Do you have family living nearby?
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Anonymous
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What is it like to have your family living nearby as part of your "village"? Do you have a lot of support? What does that look like?
We live across the coast from our family so I'm just wondering how the other half lives. |
Anonymous
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Yes, and honestly it's great. My MIL is 20-40 minutes depending on traffic (she's in N Arlington, so rush hour is awful) and she takes our 4 year old for sleepovers about once a month, covers a lot of days off school, and is our babysitter. I think we've paid a babysitter maybe 3 times in 4 years? However, she (the MIL) is very eager to please and we're flexible about things like her (the kid) watching hours of TV and eating mostly junk food all day (hello chocolate granola bars and nutella toast for lunch). If either of us were less flexible, it would be a harder dynamic. She's also willing to help so much because we have one easy going 4 year old, so it's less work than multiple kids or higher energy kid(s).
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Anonymous
| We don't. It sucks. Both sets of grandparents are a 4 hour flight away. Closest relative is my sister, who is a 3 hour flight away. Wish they lived closer, but we have a really awesome life where we live so it outweighs the cons of not living close to family. |
Anonymous
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My parents live 3 doors down. They moved here once I had children so they could know their grandkids. We see them 3x a week or so. They're really helpful. They like to babysit every Friday night. They often pick my oldest up from daycare and take her out for a special day by herself.
My dad picks her up on Wednesdays and takes her to library story time for an hour and then drops her back off at daycare. They make dinner often and just bring it over and have it ready for when we get home from work. They can't wait for my oldest to start Kindergarten and my dad wants to be waiting outside her school every day to walk her home. They're not pushy and are low key. I always, always tell them if it's too much. DH is really happy with it all too. His parents never visit and have never babysat or changed a diaper. We still see his parents and celebrate holidays and birthdays with them, but we only ever travel to them. My parents take a 3 month vacation from January- April every year (to escape DC's cold winter) and we miss them a lot. My kids are usually sick the entire time and we run through most of our leave then. We miss their company a lot too, not just their help. We help them a lot too and have renovated most of their house with them. |
Anonymous
| Lots of drama. Absolutely no help, even in an emergency. |
Anonymous
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We do and it's great. I used to take it for granted until I started reading on here about people struggling with raising their kids because they don't have any local family.
Both sets of parents are in town and they help us quite a bit. I'm close with my parents and I feel able to go to them for help whenever I need a babysitter in a pinch (sick day, snow day, appointment, etc.). They often take my kids to their activities. My in laws pick up my kids and feed them dinner once a week. They also fill in for my husband whenever he is out of town (H and I split drop off and pick up - when he's OOT, my in laws do the pick ups). It would be really hard not to have this level of support and a safety net to land. |
Anonymous
| Nope. Single mom with three kids 2000 miles from family. What’s worse is that my husband moved us here- from having all of our family not just in state but most within 10 miles- then became an abusive drunk and walked out a year later. So he removed us from all of our support- abused us all verbally financially emotionally- and took off. We are legal residents here now and can’t leave. Be thankful for what you have. |
Anonymous
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My ILs live with me, so I see them everyday. Generally, it's very good - they help with carpooling and errands and meals. My kids are ES aged.
My parents live 3 hours away, and we see them every 6-8 weeks or so. |
Anonymous
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Yes. My parents live 20 min away, and they help to take care of my young kids (baby 5 days a week & occasionally my preschooler is sick or daycare is closed). That saves a lot of money & gives us a break to take leave all the time. We try not to abuse their help, and I try to help out financially paying grocery, bills, eat out & such. ILs live also 20 min away, but we never bother them & they never offer to help us. I see my parents often, & only my ILs on holidays & birthdays.
If it is not about family, we would have moved to west coast. |
Anonymous
We have family about 30-45 minutes away. They do not babysit. They do not attend parties. They socialize with us when we invite them over. I don't consider them a support or part of our village. |
Anonymous
Same here, sadly. |
Anonymous
Us, too. Please, tell me, what's it like to have functional, financially and emotionally stable family? |
Anonymous
| I have a nine month old and am pregnant and my parents are relocating here from the opposite coast to help/know them. We are thrilled beyond words and realize it's going to be a life changing gift for us. We don't have any other local family. |
Anonymous
We have functional, financially and emotionally stable family who lives across the country but we visit with every 2-3 months. Sometimes DH's parents come for 3-4 days and the FIL flies home to go back to work and MIL stays for a total of two weeks. They're super helpful (a smidge into gender stereotypes). - FIL will fix, hang, etc., anything. He's down for any household project. - MIL will take the kids to the farmer's market - One time they came a week before Halloween and when I came home from work MIL was sitting on a drop cloth spread out in the living room with both DD's stripped to their diapers, scooping out pumpkins and making a huge mess. I would never have done that with them. - FIL will do tons of yard work - They will read the same stories four times in a row - MIL will bake breakfast muffins with the kids - They clean up after themselves and encourage the kids to follow our rules - They try to pay for groceries (we don't let them) and will pay for a couple of meals out |
Anonymous
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The other 10%, you mean. This place is mostly full of people from elsewhere. |