Maternal Grandparents v Paternal Grandparents

[Googlism]

I'd really like to know everyone's thoughts on this.

Our situation is this: I have been on Maternity leave with my DD for the last 9 months (and will actually be working evenings when I go back, so still doing daytime care etc.)

Both sets of parents live nearby, my parents about 2 mins, DPs parents about 5-10 mins away.

I don't have a wonderful relationship with MIL, but nonetheless, she sees DD each week, we go over as a family or I will go out with MIL during the day for a coffee/lunch. I prefer to do the family thing though, as I prefer DP to be around to deflect MIL - she's a bit toxic!

I see my mother all the time. We're a really close family. I choose to do this in my own spare time, not at weekends/evenings when DP is home.

The problem is both DP and his mother are ultra competitive regarding the grandparent thing. They both insist that I spend as much time with his mother with DD as I do with mine, something I think is totally unrealistic. I'm close to my own mother, I enjoy my time with her, this is not the case with MIL.

More to the point I think weekly (and sometimes fortnightly if we're busy) is enough. It doesn't matter how close she lives, I don't think it means we need to see her more frequently??

I think there is probably a tendancy towards the maternal GPs ending up seeing the child more, just out of circumstance. MIL is out of her mind that my DD won't know who she is. SHe wants to know how many times a week my mother gets to spend with her etc.

I dont' know if you have any experience of this, but is it my responsibility to make sure that both sets of Grandparents get equal amounts of time with DD? I hope not! I think I'm fulfilling my duty as DDs mother and as DIL as long as DD and MIL have a good relationship, DD knows who she is etc.....

I think I've ramblednow but basically and I right or are MIL and DP right? (My Mum by the way doesn't mention it)

"They both insist that I spend as much time with his mother with DD as I do with mine"

If the issue is that they think MIL should see more of dd then surely it's up to your dp to make those extra visits, not you? Does your dp ever visit your mum without you being there? If not, then he can hardly expect you to be visiting MIL without him.

well - I don't think you should have to spend time with someone you don't want to.
You & dd do see MIL, weekly or fortnightly.
I can understand MIL point of view - she has a beautiful gd who she wants to spend time with! But that doesn't mean it has to be ALL the time, or that it has to be equal with your mum.
Can dh take dd to see MIL one afternoon every(other) weekend - gives MIL extra time with dd and gives you a break.

Your DP & MIL has unrealistic expectations. It's your DP's responsibility how much HIS child sees HIS mother, imho!!

I would be royally peeved if I were you with this game of your MIL's.

My Mil sees our dds weekly, much more often than my mum does, However she is still v. competitive on time spent! We live in the same road as my P but they work full time and have a holiday home. Pil are retired and have lots of time on their hands. V frustrating cos my mil drives me batty!

It's not your responsibility to keep your MIL happy. If Dp thinks dd should see her more, he can take her. It has to be a pleasant experience for all concerned or your frustration will rub off on dd.

Move house! Sounds like a competetive nightmare!

It does all feel like a game. DP has taken DD over there, but not so much, have been BFing up until recently which made that a bit trickier than it might otherwise have been. He certainly has never been to see my Mum with DD without me no! Good point.

I'm not sure why how much my Mother sees GD affects my MIL?

I would have thought mainly weekly sometimes fortnightly would be enough. It probably would be if she didn't know that I saw a lot of my Mother. MIL also seems to think my Mother has less right because she already has other grandchildren and this is MILs first....

There are some deeper issues with MIL, and they do stop me wanting to spend more time with her. It's now effecting (sorry probably getting my affects and effects mixed up here) my relationship with DP though.

Our parents have invited us away with them at Christmas (I know so far away!) - my siblings and their children will be going to. Rather than weighing up the pros and cons of whether we want to go when mentioned to DP though, he just rants about how his parents should be able to see DD at Christmas, will we ever go on holiday with them etc etc. It all feels like a competition to be honest and I'm very bored of it!

Agree with other posters. You make sure your MIL sees your DD every week, its up to your DP to take your DD to visit MIL if this isn't enough for them, otherwise you are being dictated to as to how you spend your days.

Dp works away some weekends, often during weeks, and can be very late home. We don't get to spend much time together as a family.

I think looking at these posts maybe I've been in the wrong, as often I have asked him if it was more important that his Mother see DD or that we get to do X,Y Z together as planned at the weekend. I suppose I resent that his need to facilitate her desire to be 'best grandma' eats into our time and plans as a family.

Maybe I should let him go when he wants (however I'd never spend time with him or DD if that were the case!!)

