Hours of alone time with grandma?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom won’t, or doesn’t like to, see our child unless she can take her for hours and hours, alone. Like the latest instance, she keeps saying she wants to take DD to see Santa. Ok, great! Tuesday or Wednesday after school works great! But that won’t work, because she’s hoping to see her for the whole day, not just a couple hours after school. And weekends don’t always work for us. DD has activities or we have family things planned.

And it’s not just this instance. This happens all the time. She misses DD. Ok, come for dinner. But she won’t, because we will be there. She won’t come after school, because she wants alone time and because she wants hours. She always says, “I’ll come when I can take her out for the day.” Then she gets mad when we can’t accomodate that as often as she’d like. Do I tell her take it or leave it, or accommodate?

Wait, so when do you see your mom?

This is OP. She has no problem inviting us over, or out to dinner. But she refuses to just come over our house. She will pass up an opportunity to see the granddaughter she claims she misses, because she can’t take her for hours. We always see her once a month, usually two times. Always at her house.

Can't she come over for a couple hours and then take DD out to dinner on her own or something? She insists on a whole day? I can see wanting alone time. But the insistence on a whole day is odd unless she has specific activities planned.

Of course she could; she refuses. Like I said, she tells me to just let her know when she can see her the whole day or for many hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't really get this- do you not have a day every so often like 1 time per month or so that you guys don't want a break/ day off from parenting? Because that sounds pretty win-win to me.

Seriously! I'm not going to have some weird power struggle over "who's in charge of my DD" when what's at stake is free babysitting from someone who loves my kid almost as much as I do. If my mom or in laws lived close enough, I would drop DD off as much as they and she wanted. Why is there such nitpicking on DCUM about this topic?

[Anonymous]

I would not accommodate that at all. My kid, my schedule. I don't understand the insistence on alone time either. It makes it 100 times more inconvenient.

[Anonymous]

Drop her off and go away for the weekend, or drop her off for the day and do christmas shopping. Free babysitter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not accommodate that at all. My kid, my schedule. I don't understand the insistence on alone time either. It makes it 100 times more inconvenient.

How is it more inconvenient? You drop off the kid, then go to the gym, get coffee, go see a movie, grab lunch with a friend, take a nap, whatever. It would be more inconvenient to have to stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Drop her off and go away for the weekend, or drop her off for the day and do christmas shopping. Free babysitter.

So she should miss her sports and other activities, because grandma doesn’t like to come during the week because she can’t be alone for hours and hours? You’re kidding me, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really get this- do you not have a day every so often like 1 time per month or so that you guys don't want a break/ day off from parenting? Because that sounds pretty win-win to me.

Seriously! I'm not going to have some weird power struggle over "who's in charge of my DD" when what's at stake is free babysitting from someone who loves my kid almost as much as I do. If my mom or in laws lived close enough, I would drop DD off as much as they and she wanted. Why is there such nitpicking on DCUM about this topic?

NP. I don't see a power struggle at all. No one but DH and I have any control or power whatsoever with respect to our kids, so there is no "struggle." I don't need or want free babysitting, our family is busy, and I like spending the weekends with my kids. If I were OP, I would find her mother's requests ridiculous and annoying and would not accommodate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not accommodate that at all. My kid, my schedule. I don't understand the insistence on alone time either. It makes it 100 times more inconvenient.

How is it more inconvenient? You drop off the kid, then go to the gym, get coffee, go see a movie, grab lunch with a friend, take a nap, whatever. It would be more inconvenient to have to stay.

Because I *gasp* like spending time with my kids on the weekend! I know DCUM has trophy children they love to dump on others. Some of us had our kids to, you know, do things with them. And grandma is more than welcome to come along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not accommodate that at all. My kid, my schedule. I don't understand the insistence on alone time either. It makes it 100 times more inconvenient.

How is it more inconvenient? You drop off the kid, then go to the gym, get coffee, go see a movie, grab lunch with a friend, take a nap, whatever. It would be more inconvenient to have to stay.

I don't know OP's schedule, but I work full time and my husband travels every week. We like to spend the weekends together. We have no trouble spending time with friends etc. with our kids. Why can't OP's mom spend time with them as a family rather than being a diva about getting her way and only seeing the child alone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drop her off and go away for the weekend, or drop her off for the day and do christmas shopping. Free babysitter.

So she should miss her sports and other activities, because grandma doesn’t like to come during the week because she can’t be alone for hours and hours? You’re kidding me, right?

I think some of us are really confused- who said anything about missing sports? If sports are a weekend then then have grandma meet after practice (they are almost always a morning thing) and then you get a nice Saturday afternoon to just do- you. Day sex, remember day sex? Yeah, it was awesome. It could really be used to OPs advantage so I am nearly certain there are other issues with mom going on here for this to be viewed through a lens of "demands" and "setting precedent"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really get this- do you not have a day every so often like 1 time per month or so that you guys don't want a break/ day off from parenting? Because that sounds pretty win-win to me.

Seriously! I'm not going to have some weird power struggle over "who's in charge of my DD" when what's at stake is free babysitting from someone who loves my kid almost as much as I do. If my mom or in laws lived close enough, I would drop DD off as much as they and she wanted. Why is there such nitpicking on DCUM about this topic?

NP. I don't see a power struggle at all. No one but DH and I have any control or power whatsoever with respect to our kids, so there is no "struggle." I don't need or want free babysitting, our family is busy, and I like spending the weekends with my kids. If I were OP, I would find her mother's requests ridiculous and annoying and would not accommodate.

This is the same camp of people who's also posting here "Ugh I'm so burnt out/haven't had a night away with DH in x years/having an tricky childcare situation, what do I do??? We have no family close by and no friends who can help us either." This trend of the isolated nuclear family is new in human history and a bad development.

[Anonymous]

NP here- maybe it's bc grandma won't respect their wishes or taht grandma doesn't really understand how DC operates. I also love being with my child. I work so much all week that it hurts when I can't see her when I'm free.

[Anonymous]

I bet Mom is really MIL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drop her off and go away for the weekend, or drop her off for the day and do christmas shopping. Free babysitter.

So she should miss her sports and other activities, because grandma doesn’t like to come during the week because she can’t be alone for hours and hours? You’re kidding me, right?

NP here , but why can't you kid miss sports or activities once a month?

Family is more important than soccer practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does she want the alone time because she feels criticized by the parents?

As evidenced by this ost I think OP is probably a huge micromanager, and grandma can't enjoy getting to know her granschild because OP is dictating their conversations, how they play, what the eat etc.