why do so many of you expect family to help

[Anonymous]

13:34, it is difficult to imagine that anyone, family or stranger, would want to ever be around you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:34, it is difficult to imagine that anyone, family or stranger, would want to ever be around you.

Sir/madame, your sarcasm is on point.

I'm sure 13:34 an absolute joy to be married to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the hell is wrong with you people? I don't "expect" help, but I am grateful that my family isn't full of miserly horrible people like all of you. We all pitch in to help each other out because we're family and we love, care about, and respect each other. I WANT to spend time with my nieces and nephews and my siblings and IL's want to spend time with mine.

People like you suck.

DITTO! Whenever my mom has a scheduled date with our kids, my husband always thinks he needs to offer her "a break". She always turns it down, saying that she actually (gasp!) enjoys spending time with the grandkids. Now that said, they are school age, so it's not like she is busy changing diapers or anything. Of course the kids love it too, because she takes them to McDonalds, lets them get stuff from the ice cream man, etc. Whatever, I'm just happy they all actually like spending time together. I wish I had had more time with my grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother took care of me and my sister for years and for free. I can't even get my mother to visit her only grandchild and when I do I pay for it and she can't be bothered to babysit for more than an evening tops. I'm also bitter because she will need financial support and soon and instead of paying a nanny it would have made sense for her to get paid to be with her grandchild. She is just selfish and lazy as far as I'm concerned.

Where is her financial support going to come from? I hope not you? Unless she's in dire straits over a health issue, there's Medicaid and food stamps and plenty of elderly take advantage of both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are your kids, not mine. I never even asked, let alone expected, my parents or siblings to babysit or free childcare. My sister, 12 years older than me has a 29-yr old daughter who thinks I should help her with free childcare. What the hell is wrong woth this generation? Take cate of upur own kids!

My MIL often wanted to babysit, but I chose to be a SAHM over the free babysitting.
Then my SIL had kids and takes complete advantage of her. It's sad.

When we had weddings to go to. We would drop the baby off when we were driving there, so for 6 pm wedding we would drop them off at 530 pm and pick them up at midnight. My SIL would drop hers off at 12 noon so she can get ready in peace ( where is hubby???) and then picked up them up the next day after lunch. Ended up longer than 24 hours.

I want to be the one raising my own kids.
What surprises me is that the one poster works all week,then drops her kids off at her parents all weekend. The problem I have with that is it is sad that she doesn't want to be with the kids more. Just because a parent offers to babysit doesn't mean you have to take advantage of every second that they are willing to watch the kids.
I actually WANT my kids home with me all weekend. My MIL offers but I would miss them too much.

Good Lord
Why are folks harping on this mom?
Didn't the lady say the family was close...that the see each other over the weekend...
she doesn't drops her kids off at grandparents and jet off to vegas and milan!!
I am sooooo over these martyr mommies who judge every other mommy by the things they do for their family and lob the ever so helpful " I love my kids too much..." as if someone doing it differently loves their kid less.
Guess what -- they do it differently because they have DIFFERENT KIDS, DIFFERENT FAMILIES, DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES...get OVER IT!

She's envious of my situation, but it's veiled as sorrow for my (happy) kid. She would probably really hate one of my best friends whose mom (late 50s) retired recently because she wanted to watch her grandson FT while my friend works. My mom was known as Super Grandma until her mom pulled the trump card with that.lol Her family is really close too. She has something like 20 first cousins and they have a monthly outing together. All of their kids are really close too, like siblings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother took care of me and my sister for years and for free. I can't even get my mother to visit her only grandchild and when I do I pay for it and she can't be bothered to babysit for more than an evening tops. I'm also bitter because she will need financial support and soon and instead of paying a nanny it would have made sense for her to get paid to be with her grandchild. She is just selfish and lazy as far as I'm concerned.

Where is her financial support going to come from? I hope not you? Unless she's in dire straits over a health issue, there's Medicaid and food stamps and plenty of elderly take advantage of both.

Thanks for the support. She won't sign up for government support and will have less than $700 coming in social security with no other assets or income. I'll be stuck at the least with providing her with housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of it is cultural.

In my real, non DCUM life, the women I know who expect massive amounts of free childcare, cooking and some cleaning / errand running are from developing countries or are 1st generation. Or Chinese, dunno how that's classified these days.

But none of my acquaintances from New Jersey have the same expectation that mama will be the nanny and cook 30 to 45 hours every week.

That's because the granny from New Jersey wants a boob job and a 75 year old boy-friend. Sheesh, no wonder your kids shove you in a nursing home as soon as they can...

In my circle - it's grandma keeping an eye on the nanny, so that mom can work, and the kid is not alone in the house with an abusive caretaker. The grandmother is ensuring that she has a solid bonding with her grand-kids. Our children are taken care of by our elderly and our elderly are never depressed or lonely because they have no family with them.

When my kids become parents, I will be there to look after them. Why? because it is not easy to raise kids. I would want to ease this as much as I can for my children when they become parents. I would like to bond with my grand-kids, give them a sense of security and teach them what belonging to a family is all about.

I want to ensure that my offspring and their offspring have the best chance of succeeding in life. A solid support system for my children and their spouses will ensure that they can be successful, be good parents, their kids can be supported as they get higher education and good jobs and so on and so forth...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Context is everything here. I don't expect or even ask for childcare from my family. They offer, and I accept their help gratefully. But here are the ground rules:

1. When you make an offer, it is a gift not a transaction: I don't owe you anything for it (unless that was part of the offer). So when you offer to babysit, we do not owe you a lengthy social visit before and after the babysitting time, or a Saturday of work in your yard, or whatever. This doesn't mean we never visit or never help you, it means we don't visit or help you because of the babysitting or in direct proportion to the number of babysitting offers. Don't act like our time or our love is for sale. If you feel taken advantage of, stop offering.

