Feeling disappointed with family after having baby

[Surf1234]

Bit of a long one, but feel I need to rant and helps to write things down.

I'm a first time mum to my little boy. Prior to having him, my partner and I moved house to live closer to my parents, thinking long term and that we may need a bit of help/would be nice for them to have more of a relationship. When I used to live quite far away, I thought I was close with my family as I enjoyed catching up with them and everything seemed fine. However, once we moved, it didn't take long for me to realise that I wasn't actually as close as I thought. (sounds strange but suppose when you live closer, you lose that novelty and we used to make more of an effort to plan nice things when I lived further away).

So basically, the idea that I had in my head where my family would be with me and baby all the time, helping out and going for nice days out, isn't actually my reality. They see baby regularly but often it's me making the effort to suggest things or go to them. I don't think they're like this because they're not interested, I just genuinely don't think they know what they should be doing, how much help to give or what's expected. And because I'm not close with them, I don't have that relationship where I can be open about this. However, I would have hoped that a bit more effort would be made and they would get excited about the small things like going to the park with baby/taking to soft play etc.

I know people would generally tell me to be open about things, but that's really not an option here. And also people would advise that I should just give up and let them make more of an effort and focus on my little family. But that would also be hard as I feel some kind of duty and also want them to be close (my little one loves it when he sees them). So just feel like I'm stuck, but generally I'm just ranting about the disappointment I feel that things haven't looked like how I hoped and I've ended up feeling very lonely and isolated most of the time.

oh and I say this as an isolated mother with a selfish mother who lives across the road lol. I feel so strongly about it due to this. I often wonder what it must be like to have family who like to be social with us.

I have expectations of my parents. I expect that they will want to see me exactly the same amount as they did pre-baby. And they do. I would be hurt if they were either less interested in seeing me now I have kids (indicating that they disliked my children) or they wanted to see me more (indicating that they preferred my children to me)!

In addition, they also very kindly look after my kids for two hours a week while I do something I can't do with kids in tow. I never asked for this but I am very grateful. If they didn't do it I would not view them negatively. It's a kind gesture, not an expectation.

wow wasn't expecting the judgy comments tbh!

No they don't work and they live about 2 mins away from me. When I talk about expectations, I'm not saying I expected them to take baby off my hands and give me a break, or look after him like he's their baby. I didn't even really mean what I EXPECT necessarily or what society expects, I know there are no rules to this! I just thought when you live a couple of minutes away and you know we are home all day, a drop in every once in a while might have been ''expected''.

It just makes me a bit sad sometimes when I'm at the park and see lots of grandparents, with both parent and baby, and doing nice family things. I said soft play as a general baby activity. I also means play cafes (we have lots of nice ones near us), farms, nice local walks and whatever else people do with their little ones. Also since meeting so many mums at play groups, I can't help but get a bit jealous when I hear them talk about what they do with their families, or even say 'my mum has little one once a month so I can do x y and z'. I understand if I don't have the relationship then what can I 'expect' but doesn't make it any easier.

I know I am the parent in charge, and I have to 'drive things' as I have been doing i.e. making suggestions for outings (which can fall flat a bit sometimes), bringing baby to them etc. But sometimes it would be nice if someone else would say 'hey this place looks great, shall we take (baby) there''.

Why is it terrible and selfish of an adult to give you her free time every week?

no I didn't do this. They visited in the hospital and the day we got home

The times she suggests don’t benefit you but she’s the one being selfish? I think I see the problem here…

You need to communicate with them properly.

You can't have secret expectations, that you refuse to communicate to anyone, and then be upset that they've failed to meet these expectations - that is bloody ridiculous.

Talk to them - maybe THEY are sat at home secretly feeling like they're giving you space and muttering that you don't get in touch and offer stuff often enough because you had to learn this total lack of communication from someone and it was almost certainly them!

Thank-you, I appreciate your nice comment. Perhaps I should have worded it exactly like this. I often justify it and tell myself this is just the way it is. But still gets me down nonetheless.

lol, sure you do, random stranger on the internet...

what? ok you do not understand the situation. Or what I meant and I can not be bothered to engage further.

Ok. Weekly visits for anyone is a lot, it's a shame you think it's terrible and selfish.

@Surf1234 I'm still not clear on what you expect them to do. Do you want them to drop in regularly, as in daily or several times a week? Or is it that you want them to suggest meeting up somewhere regularly, once a week or more often? Or invite you round to their house each week?

