Parenting without any help from your parents

[needmoreenergy]

I am interested to know what percentage of new parents have no help from their own parents or no help from any family member not just in terms of practical help but also in terms of any understanding / someone they can talk to.
I starting thinking about this in terms of my mum but am thinking more in terms of family members generally just having no clue whatsoever what you are going through and this being reflected not just in behaviour but in a kind of blank wall when/ if you talk about things you are experiencing. Is this a more familiar thing as the generations live in (often) far apart locations and there are more working mums where in the previous generation there were more stay at home mums? Or do most people experience some kind of family support when they start having children?

I parent without parental help or advice.
Both of my parents are dead and my Dh only has his mother living 200 miles away.
Our siblings also live 100's of miles away and work full time, so we just get on with it.
TBH it can really annoy me when people moan about lack of help, when in reality they have lots of local relatives who can take the pressure off at times.

I have had no help either from family...although I have been lucky enough to have made lots of great friends, and we share the good and bad times together.

Do you have any local relatives flossie? We don't but then we moved her so i could be close to my work and so i'm the reason why we are where we are!!! But aside from that we don't really have any living relatives who could realistically do anything i suspect. For me it is a case of having firm expectations (i.e. we expect to do it all ourselves) although sometimes i wish there was someone who might be able to step in in very emergency situations (like the up and coming birth of our second child which my husband will probably have to miss as he will be looking after baby number 1)

No help for us either. Dh's parents are very elderly and 200 miles away and mine are crap and 400 miles away. Useless.

We just get on with it, always have. I think it can make you incredibly strong as a unit and, as others have said, friends are a massive support.

NME- no no local relatives at all .Nearest live 160 miles away and we never see them.
Also my dh spent the last 3yrs working 180miles away Mon-Fri, so the buck stopped with me. I have to admit that nearly pushed me over the edge ,but he works locally nowand we are all much happier.

Well my mum is dead and the rest of our family is not local (2+ hours drive min). So yes, we are without immediate support too I guess.

I definitely miss my mum's input and the babysitters on tap that some friends have. But it also has its good points (no interfering over parenting methods, no unwanted advice etc) and it's pretty much the norm for London I think - I'd say most of my friends are in the same boat.

I have loads of good friends to talk to about parenting, who are much more in touch with current thinking and are actually going through the same dilemmas right now. So I don't particularly feel hard done by.

I have plenty of family really local. My parents live about 2 miles away. I have virtually no help and no advice except stuff like "it was harder for us, you should be grateful" etc
DD has had her nappy changed by my relis a total of 3 times if that and all of those by sister who lives 250 miles away, if only she lived nearer.
DP's family are no better. They have DSD over to stay but not DD becuase she's still in nappies
It's so crap, isnt it.
At the same time I play the role of dutiful daughter and good mother so DD has a relationship with my family and DP's family.
It's exhausting but now DD is 2 1/2 Im getting used to it. I was determined not to break down and not be there for my beloved DD.

No family here. Both families abroad.

But i have moral support from my mum over the phone and during visits.

Tbh my sympathy goes to the poster who has lost her mum and to Elenor. For the rest of us, if we choose to live somewhere else then we cant complain.

I am going to give you another point of view: there is no such a thing as 'free help'. Those who have help from parents they also have endless family meals (when they don't feel like), visits when they are busy/tired, weddings, christenings, birthdays every weekend plus medical appoitments for grandparents etc. When you see a friend who says 'my mum is babysitting tommorow' think that maybe she (your friend) spend yesterday at hospital appoitment with her mum or driving to collect a prescription or cooking meal for the whole family.

I am not saying i dont understand how you feel after all i am in the same boat and feel the same sometimes. But i just think that before we say 'poor me' we should think that nothing is one way only.

We both have our parents living within 10-15 mins from our house.

We have no help, no support and no offers of help from any of them.

I have had 5 mcs, i had to go through them alone in hospital as dh couldnt leave ds to be with me as no one would help.

After my mcs i was given pain killers which i couldnt take because they made me dopey and as i had to care for ds, i couldnt afford to be like that. So i had to suffer in pain for a few days.
No one came near, no one phoned, no one was interested. They knew about the mcs, as dh told them.

