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?

Thank you for explaining mamaloco

So perhaps not that different to UK?

I might be getting this completely wrong, but if it´s mainly husbands pushing for this, perhaps it came about as a way of MILs not being pushed out in favour of maternal grandmothers?

As non French, I have to say the Ops husband comes across as ridiculous

They have managed so far without MIL-so what´s the problem?

what does that mean in reality though? When does it ever come into force?
If parents long term can't feed their children then presumably they are taken away by some equivalent of SS - do they bill the GPs for their food?
If it's short term, illness or whatever, are the GPs expected to turn up with food parcels?

We have managed so far without MIL because I worked part time. I put in rather more hours now and, like most working parents, find school holidays and so on tricky. French teachers are quite often on strike (DD2 is at home today for that very reason for the second time in less than a month), France has more public holidays than the UK.

MIL said that she was looking forward to having the children more when she was retired - she knew I was going to be working more.

As it turns out she doesn't really want to do what she said. I think that is her right and do not include her in any formal childcare. I don't think it is a big ask to ask a GP to pick children up from school (MIL lives round the corner from the school)once a week, but if the GP doesn't want to, that is fair enough.

I think DH is wrong for putting pressure on me to sort this out differently. I do think it is reasonable of him to think that his mum could have the DC once a week as that is something she said she wanted to do. Now she has decided she would rather not I think we have to respect that. DH being French sees things a bit differently (he spent a lot of time at his GPs when he was young because his mother worked - he spent most of his school holidays with them).

Where is FIL in all of this?
Still working?
I agree she shouldn´t say she wants to do something & then change her mind.

But perhaps she would like to enjoy her retirement for a while.

If she has been working since your husband was young she deserves it!

FIL is a step parent, so different according to OP.
What do GPs do if they still work FT?

BC you look completely reasonable and balanced in your opinion. I do think your DH have too high expectations of his mum. To be honest if she lives around the corner of the school I am a bit . As I said in my 1st post babyboomers are quite selfish, and responsible for a lot of france deficit and struggle. but it is her choice.
SPB it usually come into force when the parents divorce. GP gets about 1 visit a month which can be a sleepover, and contact can't be denied in between (i.e. phone calls, letters...).
For the duty of feeding that means they can't let their GC starved. before SS is ivolved the GC will pay/give food, and can be legally forced too (vary rare). but the parents still have parental rights. unless there is something more serious than just not being able to pay bills. even when SS is involved, then generally the GP gets the GC as next of kin if they are able. I am sure it is the case in the UK too? it is better to put the children with the familly than with strangers if it can work financially?

thanks

FIL works, also he is not DH's dad so relationship a bit different. He has GC from another relationship but is lovely with our children.

Yes MIL does no doubt want to enjoy her retirement with no commitments - fair enough I say.

Interesting what mamaloco says too.. about babyboomers being selfish. I know they have NO obligation but it does bug me that my ILs had buckets of help from their parents when my Dh and his sibs were little, and yet they don't seem to think that the pendulum has swung their way at all..

Another thought-and could be way off here-but might it be that problem is with the OPs husband expecting her to do it?

Mamaloco, yes, I can totally confirm that also in Italy it's quite common for the GP to take the children on holidays, while the parents are working.

In fact, Italian children have very long holidays (from mid June to mid September), and while big cities like Milan (with a high rate of women in full time employment) organize all sorts of activities for children of various ages, other areas totally lack any form of care over the summer.
So, yes, it is quite common for grandparents (regardless of their class, wealthier ones will take the nanny ) to take the children to the country/sea/mountains for a while. (Usually Italians go on holiday en masse in August)

And who'd blame the parents for wanting their children to leave places like Milan, which gets sticky hot in these months?

I also would like to reassure the poster who implied it was cruel to send the children away for 2 weeks, but most of the children we are talking about are quite used to spend time with their grandparents, and usually have a great time. I did at least, I still remember the time spent with my grandmothers on holidays as very precious.

Yeah I think that is a very interesting comment about the babyboomers.

The other interesting part is how long they will live due to improved health care and how they will need their own dc to care for them in their very old age.

That pendulum just keeps on swinging...

I'm American, but from an all Latino culture and it's also common for children there to spend large amounts of time with close relatives.