2. When you make an offer, you must follow through -- show up on time, be available for the whole time discussed, and provide the same level of care that a babysitter would. I think older relatives, in particular, imagine they want to care for grandchildren and then get overwhelmed / bored / irritated by all the not-cute things that small children do. If you prefer to only see these kids clean and well-behaved, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that -- but don't offer to babysit for a whole evening. I would always, always rather pay a babysitter than deal with a relative who is late, double-booked, inattentive or disengaged, secretly resentful, etc.

If you can't follow these two rules, then I will decline your offers to help ... and then we'll have a thread about how I withhold your grandchildren from you or how I think you're not good enough to babysit.

Your #1 and #2 completely contradict each other. "Gifts" don't come with strict rules. But I bet you think people love spending time with you, so whatever you tell yourself is what matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My grandmother took care of me and my sister for years and for free. I can't even get my mother to visit her only grandchild and when I do I pay for it and she can't be bothered to babysit for more than an evening tops. I'm also bitter because she will need financial support and soon and instead of paying a nanny it would have made sense for her to get paid to be with her grandchild. She is just selfish and lazy as far as I'm concerned.

Where is her financial support going to come from? I hope not you? Unless she's in dire straits over a health issue, there's Medicaid and food stamps and plenty of elderly take advantage of both.

Thanks for the support. She won't sign up for government support and will have less than $700 coming in social security with no other assets or income. I'll be stuck at the least with providing her with housing.

Buy her a place with your name only on it so that at is at least a investment,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Context is everything here. I don't expect or even ask for childcare from my family. They offer, and I accept their help gratefully. But here are the ground rules:

1. When you make an offer, it is a gift not a transaction: I don't owe you anything for it (unless that was part of the offer). So when you offer to babysit, we do not owe you a lengthy social visit before and after the babysitting time, or a Saturday of work in your yard, or whatever. This doesn't mean we never visit or never help you, it means we don't visit or help you because of the babysitting or in direct proportion to the number of babysitting offers. Don't act like our time or our love is for sale. If you feel taken advantage of, stop offering.

2. When you make an offer, you must follow through -- show up on time, be available for the whole time discussed, and provide the same level of care that a babysitter would. I think older relatives, in particular, imagine they want to care for grandchildren and then get overwhelmed / bored / irritated by all the not-cute things that small children do. If you prefer to only see these kids clean and well-behaved, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that -- but don't offer to babysit for a whole evening. I would always, always rather pay a babysitter than deal with a relative who is late, double-booked, inattentive or disengaged, secretly resentful, etc.

If you can't follow these two rules, then I will decline your offers to help ... and then we'll have a thread about how I withhold your grandchildren from you or how I think you're not good enough to babysit.

You sound toxic!! I wonder who raised you and what kind of humans you have spawned!!! A person will have to be crazy to associate with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Context is everything here. I don't expect or even ask for childcare from my family. They offer, and I accept their help gratefully. But here are the ground rules:

1. When you make an offer, it is a gift not a transaction: I don't owe you anything for it (unless that was part of the offer). So when you offer to babysit, we do not owe you a lengthy social visit before and after the babysitting time, or a Saturday of work in your yard, or whatever. This doesn't mean we never visit or never help you, it means we don't visit or help you because of the babysitting or in direct proportion to the number of babysitting offers. Don't act like our time or our love is for sale. If you feel taken advantage of, stop offering.

2. When you make an offer, you must follow through -- show up on time, be available for the whole time discussed, and provide the same level of care that a babysitter would. I think older relatives, in particular, imagine they want to care for grandchildren and then get overwhelmed / bored / irritated by all the not-cute things that small children do. If you prefer to only see these kids clean and well-behaved, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that -- but don't offer to babysit for a whole evening. I would always, always rather pay a babysitter than deal with a relative who is late, double-booked, inattentive or disengaged, secretly resentful, etc.

If you can't follow these two rules, then I will decline your offers to help ... and then we'll have a thread about how I withhold your grandchildren from you or how I think you're not good enough to babysit.

Let me guess - your inlaws don't like you (and probably your own family as well), and you just can't figure out why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are your kids, not mine. I never even asked, let alone expected, my parents or siblings to babysit or free childcare.

But do you expect free elderly care?
That's what families do - they help each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who is just outraged that neither her in laws nor her own parents will move to the area to help raise her kids. She thinks its incredibly selfish of them. I just have to bite my tongue when she says this and control my eye rolls. Plenty of people, me included, manage to have two working parents and no family nearby.

I think it's selfish too. We raised my DC without any help, and it was incredible difficult. I still feel resentful about MIL not helping while she could and had nothing else to do.
Now when she needs help we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend who is just outraged that neither her in laws nor her own parents will move to the area to help raise her kids. She thinks its incredibly selfish of them. I just have to bite my tongue when she says this and control my eye rolls. Plenty of people, me included, manage to have two working parents and no family nearby.

I think it's selfish too. We raised my DC without any help, and it was incredible difficult. I still feel resentful about MIL not helping while she could and had nothing else to do.
Now when she needs help we do.

It's not that easy to just pick up and move. WE moved here - everyone else is back home. I certainly do not expect my retired in-laws to move away from their other children and grandchildren to come help me. If we were there they would do anything for us, but we don't expect them to relocate. That's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

My parents expect ME to help them. I've been a parent for over 6 years, and my parents live an hour away but rarely visit, never overnight. If there was a TRUE emergency, like someone being hospitalized, they would probably help, but otherwise no help. ILs are overseas. however, my parents expect help from me, mainly asking favors re people we know and $$$$$$$$. They have made bad bad bad financial decisions and continue this habit. It's awful for everyone.