There have been times when i have felt very annoyed and very let down by them all.
There attitude is that as another poster said, they had to put up with much worse when they had kids, so why are we special.

meatntattypie

I do sometimes think "poor me" yes, because we do stuff for them.
I babysit for my sisters, we do all sorts for the in laws and have helped them out finacially on numerous occasions.
I dont expect them to pay back in a demanding way, i just feel very sad for ds as he is missing out on his gps.
I feel very sad when i see grandpaernts in the playground picking up their grandkids.
Its like he is nothing to do with them, and they couldnt give a toss about him or us.
It makes me feel sad for him.

meatntattypie, for you

we don't have any day to day support - dh's parents live down south and my dad lives 1.5 hrs drive away (my mum is dead). dh was unhappy in his job and basically turned a couple of offers down as they weren't flexible enough for him to help at all with childcare - I need to work as well and we couldn't juggle the hours enough. We are more fortunate than many though as my dad will come and stay in the hols if he's available, and dh's parents will have dd to stay for a week. They do adore dd, it's just the distance - we did choose to live here tho, so can't complain too much.

That's so sad, Meatntattypie.

I had all my DCs in another country, with my exILs about 2 hours plane trip away, 8 hours by car -- in about 20 years I can count about 15 times any of the ILs (PILs and BILs or SILs) made the trip our way, but we did it from our end sometimes twice a year, both flying and driving. exMIL was happy to chip in with her appalling baby and child care advice whether asked for it or not. She considered babies and small children to be nuisances. To tell the truth, I was happy to miss the circus that is life with my exMIL; she's a lot of hard work.

My mum was great over the phone, very encouraging, but in person, not too much help as she didn't seem to be able to do anything on her own initiative while visiting. She would never think to put on a load of laundry or hoover or get a meal organised for the DCs -- I could ask her to do it, but it felt a bit ungracious to be putting a guest to work. OTOH, she loved spending time with the DCs and they are very fond of her.

No help at all. My parents are about 2 hours away and are totally uninteresting in my kids. They haven't seen them for 18 months, since I decided that I had had enough trying to develop a relationship between kids and grandparents. They are retired, fit and healthy and could visit if they wanted to, but don't. My MiL is much more willing and really lovely, but is not so well and quite a bit older, and lives about an hour away with no means to travel. She is willing to come down and baby sit but I'm never sure who is looking after who when she does, and we would have to go and fetch her, so its not an emergency option. No other family except my sister a couple of hours away. When I was admitted to hospital unexpectedly she did drive down at 5.am. without a moments hesitation to look after my kids, bless her cotton socks, so I am lucky there. Other than that, I use paid baby sitting.

forces family. i know very few (actually struggling to think of any) families who have had parental help with newborns/ ever. even through civvie friends... i think it's very unusual now as a lot of people move 'away' from home as a result of university/ career moves etc.

i honestly can't think of a single family who have parental help/ advice or much contact at all...

My mum died when I was a teenager and the rest of my family all live 100+ miles away. They're very loving but obviously not able to help in the day to day practical sense. Also my dad was away for large chunks of my childhood so doesn't remember very much about my early life. My only brother died three years ago, taking pretty much every memory of our shared childhood with him.

DP's family are brilliant and lovely, but also 100+ miles away. So again, while they're always available for advice/tips/emotional support/laughs, it's usually via phone or on visiting weekends.

I agree with other posters who say it can make you a strong family unit, in that you have to make parenting decisions for yourself. But having lost people through death makes it easier in some ways, as the whole thing was taken out of my hands. I can't imagine what it's like to have family alive and nearby who are as useless and uninterested as some of you describe

My mum has no interest in my children and her only concern is how much they will cry when I'm visiting so I can't stay for long.
My dad has had a few bits of advice, but haven't seen him in nearly a year?

No, no family support on my kids.
My parenting is trial and error, and speaking with people on mumsnet!

And a few gems from the occasional grandma visit, like don't go to him when he's crying! He's controlling you (at 4 weeks old
and 'oh for god's sakes @ breastfeeding, like an animal!'

Mathanxiety, I'm a grandma and I live a very long way away from my son, dil and dgs.
The difficulty for everyone is that when I do stay it is my dil who gets to spend long stretches of time with me.
I try hard to be sensitive and as non interfering as possible. Hard. I am very, very fond of my dil and think she is a wonderful mother and I'm pretty sure she likes me and knows just how much I adore my dgs.
I was struck by what you said about your mother not helping on her own initiative. I often try to help by putting on washing, tidying up, going shopping etc. etc. but always feel I've not got it quite right. She wasn't going to do a wash that day or it is the wrong kind of butter. This has the effect of making me over cautious and sightly nervous, so I eventually give up and spend the time playing with my dgs and feeling rather unhelpful/lazy.
I could more easily ask my own dd what she wanted me to do or she would (and does!) tell me when I've overstepped the mark, but my dil is less out spoken and more private and polite (understandable) so it isn't always easy. I wish she would be more ungracious!
Sorry OP this isn't really an answer to you. I can't really imagine not wanting to be involved or supportive. I am grateful for the opportunity to love a little child again.

