In-laws not offering to help

[SueMunch]

I'm not sure if anyone else is in this situation, but my DH's parents live half a mile away. His father is retired and his mother works mornings but has every afternoon free.

It is now the fourth week of the school holidays and they have not once offered to take their grandchildren out for even an hour.

My children are aged 3 & 5 and whilst they are well behaved, I can never get anything done around the house so a break would really help me.

Whilst I don't expect their help and perhaps shouldn't, I find it very upsetting. To put it into perspective, my own mother lives alone, works four days a week and cannot wait to look after our children on her days off. She also has them overnight, something my inlaws never do.

My DH is equally annoyed with them and often says that they are lucky to live so close.

Has anybody got any ideas on how I can get them to be more involved without causing an argument?

This is a zombie thread which began in 2008.

ZOMBIE THREAD

OPS DC will be in late teens now and pretty sure they don't need watching in the afternoon.

Oh crikey, hopefully she's sorted it out by now then 😅

My in laws are exactly the same. DHs mum doesn't work at all and she never offers to help. My mum looks after DS for a day every other week which is a big help and I know she'd do more if she could as she works. She does it to help but also because she wants to spend time with and have a relationship with her grandson and I think that's the bit I find most upsetting about the in laws never offering. They'd look after him if we asked but I'd never do that.

You are being very unreasonable. If you want help, ask for it. MIL might be waiting for you to ask so as not to overstep the mark but at the end of the day you should not expect anyone to want to look after your children, that way, you won't be disappointed.

Seriously? The kids from this thread will be 18 and 21 now.

Why on earth do people resurrect these threads? Do they do a search ? How does it even happy in the first place? So so odd

I love my kids but not everyone does and even I think they are hard work (even though the are fairly well behaved) I don't like other kids. I hate hanging around with other kids. And grandparents are older- it's so very tiring looking after children- especially if they are still babies/toddlers. So I can understand them not wanting to look after grandkids. You have to remember too- depending on age, kids are not at all fun! Babies are sooo boring. And toddlers throw tantrums and have an attention span of a goldfish.

It sometimes surprises me the amount of folks who feel entitled to help from in laws.

op if you want child care and are struggling to cope then get paid child care. It’s really unfair to decide it’s your in laws job to look after your kids. It’s not. No more than it’s their job to clean your house or any other such stuff you’d rather not do.

There are lots of threads like this on MN and the focus is generally on the MIL. And thats a fact, it will be the MIL that will do (99% of the time) all the looking after.

I think many women have had enough by the time they get to near retiring/retirement age and want a rest. Whilst I agree that it's a shame they don't want to spend 1-1 time with their grandchildren this is their choice and will mean they probably won't have a very close relationship with them.

If you've asked just leave them to it, let your DH deal with it. Also will people stop expecting women to step up all time, mostly they've always stepped up and are still doing more than men. Let them have their pilates, friends, watching tv. Why shouldn't they.

Good grief!

How is it even possible to restart such an old thread!

Of all the things MNHQ did for the "revamp", why was not leaving such old threads closed one of them?

🚨 🚨 This thread is 15 years old 🚨 🚨

I find paternal grandparents not to be as involved, by and large.
I wouldn’t want to leave my children with people who weren’t very interested.

Zombie :)

I wonder if @SueMunch is still around. I alway like to hear the update. Do they ever see their GPS now they are grown up. Did MIL improve etc