My in-laws keep preaching this notion that we need to deal with everything alone!

[Ioftenwonder]

I’m not sure what is going on here. I’ve always thought that families deal with things together. They won’t offer a single bit of help with their grandchild. Not one hour. They keep saying we had no help and we did fine. But really have they done fine because I don’t think their thinking is particularly nice. Same with everything, if you are sick they don’t ask. If you need help with anything they really drag feet. What is the point of them really. They don’t ask for help either. It’s like they have a washing machine thats only worked on cold for years and they still use it. You meet with them, they talk about the weather or the something then leave.

Am I being unreasonable, is this normal? We don’t ask for help anymore.

Some people like to deal with their own life management and therefore would like others to do the same. What is all this help you’ve been asking for?

“What is the point of them if they don’t help or want help” is a strange way of looking at things.

Yes, she might. Then again she might not. My point was that if the OP acts as you describe when the GPs in old age want help then the DC will be absorbing the message that if the GPs don't behave themselves as their DC want then the GPs can kiss goodbye to any help or contact in old age.

I'm not saying that some old people can't be deeply unpleasant, they can, and in that case limit contact. I do think that passive aggressive tit for tat at someone's expense over something they might have done or not done years before is petty and mean minded.

Feel happy in the knowledge that you have to do no care or helping when they are older. Use the exact same phrase back to them.

@OriginalUsername2 not asking for our lives to be managed just a relationship. But my thinking is the problem because they don’t really want one for some reason.

What is this tit for tat about withholding care from parents when they’re old if they won’t help you raise your child?

They looked after YOU as a child. They’ve done what you’re doing now.

With this attitude a person has to have been involved in raising two generations of small children to be entitled to their son or daughter giving a shit when they’re elderly.

My mother was same. She never had help so didn't offer help to me. I offer a lot of support to my DD and DGC...i have my grandson 3-5x week...it takes a village and all that. Theres no reason your parents cant help odd occasion...its pretty poor tbh. Selfish

Do they work?

They sound bloody awful.

They'll reap what they sow.

Sadly you can't change cold hearted people like this. It's hardly surprising your DH and his DB left home as soon as they could at a young age.

We had this with my mother in law, she would never help in anyway, ever. She also spoke horribly of us for asking for help because she had double the number of kids we had... she said some really hurtful things. The only positive of it was when challenged she didn't try and actually deny anything she said. She apologised when everyone ( I mean people who she values their opinion... not us) were disgusted with her. The people she bitched to about me totally threw her under the bus and distanced themselves from her in an extremely obvious way.

Now she is 82 and wants me to drive her to medical appointments and it breaks her heart to ask me. I do it because otherwise her other children have to take time of work and I value their friendship. I can tell for the first time she regrets her behaviour because actually DH and I are the only ones who have a caring profession and we are just 10x better at helping her with her medical needs

It’s not the helping it’s the lack interest. They could live a 1000 miles away and be great grandparents. I’ve not been able to understand the thought pattern. I’ve tried really hard to work on a relationship. I feel awful just giving back what I receive and not being interested in return. I haven’t really encountered this type of relationship before.

To me having a relationship with my grandchildren and knowing them well is important. I never knew my grandparents and my parents and in-laws loved my children but never provided childcare for valid reasons. And I never expected it.
Maybe your in laws have their own reasons for not being involved parents whatever they are it's their choice. I don't think it should impact at all on whether you provide them with support when they are older though. They are completely separate things.
I don't care for my grandchildren because I want my children to support me when I'm old. In fact the last thing I want is for them to support me.

This. I don’t know some people think other people owe them anything.🤷‍♀️

@Boomer55 they don’t me anything. I am just trying to understand why they have no interest in a relationship. You don’t have to physically do things to have a relationship. You have kids they have kids isn’t it something natural to have a connection?

Once they get sick and infirm honestly I’d leave them to it.

That's spectacularly missing the point

Yes it is.

And they sound very strange

Are they happy with each other?

Your DH must know his childhood wasn't 'usual' if they were like this with him and his brother. What did they talk about/do when he was growing up?

