To not want to pressure MIL to look after the children more just because DH thinks she should?

[Beachcomber]

Will try to keep this short but clear.

MIL and I have a pretty good relationship, she loves our 2 DDs and likes it when we go to see her (she lives up the road). She has mostly been quite helpful on the odd occasions that we have asked her to look after the children but we do not ask her very often. They are 4 and 6 years old.

MIL has just recently retired - she is quite young, fit and healthy and very active. I work from home and often find it difficult (and stressful) to fit everything in around the children. DH works long hours but we share childcare evenly when he is around.

DH thinks now retired MIL could/should help us out by having the children say one day a week. (We are in France where it is common for GPs to look after children quite a lot). MIL says she doesn't want to get into a fixed routine as she is very busy (she cleans her house a lot and has a big garden).

I have asked her a few times to help me out for a couple of hours and she does when she can but equally often says no.

So, after all that - DH thinks I should be phoning her at the beginning of the week to sort out when she can have the children in order to get her into a bit of a routine of helping. I would find this utterly excruciating to do as she clearly doesn't want to look after the DCs too much. I do call her when I'm stuck but I am utterly unwilling to try to force some sort of arrangement on her.

DH thinks I'm being a woos and have no right to stress over childcare if I'm not going to do this. We don't really have any other help apart from limited help from a child minder (money a bit tight too).

So AIBU to disagree with DH and think that if he thinks MIL should have the kids once a week on principle then he needs to take her to task over it even though it would help me out?

"but I think a few weeks with the GPs whooping it up at the beach or in the countryside are greatly preferred by a lot of kids to sticking around in Paris with their working parents in the heat."

Absolutely. The alternative to grandparental care (with multiple cousins - there are still plenty of large families in France) is greatly preferable, for small children, to sticking around in Paris in the heat, with no activities apart from mairie organised centre de loisirs (childcare in school premises - dullsville) or a colonie de vacances (residential summer camp) for weeks on end.

Agree with others its a conversation for your DH and his mother. To be fair, if she has only recently retired why wouldnt she want to have time to herself? I would want to help my children out but equally I would want to work out what my routine was going to be first of all before making any firm commitments.

But Bonsoir - the MIL is also French, and she has been quite clear about what she is and isn't prepared to do (regardless of cultural norms). So the DH should respect that.

She has responsibilities. Family responsibilities are frightening, here - for example, a working widowed DIL might have to support her PILs in their old age!

I understand where the OPs dh is coming from, Bonsoir. Just pointing out that given the circumstances it is unreasonable of him to expect the OP to change her MILs pov as she is in a weak bargaining position. We all have the choice not to conform to the cultural norms of our country and it seems the MIL is exercising that choice.

But she doesn't want to. She has asserted this to the OP. Simply not fair to badger her

X post with cory - if the MIL is strong enough to assert her own wishes/needs despite cultural pressure, good on her, I say.

I think that you are all missing the point that grandparental rights and responsibilities are enshrined in law here. Family law is wildly different in France and England. This is no place for an overview (it would take tomes to analyse fully), but the free choices about relationships and the responsibilites that they entail that the English take for granted don't exist in the same way in France, and that colours everyone's behaviour.

But Bonsoir, the OP's MIL has made it very clear that she doesn't want to make a commitment, irrespective of cultural norms and her DH must realise this.

And there are many GPs who help on a regular basis in the UK - I think the Granparents Association quotes that 60% of all childcare in the UK is provided by GPs. My own mother takes the children for a week in the summer plus the occasional weekend, and when she visits she does bathtime/school run etc. If she lived closer than 300 miles I would be surprised if she didn't want to have the children one day a week, but I would not expect it of her.

Are you saying that in this circumstance, there is some Legal onus on the MIL to do childcare?

Because if you are - fair enough. If you are not, then it's just an expectation that the DH has which is not shared by his mother. I suspect I'm not "getting it", but it does strike me that this might easily be a situation which could arise anywhere in the world.

