AIBU to prefer time with my children over using babysitters?

[Cherrytree696]

The other day someone in my close family (one of the grandparents to my children) expressed that they find it annoying that I very rarely seek babysitters as I always want to be with my kids. This person said that I was dependent on my kids and on turn I was making them dependent on me.

For context, I have 2 children and I am a teacher. My husband works in a hospital. I am part-time and he is full time. My kids are of school age/nursery age so they attend that during the week. I've never felt the need to spend much time away from them on my days off and really value the time we get to spend as a 4 on days off and holidays etc ...

If I go out my husband generally looks after them and vice versa. We do have date nights out but they aren't very often.

Is this weird?

(I would like to highlight that nobody has ever really offered to babysit them and I've been okay with this. I am not unhappy and neither is my husband - just wanting to know what other people have)

Thanks!

Its when people complain about their restricted lives but refuse to use babysitters , that annoys me

No complaints here. And yes that would be very annoying! Like if you've got people offering then why not take it up? 🙂.

Well no more like people who don't believe in paying strangers to babysit

But in 6 weeks it’s a shame if they can’t have a day or two out with a loving grandparent. It doesn’t have to be always mum. Going on a bus, having a cake in cafe, telling you all about it afterwards are part of it.
They get a different experience going with a grandparent and it’s a good chance for you to get errands or appointments done.
The grandparents/primary school age children were having a lovely time we saw at the museum and my elderly mum reminiscing about trips out she’d had with my dd when she was primary school age.
It’s a change for everyone. In 42 days off a few hours apart doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy spending time with your children.

No not really ... We live in a village so things like that are further away (gigs, museums etc ...). Our "couples" friends have kids the same age as ours so our kids are always invited and then when I go for a girls night my husband more often than not looks after the kids or vice versa. I have genuinely never thought of it as weird but I'm starting to 😂.

Its about balance I have a friend whos child is like their security blanket and they just can't leave the house without them this child is now a teenager and its still exactly the same and the teenager never wants to go out and be away from mum. But i also have friends who I honestly don't know why they had kids as the grandparents are basically raising them.

You do sound like quite a smothering parent . As your kids get older I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to spend more time away from you tbh .

Also a valid point 🙂.

This is what the thread is really about! If you don’t want to use a babysitter then don’t - but sometimes it is good for your relationship to have a complete break from kids and be a couple again. Also, make sure you treat the grandparents fairly other it will store up trouble.

I would love them to offer 🙂. Maybe ill say that if the conversation comes up. I'm not against it, I just feel rude asking.

It was NOT my mother in law. She is lovely 🙂 visits often and enjoys seeing my kids when she sees them (I think 😂). Point is,this is NOT a MIL bashing post and I don't have an issue with her.

Well when this happens I shall need to embrace this too 🙂. Maybe then, I'll go to a gig!

My kids aren't with me now - does that make me less smothering? 🙈

If they aren’t offering it’s a moot point.
But I do think grandparents seeing them at your house versus 1-1 time is different.
I wouldn’t see it as rude. If they are bringing it up say would you like to do something just you and dc. Let me know.
I do think never socialising outside house with just your dh is unusual and it’s easy to lose sight of yourselves as a couple. What did you enjoy doing together pre dc?

Well! I'm now embarrassed to admit that we watched TV, got takeaways, went to our village pub, went out with friends (we still do that but the kids come as our friends have kids too!)

When we were very young and in the city for uni we did other things obviously but as a married couple we are very ... Boring/minimalist. I'm going to go with the word minimalist as it's making me feel better at this moment in time 😂.

However as we are both happy and the kids are happy I suppose it is a moot point! But I've enjoyed reading what other people do 🙂.

My mum lives in our village so we see her more but other grandparents don't so a bit farther away 🙂.

It's just life 🙂.

