not, or maybe it is genuinely impossible for him to take parental leave at his work without putting himself at risk of some kind of backlash.

You cannot compare cancelling a gym session with cancelling work.

But anyway, let’s say her husband just doesn’t care about her suffering - that makes it even more upsetting that her mum doesn’t either.

Did you miss the part were the op said her mum asked and wanted to do childcare? Also I’d be happy to be my daughters first port of call if she is ill and her partner can’t take a day off work, I certainly wouldn’t say no for a Pilates class

Why on earth do you keep mentioning Pilates? It’s like you’re demeaning the OPS DMs hobbies/activities because you don’t think Pilates is a good enough reason to not drop everything and go to OPs.

Very demeaning!

I haven’t read this whole thread but honestly, I’m shocked at how unkind and frankly ridiculous some people are. OP isn’t asking for some help because she wants to get her hair done, she’s unwell and so yes, on this one occasion I don’t think it’s unreasonable for her mum to miss the gym to help. It’s totally ridiculous for other posters to start banging on about not having kids if you can’t look after them. That is a totally unreasonable response. I do also sympathise with the difficulty in her husband taking the day off, however I do think he should just accept the aggro on this occasion as there is no other option and take the day off.

I get almost no help from our families beyond emergency help and this would also be given in a similar way - around their plans to play golf/go for a swim etc. For me, it just teaches me what I will do differently for my own children when they grow up and have children of their own.

What we are largely ignoring here is the fact that the mum might feel that the daughter is a bit entitled and a bit of a princess. If she felt that the need was urgent, she would probably just drop everything. But she already works full days for two of her children, and knows that she needs to look after her own physical and mental well-being; her purpose in life is not simply to be a drudge for life, at everyone’s beck and call.

Her mum might feel that it’s important for her to have clearly demarcated boundaries, knowing that if she doesn’t, she will simply be taken for granted and expected to continually provide childcare.

Why does the village almost always mean women pick up the pieces, first with their own children, then looking after elderly relatives, and then with their grandchildren. They are entitled to a life free from caring for others just occasionally.

Well if the mum feels the daughter is entitled and a princess because she asks for help when she’s sick, she’s just not that nice a mum really.

Surely if your kid tells you they’re struggling and they need your help, you just take their word for it and help them. Or do you start on the “oh you don’t look all that sick to me”?

Yes it’s very feminist to have a weird cold transactional understanding of care for your nearest and dearest. And not be willing to even put yourself out in even the tiniest of ways for someone you’re meant to love more than anyone else in the world.

Honestly some of the replies on this thread are so cynical it makes me laugh.

You don’t enjoy looking after your grandchildren and you don’t want to do it. But you also don’t like facing the reality that this will affect for the worse your relationship with your children and grandchildren. That’s the reality.

You can go to the gym instead of helping your sick daughter and she will be disappointed, hurt, and think less of you. It’s not a feminist issue but a human issue.

The broader politics of care are indeed a feminist issue. But the idea that you’re striking some kind of blow for the sisterhood by not showing care for your daughter is just daft.

I say “your” because your messages are full of projection.

I agree with both sides, if it was my child I would help no questions asked. But, your mum doesn’t want to she has other commitments, it’s not really her issue to sort your husband should be helping. Getting help every Tuesday is also fab! I wish id of had that help. It’s also coming across as abit entitled. Your mums time is her time to do with as she pleases.

Your husband is wrong for not helping. Your mother is not.

Because even though I do Pilates 5 times a week I would not attend if my daughter needed me

which is your choice and it’s a perfectly valid one.

BUT so is protecting the “me” time you get as much as possible especially when you already give up at least 2 days to childcare.

We need to stop telling women that they don’t matter and that they have to drop everything for everyone else. Sometimes it’s fine to put yourself first and say “I can help in a few hours but not straight away”

its one days child care she does. I do matter as a woman and a mother but so does my daughter and if she needed help when unwell I would be there. I don’t think what I am saying is that unusual tbh, most mums do the same that I know. My dad would also do the same for me as would my partner for his children. It’s not about woman not mattering, it’s about helping your child when they’re unwell

It’s at least 2 days as OP said she does the same for her sibling too.

And she didn’t say she wouldn’t help. She said she would go and help in the afternoon. That wasn’t good enough for OP though (even though she wasn’t ill enough to ask her husband or anyone else to help)

I’d be upset in this situation too OP. She could even have switched her day and not done childcare next Tuesday if the free time was an issue.

We’ve all got different priorities, helping my child when unwell which I presume doesn’t happen often would take priority over my Pilates class. If you would prioritise differently that’s ok too but I think most people would feel a little let down by that

So every daughter that is also a mother is telling the truth and not a piss taking, ungrateful, entitled person? Where is the line drawn then? What if you actually think your child takes the piss? Is that never allowed? I don’t get your reasoning, not everyone on the world is nice or fair surely? You can’t just assume OP is telling the truth about how ill she was, her husband went to work so she clearly wasn’t on the verge of ringing 999. I don’t want to be hyperbolic but there are some bad / unfair / selfish / entitled people in the world and they were birthed by someone.

If my child doesn’t have form for faking illness then I’d believe her. Of course I would.

If for some reason I thought she was faking, I’d want to get to the bottom of why she’s struggling so badly that she feels she needs to do that to get some help.

This is all assuming a good relationship, which the OP seems to think she has with her mother.