arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my mum, me and total meltdown!

[Heathcliffscathy]

have just had a huge barney with her resulting in her saying that if i carried on i would 'never see her again' to which my v grown up retort was 'good'.

i feel v v unsupported by her in terms of babysitting/looking after ds.....and this is stoked by the fact that she can't seem to do enough for my sister. i know that is immature.

dh's parents are both dead, so it's paid for childcare or my parents. i've had the discussion with her before saying that for all her professions of love and delight in ds, she doesn't seem to want to look after him (as opposed to her other grandchildren) as she never offers to. her response has always been, but please just ask me any time you ask of course i will. it is v v hard for me to ask for her help and the final straw came today when i did ask (for 3 hours babysitting on saturday afternoon) and she said no.

i'm missing out loads of mitigating detail: the reason i want her to do it is as i'm on a course and i really want dh to go fishing. we (dh and I) have been having a rough time recently (i confided this to her last week in floods of tears: you'd think she hadn't been party to that conversation), and are beginnig to get through it....but one of the things he is finding really hard is not having any time at all to himself (which I do sometimes). he is fine about not going. but i'm absolutely gutted and furious (lovely combination of emotions)

also my mother spends a lot of time at my grandmothers house, looking after her.

i just feel that because i don't ask, i don't get, and when i do, it is such a blood out of stone exercise that it's not worth it.

becuase we are lucky enough to have some money for childcare, i don't get any from her. which is really hard becaseu although the girl that looks after ds is lovely (really lovely) it's totally not the same as ds spending time with his grandparetns (who he adores). she seems fine to spend time with ds and me, but won't help me by looking after him. ds is v v easy and the only reason i can see for this is that she just doesn't want to for whatever reason.

i've had enough of not saying anything, so really blew my top today and told her not to come back until she was prepared to really be a grandmother

we don't get on that well.....and i'm sick of pretending to to be honest.....

she is irrational and kind of weird in these situations though so am half expecting some hysterical doorbell rant in the middle of tonight.

i know i don't deserve any sympathy. we do have access to childcare unlike lots of people. but i'm feeling so angry and sad about this and thought it would help to post....

I'm sorry you are upset. Fwiw, my parents do not look after ds for us and we don't really have any other babysitters! My mum's definition of grandparent is to "get all the good bits" (her words). She made it clear at the outset that I do all the other stuff. I suppose I don't have any expectations so I can't be let down by her.

I hope you can sort something out for Saturday afternoon.

sorry to hear this soph. a friend of mine is going through similar & i know she finds it very hard. no practical help from me i'm afraid, but lots of sympathy. xx

Not sure if this may help but... the day that I stoped expectin mother to do for me what she did for my sisters, my relationship with her became much better. Maybe she has not changed much but the fact I'm no longer expecting much from her makes me more comfortable with the situation. At the same time, when she noticed that I disapeared from the scene more often than before... she did make an effort to improve the relationship.

So my advice may be the same Homer Simpson blurted out in one of the episodes: You tried hard and failed, next time.. don't even try! :)

chandra i think you're right....i'm going to try it

sophable- I am in a similar situation with my in laws. They see my ds and dd for 2 hrs a month if they are lucky; SIL/BIL and kids live in N. Ireland but they stay for months at a time there, obviously seeing them all day every day as nothing else for them to do. For example, they are there now, from early Mar to mid/late June, helping SIL as she is pg again, yet we are down the road from them and had no help or offers of when I was pg. Now, it's fine by me to not see in laws, but I do feel for my children, and know they will notice the difference one day.

Best thing I try to keep in mind is that they are the ones missing out, and that as much as I want to I can't change them. Think I am going to give Chandra's advice a whirl- we have a v bad relationship, but maybe if I expect nothing either I will be pleasantly surprised or not get disappointed.

Really horrible situation for you, wondering why your mum is behaving like this. I honestly think that she- and my ILs- don't see that they are not treating their children/grandchildren equally and fairly in terms of time etc. Are you nearer to her than your sister is? I think we get taken for granted because we are so accessible. From speaking to friends in RL think this is quite a common problem, sadly. You are right though, she needs to think about what "being" a grandmother should involve and realise that what she is doing is not "it". SIL actually told my FIL he is not a hands on grandad- he was shocked, but took no action to change, and as I said, they get more of him anyway. He would rather take endless inane photos of them, then ignore them as he gawps at whatever rubbish he can find on the TV instead of playing with them. Very sad- for them more than him

Hope things seem better soon and you work something out.

Sophable,

I sympathise also; I could have written some of this word for word particularly with regards feeling unsupported, the fact that more help is being received by siblings (my mum gets my younger childfree and single brother his shopping and cleans house for him) and the blood out of stone exercise that its not worth it. After receiving too many excuses my DH found a company of sitters and we now use them for anytime we want a night out. Works well and have used them for a number of years now.

Before I became a parent my mum made it clear to me that she was in no way going to look after any children that I had as she's been there and done that already. This I accept - but I have never wanted her to look after DS at all of a day but to just see him a bit more than they do (DS adores his nanny and grandad despite everything).

(My DH found a company of sitters and we now use them for anytime we want a night out. Works well and have used them for a number of years now).

This attitude of disinterest has now been extended to her recently saying to me that she cannot look after DS because if anything happened to him in her charge she'd never forgive herself (comments re that gem are welcomed). I have felt very bad about all of this over the years and it is very hard to forget. It is though, their loss ultimately.