Inflexibility with Mom's job as it relates to seeing her Grandkids

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why you are fretting about kids having daycare. These were the best years for grandparents to visit during the week because they could keep the child home if they wanted or see them before/after daycare or pick them up a few hours early in the afternoon. It becomes exponentially harder when they are in compulsory school and weekday visits by long distance grandparents result in very little time with the children and your times to visit when you are as far away as stated are limited to winter and spring break and the summer. Now, you can pull your kid any old time you want and visit family and take vacations. Cramming that in when every other family with school age children is also doing the same thing is the pits.

[Anonymous]

Don't bother, she will not change her mind. Just have them visit during the week and you can keep your kid home from daycare one or two of those days.

I speak from experience. My ILs are active in their church and despite the fact that they are just volunteers and not even paid for their services, they refuse to come visit us on weekends. We've asked them to skip a weekend, we've asked them to spend holidays with us, but they refuse. 70-80 year old people are not going to change their ways. YOU have to be the ones to be flexible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you are fretting about kids having daycare. These were the best years for grandparents to visit during the week because they could keep the child home if they wanted or see them before/after daycare or pick them up a few hours early in the afternoon. It becomes exponentially harder when they are in compulsory school and weekday visits by long distance grandparents result in very little time with the children and your times to visit when you are as far away as stated are limited to winter and spring break and the summer. Now, you can pull your kid any old time you want and visit family and take vacations. Cramming that in when every other family with school age children is also doing the same thing is the pits.

YES - I just posted about this, too. My kids are in ES now and my in-laws just have to deal with the fact that the kids have to go to school and can't take time off anymore.

Last year, they convinced my older daughter to do a day virtual instead of in-person so they could spend time with her. I was LIVID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you are fretting about kids having daycare. These were the best years for grandparents to visit during the week because they could keep the child home if they wanted or see them before/after daycare or pick them up a few hours early in the afternoon. It becomes exponentially harder when they are in compulsory school and weekday visits by long distance grandparents result in very little time with the children and your times to visit when you are as far away as stated are limited to winter and spring break and the summer. Now, you can pull your kid any old time you want and visit family and take vacations. Cramming that in when every other family with school age children is also doing the same thing is the pits.

YES - I just posted about this, too. My kids are in ES now and my in-laws just have to deal with the fact that the kids have to go to school and can't take time off anymore.

Last year, they convinced my older daughter to do a day virtual instead of in-person so they could spend time with her. I was LIVID.

See, I don't get that. I most certainly would NOT be "LIVID" about something like that. Life is too short. School is important but it isn't so important that every once in a while we can't take a day off from it. DP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you are fretting about kids having daycare. These were the best years for grandparents to visit during the week because they could keep the child home if they wanted or see them before/after daycare or pick them up a few hours early in the afternoon. It becomes exponentially harder when they are in compulsory school and weekday visits by long distance grandparents result in very little time with the children and your times to visit when you are as far away as stated are limited to winter and spring break and the summer. Now, you can pull your kid any old time you want and visit family and take vacations. Cramming that in when every other family with school age children is also doing the same thing is the pits.

YES - I just posted about this, too. My kids are in ES now and my in-laws just have to deal with the fact that the kids have to go to school and can't take time off anymore.

Last year, they convinced my older daughter to do a day virtual instead of in-person so they could spend time with her. I was LIVID.

See, I don't get that. I most certainly would NOT be "LIVID" about something like that. Life is too short. School is important but it isn't so important that every once in a while we can't take a day off from it. DP.

This was in the spring, when kids were in-person 2 days a week for around 8 weeks. I wanted my child to be in-person while she had the opportunity to do so. Sorry you don't seem to value education as much as we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Mom works as a Director of a small non-profit. She's been there for six years, but has been involved with them for much longer. She was previously in a typical high powered corporate job before getting laid off, so this role is a nice change of pace. She generally likes the job, and it's pretty flexible, except for one issue: this organization puts on events every Sunday during the school year. My Mom is generally occupied from 10am-5/6pm or so each Sunday. From my understanding, her presence at each Sunday event isn't 100% necessary, and it would be possible for her to delegate some of those tasks to other staff members, but it's one of those things where "we've always done it this way, so might as well keep doing it."

To give some background, here's a list of my siblings, their locations relative to where my parents live, and the ages of their children:


Me and DH: 13 month old, seven hour drive
Sibling A and spouse: Twin 10 month olds, four hour drive
Sibling B and spouse: six month old, five hour drive
Sibling C and spouse: no kids, 10 hour drive/two hour flight


In the past, it's sort of been this unspoken arrangement that during the school year when my Mom has her Sunday's booked, we'd be the ones to visit our parents. It wasn't ideal, but we'd do it. However, now that three of us have young kids close in age, traveling is pretty difficult, especially since all the grandkids are in daycare. My Mom has said "oh, we can come to visit during the week!" but again, since all the grandkids are in daycare, it seems like there's little point to doing that.

As our kids get older, my siblings and I are worried that it's going to be basically impossible to see our parents on a weekend during the school year given my Mom's job, especially once the kids start getting older and having their own activities. I gently pressed my Mom about if she'd consider finding an alternative to being at her work events every Sunday (ex. taking one Sunday off and finding other staff members to cover), and her response was "oh no, I couldn't do that! I couldn't do that to the staff, and how would it look if I wasn't there every Sunday?"

I can't help but feel frustrated that she's putting the needs of her job over seeing her own Grandchildren? Am I out of line in thinking this way? Is there anything I can do?

