Am I expecting too much from my parents?

[keziah]

Hi Everyone
I have for the first time had a chance to sit down and post some messages - I've been reading mumsnet for ages and storing up my problems!!
I started off on another thread but decided this needed its own message. I want to know if I am just been mean and expecting too much from my family. My parents are divorced, my brother lives nearby and my sister is living away. (Neither of them have children yet.) I am the first one to have children and I have three (4,2 and 9 months)and I am a full time mum.
None of my family have ever offered to look after any of the children. I have asked on occasion but they can only manage one at a time - usually my eldest and also I wish I didn't have to ask them - it makes me feel like they are then doing it against their will.
They were all quite good when my daughter was ill and in hospital for a long time but apart from that they don't do much at all.
My grandparents used to take me out places even though they lived far away. Friends of mine leave their children for odd nights with family so that they can go out or whatever.
They can see me struggling and I have said that I find it hard not getting a break so I am surprised that they don't offer help. Also shouldn't they want to see the children just for their own enjoyment? So that's my version of it! From their point of view (this is me guessing) - they all work full time and have their own lives and I think they feel that they do see the children enough.
I really just want someone to say - come on - you look like you could do with a break - why don't I take the children to the park for a couple of hours.
Am I living in cloud cuckoo land and being ungrateful or do you think its a problem that should be tackled?
Any ideas very gratefully received. Thankyou...

Keziah - I know how you feel! It's totally knackering looking after 3 young children full-time all by yourself (mine are aged 5, 3 and 19 months) I don't have any family living nearby, never have infact, so have always got on and done things myself. Also my dh works long hours so isn't around to help much. My parents and PIL are all retired now, but still aren't around to help much, and if I do ask for any help, make me feel as though I am putting them out. Quite honestly, sometimes I'd rather just get on with it than feel as though I'm forever in their debt and having to grovel at their feet in eternal thanks!

If you family are all working fulltime, perhaps they just feel too knackered to cope with the demands of small children aswell. Although that's not a very good excuse on their part, as they are their grand children, but there you go! As you can see from my tales of woe, it doesn't get any better when they do retire. Have you get some good, supportive friends who can help you out? I have, and they are my lifeline. Also, Mumsnet is great when you need a moan.

IMO, I think you're in a no win situation. If you do say something you could badly rock the boat and cause allsorts of problems, and as I know from my own experiences, the delicate balance within families is all to easy to upset. It seems as though they are just getting on with their own lives rather than deliberately avoiding the kids, although it may seem that way sometimes and can feel very hurtful.

I hope that my comments haven't depressed you more. I certainly didn't mean to, I suppose I was just relating my own experiences to yours. But as you can see, I really empathize with your situation. I hope you feel a bit better for just getting it off you chest. I'm here if you want to talk.

PS - are your kids running riot around the house like mine, as you're posting your messages?

Keziah, you have a lot on your hands - no wonder you need a break.

Just a quick message here:

My MIL and FIL live a long distance away, but we spend some holidays with them. Their hands-on involvement and willingness to babysit my two sons has dramatically increased as sons get older. Ironically my inlaws will now eagerly offer to have my 7 year old for week-long holidays alone, while still calling me the minute my 2 year old needs a nappy change.

So, give it time, and you may get more offers of help. But that doesn't mean much now, does it?

I think there's quite a difference in asking for babysitting for sleeping children or wide awake ones. Do your children go down reasonaly well at night? Could you ease your parents into the idea of helping you by suggesting they babysit one evening after you have put your three to bed? You could offer to be on call and stay very local.
Even if one of your children wakes up, your parents will not have to cope with all three at once, hopefully.

If that goes well, then you could begin to tackle the issue of some daytime beaks for yourself.

Hope this helps. The very, very, best of luck to you!

keziah

I don't think you should give up so easily. Why shouldn't you expect some help - they are the children's grandparents and therefore are intimately involved in your children's lives (in this case - obviously not de facto in all cases).

Why not play on the 'remember how hard it is' tactic with the grannies? That one always works with me. I have found that I have really had to ask with most family members. I do see it would be harder with more kids, but I think if you don't ask, you don't get in this situation - even if they are a bit reluctant.

Agree with Tigermoth though, why not start with just a bit of babysitting and then work your way bigger.

