Reply to S/O: ‘The DIL is in the busiest chapter of her life; you have nothing to do’

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "S/O: ‘The DIL is in the busiest chapter of her life; you have nothing to do’"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Oh god yes, the difference between how the different grandparents handle this is STAGGERING. We have three very young children.

My mom and stepfather are wonderful grandparents. They live far, but visit often, are always a sympathetic ear, love my kids and play with them and help however they can. My mom remembers how hard it was and my stepdad (who is wonderful, but missed these years with my sister and I as he obviously joined the scene later) REALLY sees it and gets it. A lot of “I don’t know how you do all this all the time!” It’s really validating.

My dad, who I actually used to be closer to, clearly wasn’t doing half the work when we were tiny (I mean, it was the 80s, so fair). He kinda gets it, but then does things like watch me spend 20 mins getting all three kids ready to go (packing the diaper bag, making the bigger kids pee, getting shoes on and coats on and hats on, getting the stroller ready, while also keeping the three kids alive and happy), hear me give several warnings to the big kids (“you need to use the potty we’re leaving in 10 mins”, “get your shoes on we’re leaving in five mins”) and then AS WE ARE ALL WALKING OUT THE DOOR will say “oh, I should probably pee first. And do you know where I put my hat?”

Seriously?!?

It’s less that he doesn’t get it and more than he just lives in a world where 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins, unless there’s like, a movie about to start, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t realize that waiting five mins for him means someone’s going to get hot and take their coat off, someone’s going to get engaged in a toy and need to be pulled away, and that when the baby only has 3 hours between naps, 10 mins can make things TIGHT.

My FIL is COMPLETELY clueless. We’re going to visit him this weekend in his wildly unbabyproofed house with all three kids and he asked my husband if they could have some time just the two of them. NO! We’re there for 2 hours with three kids under 6. (And side note, he does get a fair amount of 1:1 time with my husband, as he lives closest). And he wants to play PICTIONARY. Sir, the average age of my kids is 2.5. That is NOT going to work.

I think he has a combination of a bad memory and the fact that my MIL (deceased) clearly did all the work when the kids were little.

This man asked me (I work in tech) to fix the email on his phone when I was 48 hours postpartum with my third. I looked at him like he was crazy and said “no, I’m pretty busy” and he ASKED AGAIN the next day. I had to literally say “no, I’m recovering from childbirth, you need to ask someone else or bring it to the Apple Store for help.” Who needs to be told that?!?

It’s crazy making. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics