Money Moral Dilemma: Should we expect free childcare?

SandC

As above, his sister in law is his wife's sister, so her parents are his in laws. No brother involved! :-)

It's not reasonable to expect the grandparents to look after all the children. Simply put, your sis in law and her husband got in there first. Really, if anything, they should be the ones who start taking more responsibility for their children so that the grandparents can spend more time with your children as they've not been able to up until now. But the free childcare aspect should not be the reason why, in fact if the sis in law and family were not living there they probably wouldn't be having the children looked after every day anyway, but by virtue of them being there it's just turned out that way.

pjran

As a parent I'd like to think I treat my children equally. Unfortunately I have friends that clearly have a favourite child, life's not fair sometimes so I'm afraid you'll have to deal with it.

If I were your parent I would be willing to help even though I'm aging and now disabled but I would do my best. Yes I could afford a better home and more extravagant holidays but I help my children financially. Some friends feel that they should make there own way in life but how on earth can they with property prices so high!

Parents should sacrifice their time and money for their children my parents didn't! I'm sure there will be a lot of negativity about my feelings.

Ellie_the_bear

I wonder how your wife feels about the situation? It is possible their parents raised them to be individuals who are treated separately according to their needs rather than a "well they got that so I am entitled to it" type of mindset. You're all adults, if you'd felt you might need assistance you should have spoken with them about their ability and willingness to be a greater part of your family when you were thinking of starting your family. Your family units assumption is a bit childish, if you think about it. My mother moved from north to south to help raise my older sisters children and when recently we've thought about starting a family, I spoke to my mother (my nieces are almost 10 now) about her availability and more importantly, interest. She also looks after my other sister, who has special needs. I think if i had a child and put her in the position, she would help but I sense that it would be asking too much of her so I chose to disregard it as a possible consistent resource of help (although not barring her when it suits her, just no expectation). Your sense of entitlement is misplaced but I don't see a problem with a tardy conversation with them to see if they'd be interested in being more involved, but leave the entitlement out of it. It sounds like they're tapped out helping the other sibling and their family, to be honest.

Ellie_the_bear

Just another quick thought - couldn't you guys arrange a mutual helping each other with the sister in law and free up the poor grandparents? You could take all the kids and then they could!

Kernow666

everything that's wrong with modern families summed up in this thread

Neoma

I'm afraid I completely disagree with the other posters.

Yes, you should!

A large proportion of the current pensioners owe their careers and houses to their parents and seem to believe they have no responsibility to pass that forward. The selfishness of some "entitled" baby boomers is staggering.

HOWEVER

You're not going to get it.

Your in-laws aren't offering, and you can't make them. Sucks, but true.

Is it worth actually sitting with them and saying "We made a mistake when we moved as we wrongly assumed you would look after all your grandchildren equally. Can we talk about what you aren't and aren't able to offer? If that's nothing, then let's get that clear and move forward. At the moment we're feeling confused and grumpy about the situation where one lot get it all and ours get nothing. Can we clear the air?"

At least then you know where you stand and why. Maybe take them out for dinner to have the conversation - could your sister in law baby sit

Good luck. This is hard. My mother raised my brother but sent me to my grandmother's age 8. Now she baby sits my nephew every week and has no interest in our baby.

Its exceptionally hard not to be petulant, but it is their choice and right. If you can still talk that's an absolute bonus

ButterflyLC

Expectation: yes you should be treated fairly
Reality: no you won't be

Easy to go off on a tangent here, but I will stick to childcare. My SIL gets free childcare from my in-laws for her two children because "she's skint", we will not be offered the same treatment. Why? Maybe they perceive that I have a better job so I can afford childcare, or maybe it's because they feel sorry for her. Who knows but the bottom line is I won't get the same treatment. It's not fair, but I am not bothered.

To expect your in-laws to do it though is quite wrong. You had children so you have to work it out yourself. Maybe they have fallen on hard time and they need the extra help. It is your job to seek out childcare so you should have spoken to them before you moved.

Happier_Me

As a mum of two I am very fortunate that both sets of grandparents are now in a position to help a max of one day a week each during the school holidays. My mum will occasionally pick the children up from school if I am running late or they are sick. I appreciate the help but am I don't expect it.

Although if I am honest I hope to be in a position to help my children more with their own children and I would want to do this fairly if logistically possible. I hate to feel that I am putting my parents out and I do think they see having the grandchildren as a bit of a chore at times, but I think they did their own kids to some extent too!

I also have first hand experience of how stressful managing a high pressured job and childcare with minimal help can be. I recall a particularly bad winter with flu,, sickness bugs, snow days preventing me from working my hours for several weeks. This was at a time when my husband did little to help (he does now😉) and in desperation I asked my mum for a little more help than normal. She refused and it was the final straw for me ... the kids and I had been poorly for me weeks, I had a toddler, a baby and was moving house and I genuinely thought I was in danger of losing my job! But this was the trigger I needed to demand their dad took some responsibility for the childcare when necessary too. More importantly it has made me realise how invaluable you can be as a grandparent and the sort of grandparent I want to be to be own grandchildren if they arrive!

We also need an excuse to continue to go to Butlins, Legoland, Chessington, etc when our kids are grown up:o.

TBagpuss

Should you expect free child care? No
Should your wife and her sister exepct equal treatment? No
Should your wife and her sister wexpect to be treated fairly? Yes

Fairness and equality are not always the same thing. We don't have enough information to know whether these grandparetns are treatign their daughters and grandchildren unfairly as well as unequally.

It seems odd to have made such a huge assumption without having first discussed it with the grandparents.

Even now, the way forward would be to try to discuss the ioptins with the granparents and perhaps also with the sister and brother-in-law.

The outcome might be that the grandparetns take the opportunity to say they can't continue to provide such high levels of help to any of their children / in-laws.

It might be that they feel they cannot take on aditionalchild care and that it would be unfair to suiddenly drop the long-established role they have, but they might be open to loking at different arrangmetns in future, allowing time for the paretns concerned to make other arrangements.

It might be that they feel able to look after children whose day-to-day care they are an established part of, but not children who have a different routine and a diferent relationship with them. How old are all of the children? Do OP and his wife have a simialr routine, and similar approach to discipline to their inlaws, or do they expect the grandparents to apply different rules and habits?

Is Ops family in a similar position financial to Sister and BIL? the grandparents may feel that it is fair to concentrate more on helping them if their (perceived) need is greater.

As they are all living in the same household, it is also possible that OP is only seeing one side of the picture. G/Ps may be providing cheapo accommodation and free childcare but it is perfectly possible they are also getting benefits from the arrangmetns which may not be immediately obvious to OP. It is of course equally possible that they feel that they are being taken advantage of by one child, but don't see a way out,but are determined not to make matters worse by getting taken advantage of by another.

Offering a payment for child care, maybe less than full commercial rates, might be a way of opening a conversation with them.

elizabethhull

So what is the one without a job doing ? Why can't they look after the children ?

I find it unbelievable that someone would move with the sole expectation of free childcare WITHOUT EVEN ASKING if it would be feasible. I'm sure the inlaws are wondering if they will ever get to have a life, not looking forward to adding to the responsibilities !

If you all lived in the same street, as families often did, then various relatives, including maybe a childless Auntie, would happily share in childcare. Times have changed, and you have no right to EXPECT such help. I'm sorry to sound so judgemental, but really you have children because you want them, not to foist them off on other people.

What is offered to others is offered out of the goodness of their hearts, and because they perceive a need they can fulfill - it is not a right. Please talk to them, without expectation, but to discover if anything at all is possible. Maybe they can manage one day a week, or maybe not. Just don't be demanding.