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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [b]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.[/b]

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?[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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?![/quote]

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

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. [/quote]

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