I don't understand what you are saying here OP. There is no harm at all in pulling your kids out of daycare - it's not like pulling them out of school. Go see your mom during the week.

Do you get that OP’s kids are in daycare because she and her spouse (wait for it) ARE WORKING? So why should OP and/or her spouse take time off work, if grandma isn’t even willing to do that on a weekend?!

Why do they need to take off work if grandparents visit during the week? Why can't the grandparents keep the kids home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you are fretting about kids having daycare. These were the best years for grandparents to visit during the week because they could keep the child home if they wanted or see them before/after daycare or pick them up a few hours early in the afternoon. It becomes exponentially harder when they are in compulsory school and weekday visits by long distance grandparents result in very little time with the children and your times to visit when you are as far away as stated are limited to winter and spring break and the summer. Now, you can pull your kid any old time you want and visit family and take vacations. Cramming that in when every other family with school age children is also doing the same thing is the pits.

YES - I just posted about this, too. My kids are in ES now and my in-laws just have to deal with the fact that the kids have to go to school and can't take time off anymore.

Last year, they convinced my older daughter to do a day virtual instead of in-person so they could spend time with her. I was LIVID.

See, I don't get that. I most certainly would NOT be "LIVID" about something like that. Life is too short. School is important but it isn't so important that every once in a while we can't take a day off from it. DP.

This was in the spring, when kids were in-person 2 days a week for around 8 weeks. I wanted my child to be in-person while she had the opportunity to do so. Sorry you don't seem to value education as much as we do.

LOL!
DP, Lots of people stayed virtual and they were still educated. Plus if you are the parent how did the grandparents overrule what you
wanted, so that’s a YOU issue!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you just pull your kids out of daycare when she comes out to visit? Instead of expecting her to rearrange her life, why don’t you just take your kids out every now and then so she can spend quality time with them?

Seriously, this

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My Mom works as a Director of a small non-profit. She's been there for six years, but has been involved with them for much longer. She was previously in a typical high powered corporate job before getting laid off, so this role is a nice change of pace. She generally likes the job, and it's pretty flexible, except for one issue: this organization puts on events every Sunday during the school year. My Mom is generally occupied from 10am-5/6pm or so each Sunday. From my understanding, her presence at each Sunday event isn't 100% necessary, and it would be possible for her to delegate some of those tasks to other staff members, but it's one of those things where "we've always done it this way, so might as well keep doing it."

To give some background, here's a list of my siblings, their locations relative to where my parents live, and the ages of their children:


Me and DH: 13 month old, seven hour drive
Sibling A and spouse: Twin 10 month olds, four hour drive
Sibling B and spouse: six month old, five hour drive
Sibling C and spouse: no kids, 10 hour drive/two hour flight


In the past, it's sort of been this unspoken arrangement that during the school year when my Mom has her Sunday's booked, we'd be the ones to visit our parents. It wasn't ideal, but we'd do it. However, now that three of us have young kids close in age, traveling is pretty difficult, especially since all the grandkids are in daycare. My Mom has said "oh, we can come to visit during the week!" but again, since all the grandkids are in daycare, it seems like there's little point to doing that.

As our kids get older, my siblings and I are worried that it's going to be basically impossible to see our parents on a weekend during the school year given my Mom's job, especially once the kids start getting older and having their own activities. I gently pressed my Mom about if she'd consider finding an alternative to being at her work events every Sunday (ex. taking one Sunday off and finding other staff members to cover), and her response was "oh no, I couldn't do that! I couldn't do that to the staff, and how would it look if I wasn't there every Sunday?"

I can't help but feel frustrated that she's putting the needs of her job over seeing her own Grandchildren? Am I out of line in thinking this way? Is there anything I can do?

I don't understand what you are saying here OP. There is no harm at all in pulling your kids out of daycare - it's not like pulling them out of school. Go see your mom during the week.

Do you get that OP’s kids are in daycare because she and her spouse (wait for it) ARE WORKING? So why should OP and/or her spouse take time off work, if grandma isn’t even willing to do that on a weekend?!

Why do they need to take off work if grandparents visit during the week? Why can't the grandparents keep the kids home?

Some grandparents are not comfortable taking care of kids with established routines on their own, especially infants and toddlers. My parents would also find this crossing the line from "nice visit" to stressful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you just pull your kids out of daycare when she comes out to visit? Instead of expecting her to rearrange her life, why don’t you just take your kids out every now and then so she can spend quality time with them?

This exactly. Surely you can miss day care once every other month or so?

[Anonymous]

The OP has a 13 month old child. Her mother is willing to travel 14 hours round trip to see her grandchild during a pandemic — and the OP is complaining. I think there is something seriously twisted about prioritizing daycare for a baby over spending time with grandparents due to the OP’s inflexibility and entitlement.

[Anonymous]

Go visit your mom when she is available to see you and your family. It is your responsibility to travel to see her, not the other way around. Ask her when she is free and plan accordingly. And enjoy the time together.

[Anonymous]

I’m wondering if OP meant traveling was difficult due to covid restrictions at her daycare - ie they have some policy about leaving the state and quarantining/testing requirements.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why you think mid-week visits are useless. There are so many options to make those visits enjoyable. Keep the kid home from daycare a day or two. If they aren’t up for a full day, have them take kid to daycare late or pick up early. Or dinner + bedtime stories each night is a great thing to do with grandparents. You sound pretty dismissive of your mom’s job - this doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal.