Unreliable in-laws vent
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Anonymous
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At this point, there's no immediate problem to solve, since my mom is making adjustments to help us out...but I need to vent.
We have a 1 and 4 y.o., and in July DH and I are planning our first real vacation alone since before they were born. The idea came up over Christmas, when my mom mentioned that if we wanted to go on a vacation she would watch our kids. Since older DD was born, my mom has always made a big deal about DH and I needing to spend time alone together to keep our marriage strong, so this is in line with that. Neither ILs or my parents live where we do (all are airplane rides away), and my parents live quite a bit further away. While we were making plans, I talked to DD about spending time with just my mom, and she asked if MIL was also coming. I passed this along to MIL in a very light-hearted way, because I thought she'd be happy that DD wanted to spend time with her. I said explicitly that my mom was coming, and we really didn't expect her to come...but a couple weeks later she sent me and DH an email saying she would be happy to come when we go on our trip. So, ultimately, we worked out a plan where ILs would come a couple days before we leave, and then my mom would overlap while we were gone and then stay for the weekend after we got back. This was a month-ish ago, and tickets were purchased. Well, this weekend, ILs just announce, without apology, that they weren't going to come after all. Ultimately, my mom changed her work schedule and tickets to be here just for our trip...and now I won't really get to see her at all. I know we're lucky that they even offered to come, but apparently they told DH that they felt pushed into it and it was too much to ask. We didn't ask or expect it!! I told MIL something because I thought it would make her happy...and we would never have brought it up again if she hadn't. My mom was planning to watch the kids for the entire week, and if that had been the plan we would have scheduled our trip around her work instead of her now having to reschedule her work. I'm venting because this is just another indication that ILs just really don't value a relationship with us unless we go far out of our way to make it happen...something DH recognizes but hasn't really internalized. He just seemed so crushed that they did this...especially in comparison to my mom changing her plans for us (and my parents are far from perfect). I don't know...just venting. |
Anonymous
| Hello, I’m sorry to hear your vacation planning isn’t going as planned! I feel the same way about my ILs. They expect me to put in all the work and do non themselves to make this relationship work. Now you know not to take their word. They’re probably saying they felt pushed as an excuse to not go. |
Anonymous
| Sounds like MIL took your comment about your daughter wanting to spend time with her as a subtle request/pressure, even though you clarified you weren't asking her to come... |
Anonymous
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A) It was a bit much to ask - flying in to babysit for you while you're on vacation.
B) She shouldn't have read into it that she you were forcing her to do anything - because you weren't. C) That said, asking someone to watch a child for a half a week is one thing. Two children in diapers AND paying the plane tickets to get to you is selfish. You should have flown the kids to either set of grandparents, dropped them off and picked them on the way back from your vacation. |
Anonymous
At least that's what they are saying...but they are adults. They don't have to come if they don't want to do so. And when you agree to something many people are counting on (we've spent thousands on airline tickets etc), then you follow through even if you don't really want to anymore. I think, in the end, it's just for me a lot of subtle indications that they don't care as much. And it's a sharp contrast to how they treat SIL who is local to them. Another example, that this reminds me of, is that they scheduled their huge 50th anniversary party exactly one week before my due date with DS...when I obviously couldn't fly out there and DH couldn't really since it was so close to my due date. As it turned out, DS was born on the day of that party. I just can't imagine my parents planning a huge milestone celebration on a day I absolutely couldn't attend. DH tries to be stoic about it and explain it away, but in truth it hurts him that they treat him like he's less of a family member just because we are a little further away. And it's not like the idea of people moving far away is unheard of to them. ILs moved clear across the country from their parents, and DH's grandparents ended up choosing to retire near ILs just to forge a connection with DH and SIL. |
Anonymous
Not OP, but I feel like you failed reading comprehension. You're projecting all sorts of things here that aren't born out by text evidence. |
Anonymous
| We were paying for the plane tickets, and the reason to have them come here is that their nanny is here and can take care of the kids during the day as well as cook/laundry etc. ILs wouldn't want our kids at their house. My mom would be fine with the kids in her house...but only if we also flew nanny out there so having her come here is easier. |
Anonymous
| Also, my 4 y.o. is not in diapers. |
Anonymous
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That stinks. If someone behaves like that, I write them off as unreliable. Period. That means that I'm not going to make any plans with them that I can't manage if they bail. If the ILs ever make noises about wanting to stay with the kids or have the kids stay with them--the answer is no, because they've demonstrated that they aren't reliable. Harsh, but bailing like that without a really good reason is not okay. They could have said no, and if you made clear that your mom was watching the kids, the idea that they were pressured into it is nonsense.
