Our daughter “married well.” Nobody is happy about it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
1. You make great points, OP.

2. But people find identity and fulfillment in their career. Your daughter and son-in-law probably have professional ambitions and aspirations and they're working towards that, putting sweat equity to move up the ladder. Respect that choice.

3. I suppose they have reasons to live where they do. Maybe they like the nature there, or appreciate being far away from everything. Or maybe it's easier for work.

4. Kids raised by strangers. Yes, that happens 99% of the time. Daycare, school, college. Kids are nearly all raised by strangers, but education still begins at home.

5. No life situation automatically guarantees happiness. They're probably at a stressful stage in their life, with work and kids. It's probably going to come to fruition later.

6. You're far apart from each other, like many upper-class families who prioritize wealth-building and making the most out of every opportunity. Maybe you can visit more often, if they allow it!

I suspect this is all easy to rationalize until elderly parents get sick or abruptly die and you realize that was it. And/or God forbid one of the careerists gets sick from cancer and nobody is there to help. Or a divorce puts things into perspective. Life is short and precious. Value your family over another rung up the ladder or another passport stamp.

OP, do you have any interest in engaging to learn other perspectives? Or are you just here to insist that you are right, that your daughter and SIL are wrong, that everyone should structure their lives as you see it?

As a senior professional "careerist," I was able to take ample time away from the office when my mother got sick, knowing that work would be there when I was ready to return. If I divorced, my pay would keep my children and me safe and stable. (It's much rockier for SAHMs post-divorce.)

Life is indeed short and precious, I agree.

[Anonymous]

OP’s daughter is a workaholic because she has seen firsthand what can happen to older women whose entire identity is wrapped up in raising their children.

[Anonymous]

Not OP but I’m also someone who doesn’t want my kids or future grandkids raised by minimum wage employees. It’s not because I don’t respect them, think they don’t love kids or devalue their work. I think they should be paid well, supported and treated like professionals!

But they’re not. They are under-resourced, have exhausting commutes, struggle with their own childcare needs, often would much rather work in other fields… that’s not a scenario I want my children in unless it’s necessary.

Details matter and centers vary. I say this as someone whose parents had to send me to subsidized home care at 3 months. They had no options but most of us on this forum DO, and certainly OP’s daughter does

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love my daughter. She grew up in a happy high-resource household and we still talk every day. She was a great student, spent a long time in college earning degrees from good schools, and has a successful career. As she approached age 30, girlfriends introduced her to a nice boy who also earned a few degrees from good schools and has a great career. They married a couple years later. They had one child a couple years after the wedding.

They could work anywhere and make great money, yet for alleged career reasons choose to live in isolation essentially across the country from us (and nowhere his family either). So we barely see her and our one grandchild is raised by strangers at a local day care and part-time nannies. My daughter and her husband’s happiness is eroding but you wouldn’t know that from looking at her perfectly curated social media. She confesses their sex life has become nearly nonexistent. They are workaholics and make great upper middle class money (note: not a mega millions windfall like you read about from young people involved in a tech IPO or something along those lines where they can afford to retire early).

We will be leaving her a comfortable inheritance and I’m sure his parents will leave him similar, so what is even the point of this rat race? They’re unhappy, we’re unhappy (I’m assuming his parents aren’t happy), and their child is raised by strangers. All for what? To chase another rung of status badges and eke out a few more bucks?

I submit this to this forum because everyone is fixated with dating the “right” caliber of partner to “marry well” and the alleged status and happiness that comes with it. Give more mindshare to what “well” truly means.

You keep saying your grandchild is being raised by " strangers" which is untrue. The parents and child know them as they see them every day! Sure they are bioligically related but they aren't strangrrs.

Let them figure it out although I do understand why they live away from thrir family!

[Anonymous]

OP l haven’t read the comments. You keep saying the kids are raised by strangers. So you disapprove of a family member not being the primary caregiver. I’ve got news for you. A lot of parents aren’t suited to being a primary caregiver, prefer to work and hire someone to do that, and that does not make them bad parents.

Are you extremely religious?

Do you talk to your daughter and her husband that way about their choices? My mom is very religious and thinks like you, but knows better than to spew judgement at me. We actually have a great relationship even though we have made very different choices about child care.

