I'm a single mum with about 75% time with my young children, one of whom has autism. I have no support around me at all and see very clearly that most other single mothers I know have a heap of support from their parents. Of course this isn't a sweeping generalisation as I am not one of them and I know others who don't have support either but most do in the circles I am personally in.
My own mother lives 2 hours away.
She visits every three weeks or so and due to her living in one bedroom accommodation with her boyfriend, we can not visit her. Accommodation where she lives also isn't cheap, along with travel costs etc it is expensive to visit her. She moved away from our home town around 5 years ago when she met her now boyfriend.
When she visits, I crave to be able to use the time to get jobs done. For her to watch the children so I can clean, run errands or even have some time to myself or see a friend. I have no other childcare any other time other than my ex who has the children for 2 overnights a week (only from 5pm-8am due to the demands of his work) and once after school for dinner on a day when I'm at work. I organise my own work around school drop offs/pick ups to save on wrap around care and everything inbetween as it if flexible but I often feel like I'm all over the place juggling everything all at once. My ex pays a very good deal of maintenance which I can not complain about.
However, mum often wants to do all singing all dancing days out when she visits, meals out when she visits as if she's on holiday. I am not on holiday. This is my real life and I have things that I need to do. Her husband has periods of agoraphobia and I think she is miserable at home but won't admit it and craves being able to do nice things which is understandable. This puts pressure on me as I feel guilty for asking her to just take the children out without me or watch them for a few hours. She wants me to go out with them as if she isn't confident with them on her own. When I speak to other friends they tell me how their mum will occupy the children or take them to the park so that they can do jobs and errands, but mine seems disappointed when I'm busy during her visits. She acts as if she's on holiday when she's here- never shares in the cooking etc. I'm always cooking for her aswell as the children, if I ask her to cook for us, she'll only want to eat out.
A couple of years ago she made a "joke" about me "using" her for childcare after one weekend where I asked her to watch the children so I could go out with a friend for an evening. She seems to get resentful if I'm not spending all the time with her doing fun stuff. Then I feel guilty.
Would it be unreasonable of me to gently enforce some sort of boundary? I'm not sure what that looks like or what I'd say. I just feel like her expectations and my expectations of her visits are completely different.