am I being unreasonable?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

You know, if she passes her driving test, she could be able to drop DS off at school and pick him up in the afternoon. Then neither of you would be needed during termtime, especially next September when he goes fulltime into reception.

Plans_all_plans

90% of those I know who are in receipt of childcare from their parents/in-laws take the mick. They're ungrateful and they feel somehow entitled to the childcare.

It's their child, their responsibility as far as I'm concerned. My mum looked after my daughter full time, for free for about a year, but then she just said "you have to give up work, it's not up to me to look after your child, I'm fed up of doing it now". And as soon as I'd moved into my in-laws home, my MIL said "I've spent my life looking after my own children, so please don't think I'll be doing any childcare if you want to go back to work".

Lack of help from family is part of the reason that I'm a SAHM. I don't begrudge my family their attitudes either: it's a real labour of love looking after kids!

OP, I'd address it with her directly. Just say that you're feeling a bit put upon.

ETA: Even better, mention the situation to your son. Don't just think it's all her, surely he works as well and it's his son too? The responsibility for sorting out childcare is not just hers surely? Also, it means that he'll have to let his wife know the score, which'll let you off the hook somewhat!

esmf73

I feel for you. My mum (65) is one of the very few of her friends who does not have childminding duties on a regular basis. She (and I) have been lucky as my husband was in the army so we've travelled. That is not to say that I haven't asked her recently to pick the children up from school a couple of times, but she lives an hour away so it is always done by arrangement because I have to be somewhere else that I can't reorganise and I pay her petrol and make sure that dinner is ready.

I think the best deal she got was when OH & I wanted to go to Jordan and needed her to babysit for 4 days. At the time we were living in Cyprus, so she got a free ten days holiday! However whilst she was there her MIL (my grandma) died. I did offer to fly her back immediately, but she refused. We're currently looking at moving to Nottingham - she lives in Leeds, so again not depending on her.

That said, it goes both ways. They're ripping their kitchen out this week (all DIY) and putting it into an extension built by my dad, so I expect to be feeding them this weekend - and will provide them a meal or two to take back with them. I'd miss her if she wasn't there. x

katerinasol

Just to give a different perspective, when I was a child I used to live in Russia and because maternity pay was nowhere near as generous as it is here (and both parents were expected to work), my babushka would look after me until I was old enough to go to kindergarten and that was the case with all families that I knew. It was unheard of for a grandmother to say, 'They're your kids, you deal with them!' which I have to say did contribute to having a really tight-knit family.

HOWEVER, I can totally see the way things are done here and there's absolutely nothing wrong with them. I think it's great that grandparents have their own lives and hobbies and don't just exist to fulfil the purpose of a cook/babysitter. I do think your DIL is very lucky to have two babysitters and you definitely do need to have a chat with her about only being able to do the school run once a day because of your health. Like someone said, she may not realise it's a problem and would probably be mortified if she knew. I would personally not make it a serious sit-down chat. Maybe mention it when she next pops over, 'By the way, after what happened on Wednesday, can we just make sure that any changes to the schedule are arranged well in advance? It's very difficult for me to walk to and from school because of my health condition, so doing it twice a day is a real struggle for me. Plus I do make my own plans, you know.' I think if you make it out quite light-hearted, she should understand but really take it in.

aliasojo

:eek:

Bloody cheek of her.

I'll be charitable and say she was probably a bit stressed thinking about how to get everything organised and was unthinking in the way she wrote her 'request'.

But really......what a bloody cheek.

Serious talk time needed, methinks. Just so the situation is perfectly clear and your health issues are given enough consideration.

Errata

Calm down dear (lol). It's worked fine for four years and just this once has gone pear shaped. Sort it out with her face to face. Txt's are the work of the devil.
(runs away and hides because I fear being stoned to death after posting that)

Seanymph

The driving instructor would happily have picked her up from school at 9am I'm sure -.

If she couldn't meet him there at 9 because the child goes in earlier I'm sure he would have stayed behind the wheel the for the first 5 minutes (if necessary) and dropped the child off as a first stop.

Mojisola

Errata wrote: »

Calm down dear (lol). It's worked fine for four years and just this once has gone pear shaped. Sort it out with her face to face.

meritaten wrote: »

I didnt offer to childmind 4 years ago - I didnt really want to - but her mum told her after she got the job she wouldnt do five days so we share so she can work. so I was sort of pressganged into it!

It might have worked fine for the DIL but meritaten has never been happy with it.

It sounds like the DIL has got so used to meritaten "working" for her that she's forgotten she's getting free childcare from the two grandmothers.

A regular expression of gratitude and special care to fit in around their needs, not hers, should be at the forefront of her mind.

elvis86

God, some of you are so boring with your "texts/Facebook are the root of all evil" b******s. As with anything else, it's the people using them that cause the problem.

A text from the OP's DIL that said "Hi [OP], I was wondering whether you could do me a favour and take [grandson] to school on Wednesday so I can book a driving lesson (I can't book one for lunchtime this week because [reason])? No problems if you already have plans though, I know it's short notice. Thanks, [DIL].x" would have been fine.

The fact is, it sounds like she's taking the OP's help for granted and expected the OP to drop her plans at short notice to accomodate her (non-essential) driving lesson, and the message was more of an order than a request. The fact that she texted it makes no difference. Rude b!tch.

FWIW, I think my mum and MIL would think texts are a Godsend, getting the odd one from me and OH (who live a fair distance from both of them) between phone calls lets them know we're thinking about them.:)

*Louise*

Plans_all_plans wrote: »

90% of those I know who are in receipt of childcare from their parents/in-laws take the mick. They're ungrateful and they feel somehow entitled to the childcare.

Have to agree with your there - my youngest sister is a prime example, our mum watches her son 3 days a week and it's escalated to the point where my parents are driving her to/from work as well (20 mins each way) and she takes it completely for granted - doesn't even offer a penny for fuel, which I end up subsidising when they run out. They are too nice to say no though.




OP - How did it go today? Did you have a chat and get things sorted?

I don't blame you for being annoyed. it's nice to help out but it gets annoying when it's taken for granted and you are told you HAVE to do something (that would get my back up)

I take it GS is in nursery school from about 12-3ish? That is quite a trek in such a short time, you would just get home then feel you had to go back out again. I would have said 'fair enough, I will look afer him, but you can let the nursery know he won't be in today' it' not compulsory at that age after all, and your health comes first.