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Anonymous
50th anniversary means they're in their mid-70s nows? I think that gets in the "too old to be relied upon for chlidcare" category (in addition to them just being flakes.) My MIL is super dedicated to my child, but I've noticed that there was a big difference between 69 when DS was born, and mid-70s where she is now. Regardless, I agree with you that this is very disappointing, but maybe it will help to reframe the situation towards them being in the phase of life where they need your support, and not the other way around. |
Anonymous
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"You want to come to stay with DD? I'm sorry, every since you backed out last time I can't trust that you'll really come. Last time you really put everyone out, and forced all of us to scramble, and didn't even apologize, so this time I prefer we just avoid the whole situation. Too bad you changed your mind last time!" |
Anonymous
I should clarify that the kids' nanny is in town and available for the entire time we're out-of-town (including weekend), so the only thing we really need is someone to be in the house at night with the kids. Nanny can even stay to put kids to bed if needed...though usually ILs and my parents like to do that. That being said, ILs provide before- and after-care for SIL's kids throughout the entire school year, so it's not like they are unable/unwilling to provide childcare. Though I agree that it's different for younger kids like ours. |
Anonymous
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I hear you OP. My mom is like this. It hurts all the more because my MIL passed away and she was such a thoughtful person.
My mom insisted that she was coming to help for a month when my first child was born. When I brought up the idea of hiring a post partum doula she balked saying that sounded like something for people who didn’t have a mother. We planned all visits around hers and DH waited to take time off until after she planned to leave. You can guess where this is going? Right before my due date she announced she wasn’t coming for a month after all. Too stressful. She was only going to come for 2 days. That first month was incredibly difficult because DH couldn’t take any Paternity leave and I was having pretty serious health issues. It was horrible. I learned my lesson though. Never again. I trust my friends more than I trust my parents in terms of reliability. I also make zero effort to see them now. If they want to see us, they can come visit. I also never tell the kids they’re coming until their cab is in the driveway. They’re my parents otherwise I would have cut them out of my life completely. |
Anonymous
I really didn’t read passed this. It took 16 years of parenthood before DH and I had more than an overnight. Count your blessings. |
Anonymous
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OP, just a tip--stop mentioning what you are doing with either set of parents to the other set of parents. I've seen many families where when you give unnecessary information to the grandparents, they end up in a grandparent competition. Even when they don't explicitly try, they end up feeling like they owe more time, money, resources to their grandchildren than the other grandparents give or do.
You mentioned that your mother was going to come and help watch the kids while you took a vacation. You even added in that your daughter asked if her other grandmother was going to come. Even if you explicitly say that you don't expect her to come, she's going to feel like a bad grandmother if she doesn't come, so she tried to promise more than she was willing to give because she felt guilted into being a better grandmother. Then she realized it was more than she could commit to and backed out, feeling even worse. The problem was that you put her in a lose-lose situation. Either she doesn't come and she's the bad grandmother that doesn't come to visit when her granddaughter even asked if she was going to come, or she's the grandmother than didn't even offer to come out to help watch the kids while you two take a much needed vacation. My MIL is also like this. She's very well meaning, but she tries to keep track of what my parents do with our kids and tries to do at least as much, if not more. It's hard because my parents are well off financially and my MIL is not. So she feels extra guilty that she can't throw money at her grandchildren. She also feels that she has to try to keep up with my parents. It's worse because my spouse and I are both the youngest and we had kids late. All of our siblings are older and had kids early. That means that our kids are 16-20 years younger than all of their cousins and so they are the darlings of the family as essentially a generation to themselves. My MIL was better off financially 20 years ago when her first grandchild was young and she was able to do more with him. Now she feels bad that she can't even do the things with our kids that she did with my nephew. We off-set all of this by only giving news about the grandparents to the other side but we don't give news about what the grandparents are doing with the kids. We also try to compensate by doing things with my MIL that she wants to do with the kids and we do it together so that we can offset much of the cost to what she can afford. So if she wants to take the kids somewhere, we pay for all of us to travel there and get the hotel or Air-BnB for all of us. She gets her airfare on miles and pays for park tickets or whatever. Then she feels that she was able to take the kids there. |