The issue needs be worked out between the DH and his mother, that I agree - but the DH and the OP need to fully conscious of their own cultural assumptions in order to do this without coming to grief. Otherwise the DH will blame the OP for not using his mother as childcare - which would be unfair but understandable unless things are clarified.

Maybe Beachcomber's MIL actively encouraged her ds to marry a British girl specifically because she couldn't be arsed to deal with her dgcs. Genius!

Good point, Bonsoir. It just seems strange to me that the MIL (who is of the older generation and therefore might be assumed to have stronger cultural norms), is not going along with this.

My own view is that it's much more to do with DHs convenience

It's a very hard one, IMO, that constantly raises its ugly head.

A French girlfriend of mine, married to a Frenchman, was horrified when her PILs bought the apartment opposite her and her DH in the same block without telling them first! And the MIL spent her days popping in and out to see the GCs when her DIL was at work and the GCs with with the nanny. And all that is perfectly legal! GPs have the right to see their GCs during the day!

And, I must say, that I get driven bananas by my MOL inviting the children to stay the night at her house without consulting me or DP first. But legally I haven't got a leg to stand on!

these things you describe are really tricky, and I suppose the fact that the law is there in the background, reinforcing them, can helps people to justify what is, actually, their insensitive or unreasonable behaviour.

Hmm this has been educational

I'm impressed by all these grandparents with the money to fly to New York to provide weekend babycare cover.

French or English, those GPs must be economically exceptional.

How do the normal folk carry on?

In the case I mentioned, the GM didn't pay her airfare.

AvengingGerbil
My parents are not flying to NY, just to Geneva but they can do it thanks to EasyJet. It is less expensive for them to fly here than get a train to London.

And they get a short holiday out of it, in addition to seeing their GC. Win win.

'sticking around in Paris with their working parents in the heat.'

It depends where you live though. Ds would far rather have styed at home in Cornwall within easy reach of the sea and the moors, than be packed off to suburban Hampshire which is gridlocked with cars and given to a friend of mils to look after because she was at a meeting. No contest imo.

Well yes, scaryteacher - that is exactly the point we are all making on this thread - the preferred/usual option in England may in all probability be quite the reverse of the preferred/usual option in France.

Interesting... my MIL spent most of her child-rearing days in Paris, and her childcare outside of creche was done by her PIL, as the norm- highly necessary as PIL ran a cabaret club and a restaurant.

My MIL now collects my DS from nursery 3 days a week (she still works 2 days) and they have evening meal together and play for around 3 hours until I or DH gets home- without it we could not both work FT. It is an utter life-saver, but it was MIL who said to us she would do it, we never asked her or even raised the possibility, she just out it to us as my mat leave was ending. We would never have expected, or even requested this help though.

I think beachcomber is right to step back and let her dh handle it. Her MIL has stated she doesn't want to, and I think her wishes should be respected.

Good luck in whatever happens OP

Gosh lots of helpful replies again.

OK, as has been mentioned by Bonsoir, Choclatine and others it is kind of expected in France for GPs to help with childcare. However PIL have never really wanted an arrangement like this - as a Brit I see this as fair enough, DH is kind of hurt by this as he sees it as a slight on the children. The idea that MIL (PIL is a bit different as not DH's father) doesn't really want to have what is seen here as normal interaction with her grandchildren.

Actually I hadn't really thought enough about that aspect of it all - this thread has been helpful to me in understanding why this matters to DH (it isn't really about childcare but more about relationships I guess for him).

Also MIL is on the whole quite a selfish person I suppose - doesn't bother me but does bother DH. I don't see it as selfish/odd to not want to look after one's grandchildren a bit but I think DH does.

I have no problem with ringing MIL up from time to time when I'm stuck and asking if she can help - I would of course accept whatever answer she gives me.

I don't think it is for me to sort out the fact that she doesn't want a regular arrangement and that DH is not very happy with this.

We seem to keep having cultural clashes like this at the moment despite me having lived here for 13 years [sigh].

"We seem to keep having cultural clashes like this at the moment despite me having lived here for 13 years [sigh]."

I think that DCs reaching school age, and "entering society" independently of their parents, opens a whole new can of worms cultural dimension to mixed marriages!