My sister regularly requests me to send my daughters to her for the six week summer holidays. Next year, I think we will!

My sister and I regularly spent 2-3 week blocks of time with our GPs whilst my parents went on holiday, my Dad worked abroad and my mother went to join him for a break, etc.

It didn't seem amiss to us at all.

You know what? If he'd wanted a french woman with french attitudes - he should have married one! This is what I told my husband after we married (take out french and put in kenyan)

He married a british woman. there must be compromise.

And he can't ask you to risk the good relationship you have with his mother by getting you to bully her into doing something that he wants her to do!

He is being really unfair. What? He wants you to force her to do what he wants so it gets done but there's no comeback on him? He's still in his mum's good books?

tsk.

When I lived in Spain, to be a SAHM there was very unusual and thought of as rather lazy. The school holidays are enormously long (3 months) and therefore it was completely standard to send your kids away for a month to their grandparents or other available family. The other month you'd send them to summer camp/abroad and then August all the offices shut and you joined your parents and children. This was just the norm (and is common in Italy and France I think) and i never heard of any case of the GPs refusing to have the children. What would parents do in the summer otherwise?

However, this must change as nearly all Spanish women below a certain age (50s?) work now and presumably will still be working when their own daughters have children - your MIL fits the baby boomer descrption exactly!

Staranise.. that woman you're describing is me! People think I'm lazy to have chosen to stay at home at the mo but what else can I do?
I want my children to be brought up by the people who love them and not a string of unqualified nannies..
My ILs head down to their beach house any day now, not to be seen or heard of for two or three months and we just plod along as always..

Er, if it is culturally and legally enforced that French GPs must take care of their GDCs then why hasn't the French grandmere noticed this and adhered to her own culture and law?

The husband is being a sexist twat imo, culture has nothing to do with it.

FWIW, my own family are emotional, demonstrative, interfering types from Edinburgh and my ILs are stiff upper lip and restrained. From Fife. People are different wherever you go regardless of 'culture'.

OP is having the piss taken out of her here by her DH, French culture is neither here nor there from what I can see. This guy not only wants his mother to do childcare against her will, but for his wife to be the one arguing with her about it? I'd tell him to eff off.

I think that´s the point also MorrisZapp- the husband wants it but wants his wife to sort it out

It is not actually quite so black and white - life generally isn't even if AIBU would like it to be (and DH is not a twat). Thanks to all those with helpful input.

All is sorted - DH has spoken to his mum, he now understands why I didn't want to and everybody is happy with the result.

Glad you've cleared the air on this cultural clash .

I'm having one with school at the moment! Grrrr.

What is the result?

MIL is going to help out a bit during the summer holidays on her terms - I or DH will call her when we need a hand and if she can/wants to help fine. After summer we will do a more regular thing.

I think MIL doesn't really take my job seriously as I work a lot from home. I had a chat about it with her and explained again about the overnight trips, etc and I think she has a better idea now.

We'll see! [books childminder]

Hope it works out for you.
Was thinking I´d killed the thread there!

I can´t help thinking that your MIL wants to have a bit of control here.

Sounds a bit like a power struggle between her & your husband imo.

I think that your case is quite an interesting one, Beachcomber, because of your FIL in fact being your DH's stepfather.

One day I expect my DSSs will have children. DP will definitely want to see a lot of his grandchildren and do the French grandparent thing, but I wonder what I will feel about that?

It may be a power thing I suppose. I suspect, without wanting to sound uncharitable, that it is more to do with the 'babyboomer' thing that was mentioned earlier by mamaloco. That description fits both PILs pretty well despite their penchant for constant family get togethers.

Fact is, if I call MIL because say childminder/friend is ill she would think it perfectly reasonable to say she couldn't help because she was sorting out her summer/winter wardrobe change over that day. The fact that she could do it the following day wouldn't occur to her because she probably wants to cut the grass the next day.

Her choice of course.

Re the stepgrandparents thing - PIL treats our children exactly the same as his blood grandchildren. I'm always amazed by his emotional generosity and love for them. They love him dearly back. I suspect he is a bit disapproving of MILs dedication to her lawn/wardrobe/shopping over her grandchildren and helping us out occasionally. He does sometimes say in pointed tones how it must be hard because we only have one set of family to help (mine being far away of course). That is between them however.