I have a friend who never left their children alone and when they got older she couldn’t leave them as they got so used to her being there she couldn’t leave them and could never do anything for herself. It was sad but her own fault really

We were "boring" too. Rarely went out together after having kids, rarely went out separately. I think I've only ever been to one gig, theatre once. My mum did babysit about 5 times when kids were little because she worked full time and wasn't in good health so wasn't really up to it unless the kids were asleep and she didn't drive so wasn't worth the effort for any of us.
I am one of those weird folk who loved school holidays so I could be with my kids and none of my friends did as they always found it an inconvenience. I think probably because i had a car and we could go all over and they were stuck in one place. We were happy then and we're happy now and our eldest is 37, still don't go out on an evening. So long as op is happy it's nobody else's business.
Before kids we were never in so probably got it all out of our system.

It is entirely reasonable to enjoy spending time with your children and to want to make the most of it whenever you have the chance.

I do think it would be wrong to frame your preferences as any sort of flex around the extent of your love for and bonding with your children. Not sure this is where you were going with your post but I have sometimes encountered mums who talk about women who enjoy nights out or solo hobbies as though they are somehow selfish for doing so. I strongly disagree that this is the case. I know some parents get the balance wrong and genuinely do end up neglecting their kids because they'd always rather be doing something else and leaving them with other people than spending quality time with them. However, there are a wide range of positions available that don't reach this extreme. Of course it always seems to be the mum who gets demonised for whatever she wants to do and not the dad.

Nor do I get how time spent hanging out at home whilst your kids are asleep is anything to do with enjoying spending time with your children. Unless they are frequent night-wakers (which is a whole other thing), you could at this point go out and leave someone else to babysit with no impact on your quality time with your children. Obviously if there's not that much that interests you outside of your home that you could do of an evening, or if you're feeling too tired from work and parenting to be arsed to go out, that is fine. Maybe you and your DH would just rather spend your quality time at home together. That is cool. It's not about your kids per se though. Personally I'd love to go out to the cinema or a gig or the theatre or the pub 2-3 times a week with my DH if I could, but a) I'd be too tired and burnt out to enjoy it at the moment and b) I couldn't get anyone I trusted to babysit for me anything like that often and c) anyone I trust who will babysit at all understandably wants to spend time with my DD before she goes to sleep, which forces me to either play host to them before I go out or to leave early and miss my DD's bedtime. As a grumpy buggar, I don't like those options, and that's why DH and I almost never go out together alone.

The only person who ever babysit my kids was my Mum, 2 or 3 times per year. I didn't have anyone else I felt comfortable asking and I didn't want to impose on her as it seemed like a lot for an older person. The DC were my/DH's responsibility. We did leave them with her once over a weekend for a wedding and the youngest went down with chicken pox.

Absolutely not! I would never want to insinuate that I love my kids more or less than someone else loves theirs so I absolutely apologise if this post has come across in this way.

Staying in is 100% about my husband and I. The kids at 7 and 4 now thankfully sleep through the night but our jobs are tiring and now I think about it, in our village, it's easier to get quality time at home. Our village pub is a less dramatic version of Emmerdale's 🙈.

Maybe I should have thought of a different title for my post. I let AI choose it.

I think AI perhaps did screw you over a bit here!
Definitely sounds like you are just someone who likes staying in... and that is lovely. Whoever in your life has a problem with it is being ridiculous unless there is some massive missing context here!

I agree. You sound lovely and completely reasonable OP. And you have patiently answered everything you have been asked. You do what you bloody well want to. ❤️

Haha in fairness, I thought I was missing something too!

Thank you to everyone who has commented 🙂. I love hearing about the differences in people's lives and parenting styles. So interesting!

♥️

I find this such a strange question, grandparents spending one on one time with children is normal and can be the most wonderful thing. I loved my time I had with all my grandparents and would never think my mum asking to take the kids out is “unsupervised access”, really strange, my mum loves my kids as much as me and have a lovely relationship

I was too shattered to go out when mine were little and I was working. My partner did though. We didnt have family to babysit locally and couldn't afford babysitters so took it in turns to go out if we did though I probably used my time for meetings / volunteering and work. I can count on one hand the number of times we went out together when ours were under 12- it was usually is my Mum/Brother were staying. Amongst my friends most people went out a lot more either together or apart. I'm quite introverted though.

My best memories of grandparents are when I had alone time with them. It was really speacial. I think one on one time in any relationship is important