Googlism - your post was like reading pretty much word for word a conversation I had with my DP this morning so I can totally sympathise. I haven't even had our baby yet (DD1 due in 5 weeks) but we have already started discussing how much his mother will get to see her in comparison to how much my mum will see her.
I find it so infuriating already! My MIL is also very competitive about things like this, she will want to know how much my mum has the baby. The plan is when I go back to work my mum will have DD one day a week and she will be in nursery the other two days I am at work. DP said that the day she isn't at nursery should be alternated between my mum and my MIL, but I have pointed out my mum lives 5 mins from work and I could see DD at lunch time if she went there, whereas MIL lives 30 mins from our house and 1 hour from my office so would be so much less convenient.
In the end I told him if he wants DD to see his mother for an equal amount of hours he can take her round to MIL's himself. It is not my responsibility to pacify his demented bint of a mother.
I think quite often mums and daughters see more of each other than sons and mums, and as babies are generally with their mums more than their dads at first they are just naturally going to end up seeing maternal grandparents more.
So yes I do think you are right! It's not your responsibility and it's your DP's job to sort it out!

A tricky situation. I do think you would be in the wrong if you stopped him taking your DD round there at the weekends. When you go back to work, you might find you welcome the break, esp. if you are doing childcare in the day, and working in the evenings.

I know how annoying these things can be, but really your DD is lucky that she has two sets of GPs close by who love her and want to spend time with her.

In my experience, though, these sort of GP issues do calm down a bit as the children get older.

I have always tried to ensure DS saw his grandparents more or less equally & I know I would not commit to going away over an important time such as Christmas without coming to an agreement with DH and both sets of grandparents, but then I'm lucky as everyone is reasonable.

All things being equal you could expect your DP to take your DD to his parents but if he is working many more hours than you, including the weekends, then maybe this is something you should do for the long term harmony of your family & it will also free up time for you to spend just with your DP & DD when he is free.

However, having said that I am not subject to competitive grandparenting. Think once one set start it just makes things worse as I have noticed my lovely MIL is much more competitve with my BIL's family, due to the way his MIL behaves I think.

let dp take dd to mil every wkd. while you have some time to yourself.

why not even first thing in morning for breakfast. you get a lie in, then he comes back and you do the family thing then once you have had nice lie in and peaceful wash?

why dont you offer mil to watch dd while you do the supermarket shop? thats another weekly chore? gives her an hour?.. you can either drop her with mil and shop near her. or get her to meet you at supermarket and sit in cafe with dd

supermarket shopping with lo is a pita... this way mil is kept happy and she is actually doing you a nice turn.

ditto if you want to start back at the gym. does your local gym have soft play? or mil stay near gym? gives your mil a 1 hr with dd and you get some "me time"

you should be trying to build bridges and find ways for you to like her rather than view her as toxic. she may not be your favourite person in the world... but at least if you have her giving you a little something in return (dont ever admit she's helping you out if she has toxic tendancies) you might warm to her a little.

she's part of life whether or not you like it. try make best of what you have.

i wish i had gp's helping out.

consider yourself very very lucky

Actually, if you are the one who has the time and who will resent your DH taking DD to visit MIL in 'family' time, then yes, I think it does fall to you to ensure that MIL gets the chance to see your DD as often as your mum sees her. I think that one set of GP's often see more of their GC due to circumstances, but that tends to be distance or similar. Why do you think your mum should be able to see your DD 'all the time' but MIL has to be satisfied with 'mainly weekly, sometimes fortnightly if we are busy'? That doesn;'t seem quite fair to me. Try not to think of it as your MILs 'right' to see her GD, rather, it is your DD's right, to see her GM.

I have had, and still have, many issues with my own MIL, so can sympathise that it is not always the easiest of relationships. However, I hope to goodness that when my DS's have their children, their wives/partners do not have the same attitude towards me that you have towards yours!

Can she come to you instead?

There's no easy way round it (DD is 5.7 and we've had this forever...). I just try and be fair over the big things but at the end of the day I see my parents more regularly (I am and only child and we have no other family nearby) so DD comes with me.

It has got easier as she's got older I must admit but if her grans are that way inclined there will always be times when someone's pissed off and giving you grief, just do your best and remember that your little family comes first now.

Good luck!

I have two sons and this is something that has crossed my mind for when they are older. It does seem to be the "norm" that the maternal GP's see more of the kiddies (if the Mother and her parents are close) and I worry I will be seen as the evil MIL and not be allowed to be as close to my grandchildren as possible.

But if MIL wants to see the children more and so does your partner want that, then it's up to him to enable it. So he can take them over on his days off etc .... if you were obstructing that, then that would be wrong.

womblingfree - which little family is that? The OP, her DD and her mother?