Is it at all possible that they don't want to intrude on your time and are just waiting to be invited so that they know they aren't bothering you?

This is the issue with social media. It makes people think they’re the main character. They have their own lives to get on with.

Maybe they work. Maybe they are elderly and do not have the energy to play with babies non-stop.
Op says her parents see the child regularly, so they are obviously happy with the contact they already have.

It’s hard to tell whether they’d be more involved if you told them how you feel or not. The only way to know is to try!

I can see it from both sides really. When I was younger and had small dc I wanted my Mum / mil etc to be involved, come on days out etc, as I imagined we’d all be quite close and that’s how I imagined I’d want to be myself as a grandparent. Now I am late 40s with an adult dc I actually feel like I don’t want that at all! If my dc had children I’d be happy to have the occasional day out, etc, but I really feel tired a lot of the time now and I feel like I’ve done my bit in terms of child raising and I don’t want my days taken up with screaming babies and toddlers anymore. Maybe your parents feel the same.

I think you've had really unrealistic expectations, unfortunately. My family and I are really close and really open so I was very clear on how much help they'd provide beforehand. I see those grandparents in the park with their grandchildren and think that'd be nice, but that set up isn't really possible in our family (both sets of grandparents live far away and aren't the kind of regular childcare people even if they lived closer). Also, I think expecting someone without young children to suggest somewhere good to take children isn't likely to happen in many people's families!

Do you have siblings?
Do they have children?

Was there a reason you moved closer to your parents and not DPs?
Does he not have siblings either?

I completely get what you’re saying and why you’re feeling upset but the reality is that your parents have their own lives and for many people going to a playgroup or the park is not fun.

I personally love doing these things and absolutely love spending time with my nieces and nephews but my parents don’t.

I was gutted when I had mine as I was also a single parent and so was always on my own whilst other people had their partners and both sets of grandparents desperate to spend time with them and dote on them.

I get why you’re sad but some people are just not that bothered. They’re happy loving them from more of a distance.
I think you need to accept it as what it is as I doubt they will change.

I found siblings are often more involved than grandparents, especially if they have their own DC too.

Have a talk with them. Say let’s plan something to do together and don’t default to something automatically baby centered like soft play/farms etc. Say you miss them and want to spend more time together

When I had my first, I said something like "pop round any time you want to see him, just give me an hour's notice" and my mum said "no, let us know when you want us to come round". I think it's just the way some people operate, they don't want to intrude. I also think it's more of a communication issue here than them not wanting to see their grandchild.

Stop trying to backpedal when you were very clear about your thoughts in your OP. You're trying to change your story completely.

Having a baby can bring a lot of buried feelings to the surface. It’s a very tough time in the early days for most.

How emotionally present were your parents in your life growing up?

So you moved closer to your family so they could facilitate your life choices, and you’re now upset that they are not providing the amount of help you expected? Perhaps they sense that you view them as providers of labour rather than as people in their own right?

You and your husband had a baby, you did not have a baby with your parents or your siblings.

You feel a duty to do what though? It seems as if you're placing a lot of expectation on them helping you out regularly with childcare and spending lots of time with you and your children. That's not having a duty. That's pushing a duty onto someone else.

But yet you're unwilling to actually communicate this as you're not close enough?

And I'm afraid expecting a middle aged person to get excited about going to a soft play really is too much to ask of the majority of the population!

Wait…nobody saw the baby for TEN WEEKS?!??

I just hoped it would be more natural that's all. Someone else commented saying that when you live far away (like I used to), it feels like we spent more quality time together and therefore felt closer. I would spend long weekends, the family made an effort to get together and go out and it was nice. I didn't move closer because of an unspoken rule that they must look after my future babies. I moved closer because we felt it made sense to be nearer family when we are trying to start a family ourselves. There was no discussion that we will move here so you can help with child care because I never cared about this. It was more so they could have this relationship, feel more involved with and we would have quality family time. I thought this would be a given so it didn't need for me to say 'hey when I move here can you help with my baby that I don't have yet'.

So instead of me doing all the asking, all the visiting (which I feel has proved that I am quite happy to spend time with them and they are not 'bothering' me) it would just be nice to know that they actually want to do this stuff. That perhaps once a month, they invite us round so we have a day off cooking, maybe every now and again they say 'its a nice day, lets go to the park' rather than me doing everything. I don't really feel like I need to justify what I'm saying anymore, it is just me venting and thought someone might relate.