I feel very much as ChanelNo5 does. I've never had much input from my family as we live 600 miles away, and came to rely on friends rather than family. As a child, I only had one grandparent, who lived with us for 13 years and was a PITA. (Wonder why I was the only one who got on with him??? )

I confess, I feel uncomfortable with Green's suggestion that we should expect help from grandparents. Presumably, they didn't ask to be grandparents. I think that we can hope they will help, but expecting seems to be akin to demanding, which in turn smacks of duty. Once we are adult I don't think we can lay claim to anything from them, although support is always welcome, of course!

I think there can also be lots of reasons behind grandparents non-involvement. Sometimes they feel that they've done their bit with regards to child-rearing and don't want to change nappies/give feeds/read TTTE books ever again. Or their own lives are so full that they don't have the time. Maybe they themselves have elderly parents to care for. Sometimes they can be nervous about other people's children. (My SIL's mother was so scared of her as a baby that her dad did all the baby rearing - pretty unusual in the 1950's!). They might prefer older children - or are plain not interested because life has moved on for them. They may worry about offers of help being seen as interference, or may misinterpret the signals asking for help.

Siblings without children can be unaware of the stresses and strains of motherhood - how many of us truly understood what it was to be a parent, until we had our own child, even though we read all the books, attended the classes etc?

Tigermoth's suggestion of going softly, softly seems the most likely way to change things but developing a friendship network is the most reliable, IME. Hope you are able to sort something out soon. You can always come to Mumsnet for virtual support, too, Keziah.

Keziah,
I have read this and your other post about feeling overwhelmed and you have my sympathies!
I have to agree with SueDonim, if your parents don't appear to want to get more involved in helping you/ enjoying their grandchildren there is nothing you can do about it . If they work full time I can actuallly see their point of view! Having worked full time myself till very recently I really did not have much energy for my own tiny tots in the evenings! Imagine the guilt involved in this... This does not mean they do not love and care for you/your kids but more likely they just have busy lives of their own. As for your siblings. My brother and sister had their famililies while I was in my twenties/ early thirties and as I did not have kids till much later it never even crossed my mind to offer to help or even visit.Now I am a mum too I am much more interested in my neices and nephews but honestly, I just never gave them much thought in the past. My life was so busy and they were a distant concern!
As for your general overwhelmedness, this may be way off line, but is there any possibility you might be depressed? If you are feeling sad most of the time, and that life is not worth living please give this some thought. You may of course just be suffering from universal tired parent syndrome, in which case join the club and feel fre to moan as much as you like! And remember, you will look back on these days when your kids are grown up and really miss those tiny kidders!

My heart goes out to you, it does sound like you could do with some practical support just to have some time when you are not having to look after everyone else.

Maybe they are just happy with their own existence so if you are not popping up in their lives on a regular basis it might not occur to them to chase you. Also, their own ideas might reflect the approach that they received themselves. If they got what they saw as unwanted interference they may just be giving you lots of freedom (but you don't want a whole prairie).

Try the trouble free babysitting route. If you could bear it you could invite them along to trips to the park at weekends, Sunday lunch and the like so that they have some idea of the rhythm of your family's life.

The word of caution I would add would be to try and evaluate how much energy you can risk putting into this if you don't get a return. As has been said, it might just be an age issue so you could approach it again later but don't beat yourself up in the meantime.

I wish you all the best

Meant to add this to my last post. Why don't you take the bull by the horns, phone your mum or whoever and just say " me and dh would really like an evening out, just the two of us. Could you come round next Friday (Saturday, Wednesday , whatever) at eight o'clock so we can go out to dinner? We will be home by 11". They might quite like to be asked!
This will clearly not solve all your problems but will make a start in the getting them involved scheme. They may even enjoy themselves and offer to do babysit again.