Agree though, OP, that your DH needs to take your DD to see his mum. There is no reason why your mother should see more of her but he has to enable it as well.

I've never obstructed him doing I mention that I'd prefer maybe if he stayed at home with us but have never actively stopped him (how could I?!)- however when he comes back from ten days away and the first thing he wants to do it go and see his mother with DD, I resent it!

Maybe I should make more of an effort. However without the long background story it's hard for everyone here to make a judgement about my relationship with her. I feel that she really isn't an influence I want in my daughter's life but that's a whole other thread.

As it is, I think I agree with the posters who say that DP can make the effort but not me.

sayithowitis - I understand your POV - I think the same if I have a son one day. But do you think that you would want to match like for like every visit you DILs mother had? Not sniping, genuinely wondering. I can't imagine being that competitive tbh. I would want to be close to my sons children, that's for sure but because I'd love them, not because I was in a competition with teh other grandma (this is often how it feels)

I will just say, I wasn't implying that you WERE obstructing it. I had only read the OP when I replied.

ChocHobNob, sorry further along I had mentioned how I sometimes resented it and thought you'd read that post and thought I meant I stopped him

I thought you did. It wasn't until I read back after posting and I thought, oops that looks a bit ársey now

My mum said to me that you are always closer to your daughter's kids then your sons's, and it's just the way it is really.

Kids belong mostly to their mum in reality don't they, so the family who has the mum will be the one to see most of the kids unless of course the kids dad is willing to take up the slack.

If I had a son who had kids of course I'd want to see them, but I certainly wouldn't imagine that my DIL had some kind of duty to spend as much time with me as with her own mother - that isn't how families usually work!

I love my MIL but she isn't my mum. I'll probably spend more time with my own mum when my baby arrives, I should think most new mothers are the same. It just isn't worth arguing over. You can't magic up a lifetime of closeness with a MIL who you first met in the last decade and only see on high days and holidays.

hi Googlism , no. I am not necessarily saying that I think you should keep a count of exactly how many minutes DD spends with each set of parents, but I do think you need to honstly look at how much time your DD spends with each set of Gps and ask is it fair? Maybe a good way to judge would be to think how your mum would be if she could only see her GD once a week or less often? Would she be happy with that? I do have some sympathy with you actually, but I still think that you have to be seen to be fair in these situations, if only because it can save a lot of problems later on.

I used to see my Mum at least once a week when mine were small. My MIL, who lives nearer and drives ( I didn't back then) never made any effort to see them at all. DH and I literally begged her to spend time with them. But she chose not to. Mine are now adults. They have the most wonderful relationship with my mum, but none at all with MIL. And she doesn't understand why! But even now, she makes no effort. She never phones DC1 to see how the first year at Uni is going, my mum OTOH, at over 70 years old, travels up to see him by train and then comes home again that night! The sad thing is that MILs situation is of her own making. But at the moment, you are the one restricting your MIL seeing your DD. If you are not willing to take her there yourself, more often, then you really mustn't resent DH for wanting to do so. After all, DD is his child too, He is proud of her and wants to share her with his family the way you are doing with yours. The only time he has is when you would otherwise be doing stuff together, but if you won't bite the bullet re his mum, you really cannot resent him seeing her at those times.

It looks to me as though the extra visits are for Googlism to spend time with her mum, rather than purely to take dd to see her maternal grandmother. It doesn't seem fair to me that Googlism should either have to cut down on visits to her own mum or find time to make extra trips to MIL's house just to keep everyone else happy.

(I don't get on with my mum at all so have no particular bias towards mother/daughter relationships)

MorrisZapp - I tend to agree with you obviously because that's about where I am at the moment!

Coppertop - I think you have hit the nail on the head really. I am not taking DD to see my Maternal Grandmother, I want to see my Mum! And I did so before I had DD, with the same frequency really - I'd pop in on my Lunchbreak at work, and I will pop in for lunch now.

Neither DP and certainly I didn't have that relationship with MIL before, and she has tried to force it now, popping in etc. If DP turns up without DD in tow, MIL is visibly disappointed. It is literally clocking up visits in the role as Grandmother, whereas I'm visiting my Mum and DD happens to come along with me

sayithowitis - thanks for the reply. Actually, if my Mum thought that I was using the small amount of time we can spend together as a little family only to build her bond with DD, she would be happy with once a week. And I do mean that. I agree that I have to stop resenting DP for wanting to take DD over in our time though, as you say, bite the bullet, see that bit less of him.

Someone suggested earlier on the thread DONTtouchMUMSspecialJUICE about the breakfast at a weekend and I lie in. Sounds like a brilliant compromise really!