My parents are dead, my DH's dad is dead and his mother lives in US, as does the rest of his family. My family are non-existant, so we rely on friends to support us, which is not easy as most of them are just entering into parenthood themselves, so not able to give us support/advice/guidance based on experience. We have one set of friends who have been there, with a 7yo, but that is all. It is hard, and sometimes lonely, and i expect DH and I argue much more because it is all down to us alone to make the right decisions with no guidance.

Cloudedyellow, you sound lovely -- I appreciate it's not always easy to figure out what might be needed or considered helpful, and feeling discouraged.

My exMIL had the same attitude to crying babies, even newborns, as Mummyoftwosoon's did (crying baby = manipulator of mother). I wish she had been more conscious of overstepping the fine and not-so-fine lines that she crossed on many occasions. But my mother knows what the daily chores are in my house and I could never understand why she was so diffident about just picking up where I left off when I headed off to the hospital the times she came over to help when a baby was born. I'm not a bit fussy about stuff like butter, or forcing DCs to drink milk at meals, or dress in colour-coordinated or even season-appropriate separates, nor am I a neat freak.

When my mum came over after DC4 was born she called me in the morning while I was lying in the hospital bed about 5 hours after giving birth to ask what I had planned for dinner for everyone that day, then argued with me that the suggestion I came up with would not all be eaten. I finally persuaded her to cook more than one pound of chicken for two adults and three DCs, then she called again later to ask for cooking directions, where were the onions, how many potatoes, what veg would the DCs eat, what pots to use. It was verging on farcical.

When I got home from the hosp the nest day she held DC4 while I got on with the housekeeping. She was great company though, and very nice to have there, just too timid about mucking in, but the DCs always had a great time with her while I was in the hospital.

meatandtattypie - how very sad for you, I only had the one mc where I was stuck to the toilet in pain and had a 3 and 2 yo playing at my feet with no help cannot imagine 5.

We have no family help either, MIL and FIL both dead, I don't speak to my Mother and I see my Dad about once every 2 or 3 months and he isn't any practical help. SIL does babysit about twice a year for a few hours.

It's little things that get to me like next week is DD1's parents evening which is at 4.40pm, DP works an hour away so the pressure is now on him to try and swing it so he can make it home so I can go or I will have to take them all with me. It seems like everyone else has a Gran waiting in the wings to take the DC so both parents can go. Just little things like that and doctors appts etc.

I had a homebirth with DD2 as there was no-one to look after DD1 and I wanted DP to be with me. Both my Mum and MIL knew this and there was not one offer of help. We have given up expecting anything now.

We don't live close to any family members, so wouldn't even have the chance to ask for assistance. I prefer it this way as I wouldn't want interference anyhoo

Well no help here! Dh side of the family have all popped their cloggs years ago and my parents are in poor health and live miles away. So no one. All my friends live in a different town from me and work full time any way. Things are getting easier now DS1 is a teenager. (in some ways anyway - different set of problems now!)

No help here - my parents aren't capable at all, and DH's parents are rarely in the country. His brothers, in spite of lots of comments before DS was born as to how it would be nice to have a baby around again (he is 12 years younger than the youngest of theirs) don't do anything for us at all.

What a timely thread! My mum and dad live 5 (5!) minutes away and know I am struggling with my three (8,5 & 3) at the moment (my husband works long hours) They do not help AT ALL. They might make themselves available to babysit in an emergency but that's about it. They are really good at buying expensive things for the children but want little to nothing to do with them. It makes me so sad and I can't help but feel so disappointed by this. They are relatively young, fit, healthy, my dad is semi-retired, working from home and my mum does not work at all. What gives? I just don't understand it. They don't have any other grandchildren either so it's not like the novelty has worn off. There are lots of grandparents around us who take their (multiple) grandchildren to the park, to lessons and pick up from school etc. My children would be absolutely delighted if Granny or Grandad took them to the park or invited them over to bake cookies or something like that...they'd love the attention and I would relish the opportunity to get a few things done around the house. Has anyone had any luck ASKING for help from family?