It's not about the 'helping' or lack of

Do you have a warm, mutually rewarding, reciprocal relationship with other people? Anyone?

These people clearly don't

That's unusual

Yeah it’s pretty hard being on the receiving end of a relationship like this. I am so jealous of friends who have involved parents. I even get jealous of people on here who have parents that help with the school run or have their grandchildren overnight at the weekend or those who just have a close relationship!
I absolutely understand OP. My Mum is dead and when I would ask my MiL for advice (at the beginning before I learnt) she would say ‘oh I don’t know things have changed so much’ or I would ask something and she would say she couldn’t remember…. Clearly not interested at all.

I feel sorry for your DH, his parents seem to have been disinterested his whole life, maybe he thought grandkids might spark an interest.
Sadly, some people aren't suited to being parents and just went along with it as it was expected of them.
I'm 19 years no contact with an abusive disinterested mother, who has least told me she wished I'd died, at least I know.

They’re in their 50s, aren’t they still working? They don’t need to be doing things for other people to have a purpose in life, that’s not what necessarily gives anyone a purpose in life.

What kind of help were you expecting from them?

I can understand why this is a bit hurtful, OP, they live 10 minutes away, but are disinterested in spending time with you, asking about your family or coming around to look after the kids, despite being late 50s and not limited by age.

They aren't going to change, it is sad, but it is what it is.

I don't hear any entitlement here- the Op is sad because the grandparents have no interest in her family whatsoever, and they are close enough that there are no easy excuses to why that's the case. They just aren't interested in the whole thing.

Your husband is either a bit emotionally illiterate himself, asking them to babysit when they never ever volunteer, or he's just protecting himself by telling himself they are not that bad.

To those saying this is normal, I don't think it is at all and don't know any grandparents like this at all. All relationships are usually built out of bonding and joint activities, reciprocal caring and interest in each other- if you don't have any of that, you don't have a relationship.

It won't change though OP and I think just not putting yourself out for them to get rejected is the way forward, if they come for a cuppa, have one and leave it at that.

My own nana and grandad (they were divorced) never helped out re picking up or looking after kids but I think that was generational, my step grandma looked after DB when he was sick but DM paid her to do it.

Now DB and SIL have DC then my DM and stepdad help out a lot where they can with school pick up or minding him. They only don’t help out more because they’re the other side of London to each other but DB and SIL are moving closer to them this year. SIL’s DP’s don’t help out much as they live the other end of the country and the father is disabled but the mother does come up and help when she can (still works but not young).

I think if you can help and it’s not too much then you should help but not if it’s too much. My own DM has rheumatoid arthritis and is older so can’t help as much as she could if she was younger and fitter.

These in-laws sound, I suppose, like there’s not much interest there which is really sad, especially with the closeness in distance though if they both work of course it’ll be harder to help out. Even my own real dad’s parents whilst I was young would come out and take an interest in us.

"Sadly, some people aren't suited to being parents and just went along with it as it was expected of them".

Precisely Kelly. My parents did what societal convention dictated re family and neither of them showed any real interest when they became grandparent figures. I also used to get the, "cannot remember" response if I did ask for advice rarely. They did not get involved because they did not want the responsibility of childcare which I did not want them to have anyway. I just wanted them to show a bit of interest and it never happened. They would have rather cleaned my brother's house (showhome) for him.

MrsDanvers wrote this comment, "My point was that if the OP acts as you describe when the GPs in old age want help then the DC will be absorbing the message that if the GPs don't behave themselves as their DC want then the GPs can kiss goodbye to any help or contact in old age."

That scenario has not happened in my case. Children are not stupid and they know when other adults are not interested in their mum and dad and in turn them.

I think that unfortunately you've come up hard against the brick wall fact that not everyone has who has children is loving, and that describes your DH's parents. It's hard to really understand and absorb the reality of it but that's the fact.

Some people are just cold and unhelpful. It's something that you're going to have to accept eventually, but give yourself time to get over the stunned effect, and grieve/regret what they are.