Get some self awareness and leave your judgement, it serves nobody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saying you’d be happy to provide full time day care following all the parenting requirements your daughter and son in law have if they moved near you? You’d give only the foods they approve, take the kid to all the activities they want, follow their screen limits, toy rules, etc?

Are you kidding, of course I would happily provide any day care duties. Just as my parents and my husband’s parents were always nearby and there for me when our children were growing up. It’s not just day care or providing a helping hand, it’s proximity to be there and watch them grow up. It’s painful to be so far away and know strangers are raising a grandchild. I keep using “strangers” because that is what is happening. I am not anti day care, I am underscoring how un-well “marrying well” turned out to be.

Another user asked why don’t we move near them: Because they are fairly rootless workaholics and go where their careers take them. They will likely bounce around and job hop for the next 30 years.

So? Move with them in order to be with your daughter and grandchildren and provide them with a joyful family life wherever they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saying you’d be happy to provide full time day care following all the parenting requirements your daughter and son in law have if they moved near you? You’d give only the foods they approve, take the kid to all the activities they want, follow their screen limits, toy rules, etc?

Are you kidding, of course I would happily provide any day care duties. Just as my parents and my husband’s parents were always nearby and there for me when our children were growing up. It’s not just day care or providing a helping hand, it’s proximity to be there and watch them grow up. It’s painful to be so far away and know strangers are raising a grandchild. I keep using “strangers” because that is what is happening. I am not anti day care, I am underscoring how un-well “marrying well” turned out to be.

Another user asked why don’t we move near them: Because they are fairly rootless workaholics and go where their careers take them. They will likely bounce around and job hop for the next 30 years.

No, they’re strangers to you.

The caregivers at our childrens’ daycare were not strangers to us at all. We knew and trusted them. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but we absolutely knew who was caring for our kids.

We can agree to disagree. And you can rationalize it however you’d like. It is paying large sums of money to lower class strangers to raise your child(ren) instead of you and/or grandparents, i.e. family, raising them. All so you could net more HHI and/or live far away from your parents.

It sounds like this was an intentional and deliberate decision on their part.

[Anonymous]

Another reason to live in Europe. Daycares start much later, are staffed by secure professionals who don’t have a gun to their head to be there, and countries are small enough that you’re never that far from family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone probably told her she could have it all and that's what she's trying to do. Wonder who that could have been?

Ouch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm thinking the couple lives where they do so that OP can't meddle in their lives any more than she's already doing.

Where do they live?

What are they unhappy about? Their work hours? No friends? Their actual jobs? Their city?

[Anonymous]

Having little kids is difficult so most couples aren’t blissfully happy during those years. It doesn’t sound like the daughter wants to live where you do.

[Anonymous]

the "sex life" interpretation could be totally extrapolating from the daughter's refusal to engage on that subject, my MIL constantly tried to make sure her son had a happy sex life which def had the opposite effect on my libido - DH had to tell her to stop several times

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you saying you’d be happy to provide full time day care following all the parenting requirements your daughter and son in law have if they moved near you? You’d give only the foods they approve, take the kid to all the activities they want, follow their screen limits, toy rules, etc?

Are you kidding, of course I would happily provide any day care duties. Just as my parents and my husband’s parents were always nearby and there for me when our children were growing up. It’s not just day care or providing a helping hand, it’s proximity to be there and watch them grow up. It’s painful to be so far away and know strangers are raising a grandchild. I keep using “strangers” because that is what is happening. I am not anti day care, I am underscoring how un-well “marrying well” turned out to be.

Another user asked why don’t we move near them: Because they are fairly rootless workaholics and go where their careers take them. They will likely bounce around and job hop for the next 30 years.

Is this an OP response?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who talks to their mom about their sex life?

Either way, let’s bring out the violins. I can’t imagine the pain and suffering of having an UMC income, presumably healthy child, and expected inheritance. What a tragedy.

What an odd thing to seize on. She is my only daughter. We talk about everything. We have always talked every day, even when she was at college she’d call and text me daily.

Is this OP responding?

[Anonymous]

I think OP is overbearing and somewhat controlling and her daughter is a compromising and adapting type and she married a dominating man. He wanted to move across the country and that’s what they did the daughter always compromises. OP you reap what you sow. You put all these things expectations and managed her life in childhood and now she has someone else doing it for her. You should have been very careful when you advised her to “marry well.”