Di you think I offended DIL?

[Anonymous]

Tell me I’m being irrational, because I can’t stop ruminating over something that happened between my DIL and myself. I’d say every other Monday I offer to watch my grandsons so my DIL and/or son can get some things done. I don’t see anyone or go anywhere at all and I wear a mask, so I still get to enjoy my grandsons safely, and my son and DIL enjoy a little free time. I got in contact with DIL and told her I could come Monday, and asked her to let me know a good time, and she said she would. Soon thereafter, I remembered I had a delivery coming Monday at noon so I quickly texted back that I couldn’t come until after 1. After that I never heard from DIL and Monday has come and gone. I can’t help thinking that I said something or did something wrong. Why would she just completely brush me off like that?

[Anonymous]

Maybe she thought you would just come after 1?

Anyways, I'm barely holding it together with a full-time job and two small kids during the pandemic. I can't have people taking my flakiness personally this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell me I’m being irrational, because I can’t stop ruminating over something that happened between my DIL and myself. I’d say every other Monday I offer to watch my grandsons so my DIL and/or son can get some things done. I don’t see anyone or go anywhere at all and I wear a mask, so I still get to enjoy my grandsons safely, and my son and DIL enjoy a little free time. I got in contact with DIL and told her I could come Monday, and asked her to let me know a good time, and she said she would. Soon thereafter, I remembered I had a delivery coming Monday at noon so I quickly texted back that I couldn’t come until after 1. After that I never heard from DIL and Monday has come and gone. I can’t help thinking that I said something or did something wrong. Why would she just completely brush me off like that?

You did nothing wrong. Just text on Monday again. You are a great grandmother!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell me I’m being irrational, because I can’t stop ruminating over something that happened between my DIL and myself. I’d say every other Monday I offer to watch my grandsons so my DIL and/or son can get some things done. I don’t see anyone or go anywhere at all and I wear a mask, so I still get to enjoy my grandsons safely, and my son and DIL enjoy a little free time. I got in contact with DIL and told her I could come Monday, and asked her to let me know a good time, and she said she would. Soon thereafter, I remembered I had a delivery coming Monday at noon so I quickly texted back that I couldn’t come until after 1. After that I never heard from DIL and Monday has come and gone. I can’t help thinking that I said something or did something wrong. Why would she just completely brush me off like that?

You did nothing wrong. Just text on Monday again. You are a great grandmother!

+1

[Anonymous]

You did nothing wrong. She was likely just busy. Because of this pandemic I'm 10x busier than normal and just don't have much time to respond back to people or I forget.

[Anonymous]

Nothing wrong on your part. She's busy and moved on to other things.

[Anonymous]

Agree you did nothing wrong and it probably just slipping her mind or she had other things to deal with.

I think it's harder for this generation (your generation) to remember that we are really, really busy in our 30/40s+ working, taking care of kids, etc. It's not personal. Really.

(At the same time, you MAY want to consider if it's your DIL's job to arrange this with you and not your SIL's. if it works for you both, great. But I feel like I need to give this PSA).

[Anonymous]

^ sorry, consider that you may wish to go through your son instead. Maybe not and having nothing to do with this incident, but I do find your generation has a huge bias which winds up putting an undue burden on women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You did nothing wrong. She was likely just busy. Because of this pandemic I'm 10x busier than normal and just don't have much time to respond back to people or I forget.

For me, it’s the bandwidth. Sometimes it takes more energy to figure out a time, what I’m going to do when ILs have my kids, than it is just continuing with my day as I normally would, even without the break from my kids. Maybe she didn’t have the need this week and the effort wasn’t worth the reward, so to speak.

[Anonymous]

Can you be my MIL???? You sound perfect. My MIL acted like we asked for a kidney the two times we asked for a little help. But she practically raises SIL's kids. So, just don't show favoritism. You did nothing offensive.

[Anonymous]

I think you are displacing the blame. It’s sort of crummy DIL just left you hanging like that. Can you be my MIL?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, consider that you may wish to go through your son instead. Maybe not and having nothing to do with this incident, but I do find your generation has a huge bias which winds up putting an undue burden on women.

What does this mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, consider that you may wish to go through your son instead. Maybe not and having nothing to do with this incident, but I do find your generation has a huge bias which winds up putting an undue burden on women.

What does this mean?

It means there's no reason that OP can't be texting with her son about this. Her son can figure out the scheduling and all that. It doesn't need to be on the DIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, consider that you may wish to go through your son instead. Maybe not and having nothing to do with this incident, but I do find your generation has a huge bias which winds up putting an undue burden on women.

What does this mean?

DP. Don't know what the above post meant about older generation, but am guessing the DIL is in generation that doesn't reply to party invites, wedding invites, etc. so probably thought nothing of not calling back. So not a slight, just different approach to communication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, consider that you may wish to go through your son instead. Maybe not and having nothing to do with this incident, but I do find your generation has a huge bias which winds up putting an undue burden on women.

What does this mean?

DP. Don't know what the above post meant about older generation, but am guessing the DIL is in generation that doesn't reply to party invites, wedding invites, etc. so probably thought nothing of not calling back. So not a slight, just different approach to communication.

Maybe. Or maybe it's that people in OP's generation tend to assume that the mother should be the point person for all this stuff. Why else would OP reach out to her DIL and not her own son?