Hi and thanks to you all for your advice. I always feel so guilty critising my family (I think this is universal!) In fact I feel especially bad as my mum did come and babysit on Friday night. I suppose I did take the bull by the horns and ask - then I felt even worse as when we got home she had done the washing up (the eternal washing up that never seems to be finished and lies rotting on the worksurface) and she had even even cleaned the top of my cooker. This is not a simple job!
Guilt is a terrible thing...
I think that I can probably get away with asking her once every couple of months. Then if I ask my dad and my brother too I guess my husband and I will be able to go out a couple of times each month. We actually had a lovely meal out and I felt much more human afterwards. And don't children look so beautiful and angelic when they are asleep! It was really nice to look in on them when we got home.
Just to add that my mum was nervous about whether the children would be awake or not. Once my brother babysat and they all sat with him until we got home.
I think that possibly my mum will be better with them as they get older. She is not really a baby person and perhaps finds it easier when she can have a proper adult talk - she's a teacher - of older children...
Having read all your replies I think perhaps that I should be grateful that at least my family live near and can give occasional help however reluctantly. It must be incredibly hard to manage with no family around at all.
I still can't help wishing that they were like my grandparents were though. I adored them - they would take me around to some really great places and more than that they really loved me and I could tell. They were more open in that way than my parents were.
I think you are right that grandparents of this generation are different though - I know my mum especially gets very tired and also has a lot of her own interests. I can hardly object to that I suppose!
As for my brother and sister - it's very easy to forget what it was like to not have children! Thanks for the advice there - I expect we will get closer when they do have their own.
It may sound crazy to think ahead to my own grandchildren but I am sort of already looking forward to it! Maybe I will feel differently in 20 years or so.
I just read Jan Parkers book and there is such a beautiful part in it about the birth of a baby. I think it is Japanese custom - or perhaps it was just this one woman's experience but after the birth of her baby her aunt cooked her her favourite meal, washed her in a bath sprinkled with rose petals, massaged her and wrapped her up in warm towels then she just slept. I think thats how it went! Isn't that lovely!
Anyway I've gone way off point but I really wish that families could be closer. Perhaps I am romanticising (am prone to that!) Maybe my daughter would cringe at my wanted to bathe her in flowers etc!! Maybe I should just wait to see if she actually wants any children first!!
Just to go back on to the thread I started on - I did broach the subject a bit with my mum and she did say that she didn't think she could cope with all three children on her own at her house. This is fair enought really so I don't mean to sound demanding. I think that if we get a bigger house maybe she would come there to look after them for a few hours in the day. Having a bigger garden would really help. We have a postage stamp at present.
Ok better finish now - sorry if this in an incoherent message - hard to type/think with the children in the room! But thanks ever so much for the advice and to my other post as well.

p.s ChanelNo5 - yes they were running around - very loud on floorboards - I can feel the old lady next door being angry through the walls!! Now I have resorted to putting on some videos...Bye and thanks

Keziah, lovely to read your latest post. You sound happier now you've started to talk to your family and they are explaining how they feel. It helps to offload, doesn't it? I wouldn't feel guilty about your mum doing the washing up. If she really didn't want to do it, she wouldn't have! It probably made her feel good that she could do something small but significant for you.

Hi Keziah, nice to hear you got a night out. We now tend to rely more on friends for help as mine are older my nearly 7 DS now gets to go on sleepovers. Then if I'm really organised my mother may look after DD overnight (this has only happened once though!).

We have just taken to ringing my parents and saying we are 10 minutes away is it alright to pop in for a cuppa. This tends to work well, we stay for an hour or so and my Mum gets out the plasticine.

How about offering to mind a friend's children in return for her having yours? Just for a couple of hours to start with? Then spend the time on yourself.

I must agree with your Mum that 3 under 5 is a lot for an OAP to cope with (presuming she is one). Are there two lots of nappies too? I'm sure that, like the others say that things will get better as you get older. R.

No sorry, I mean as they get older. R.

Kezia, that all sounds good, and I am glad you had a good night out.
Definately don't feel guilty about your mum cleaning the house. She probably enjoyed it. I know my house is a tip but other peoples sinks are so much more interesting and I actually think it is a compliment to you that she felt able to clean up - think about it, you would never start cleaning up dishes in the home of someone you did not know too well, but would not think twice about clearing away things in your best friend's kitchen.
I used to feel bad when my mum cleaned my house ( more embarrassed than guilty!) but now I let her get on with it. I am sure it is one of the ways she shows her love.
Last week I had a rotten cold, we had the builders in and my husband had exams. Mum came in and took away all our dirty laundry and washed and ironed it!

Keziah, glad you escaped!

Another thought: whenever my inlaws have my oldest for a holiday, things are really much easier with just the one, even if we are not child free. Magically, the bedtime routine and getting ready to go out takes half as long. Also it's lovely to be able to concentrate on one son alone without having to split my attention.

You say your parents are more keen to have your 4 year old for day time visits. Well, even if it's difficult to believe now, your two year old is getting more grandparent-friendly all the time, as the nappy and pushchair phase comes to an end.

Sometime in the not-too-distant-future, with luck, you will find you are left with just one at home while your parents take out the other two for a while... and things will seem strangely quiet and almost normal again....hopefully.