Anonymous wrote:Still not understand why a family with one parent who stays home needs a nanny.

Anonymous wrote:OP here with an update. We started looking for a part-time sitter. Also, I talked to my mom. Told her she can't come to the doctor, but took the nonconfrontational route of using doctor's COVID policies as an excuse (which it turns out is actually true).


She told me all her concerns. There's no big family secret about our genes...basically they're convinced there's something wrong with my kid's liver because of the dark circles and dry skin and also because, I quote, "we've been keeping an eye on her poops and they are too large". Both me and my DH have a history of eczema and rashes as kids and my sister had liver issues as a kid...so that's the genetic piece. It didn't really make sense to me, but they are asking me to insist on all this testing at the doctors.

I feel like the immediate issue has been solved, but not really the underlying problems....

When we get a sitter, I'm betting they'll complain about insufficient time with grandkids - we dealt with this a lot when we did have a full-time nanny. They wanted us to find time to visit every single week ("We love the kids, they love us, isn't it cruel of you to keep us away from each other just because weekly visits are inconvenient for you? We are grandparents, we have the right to see our grandkids every week." OR just the passive aggressive, every time we talk and I'm like "How are you?" they're like, "Lonely, missing our grandkids, it's been a whole 2 weeks."

If the doctor does not do the testing that they are hoping for (which I'm not going to push for if it's unnecessary), it'll be, "You know that medical error is one of the leading causes of death in the US? You know how broken the medical system in this country is? Why not insist on the tests just to be sure she's ok? Why are you getting annoyed at us? We're her grandparents, right? We just want her to be healthy. We know you're a great mom, but no one's perfect. What if you're missing something? What if the doctor is missing something? What's so wrong with us working as a team to make sure Larla is healthy? Isn't that the outcome we all want?"

So I'm still kind of lost about the bigger picture of how to deal with this short of totally cutting the relationship, which I don't want to do because 60%-70% of the time things are not this insane.

Anonymous wrote:OP here with an update. We started looking for a part-time sitter. Also, I talked to my mom. Told her she can't come to the doctor, but took the nonconfrontational route of using doctor's COVID policies as an excuse (which it turns out is actually true).


She told me all her concerns. There's no big family secret about our genes...basically they're convinced there's something wrong with my kid's liver because of the dark circles and dry skin and also because, I quote, "we've been keeping an eye on her poops and they are too large". Both me and my DH have a history of eczema and rashes as kids and my sister had liver issues as a kid...so that's the genetic piece. It didn't really make sense to me, but they are asking me to insist on all this testing at the doctors.

I feel like the immediate issue has been solved, but not really the underlying problems....

When we get a sitter, I'm betting they'll complain about insufficient time with grandkids - we dealt with this a lot when we did have a full-time nanny. They wanted us to find time to visit every single week ("We love the kids, they love us, isn't it cruel of you to keep us away from each other just because weekly visits are inconvenient for you? We are grandparents, we have the right to see our grandkids every week." OR just the passive aggressive, every time we talk and I'm like "How are you?" they're like, "Lonely, missing our grandkids, it's been a whole 2 weeks."

If the doctor does not do the testing that they are hoping for (which I'm not going to push for if it's unnecessary), it'll be, "You know that medical error is one of the leading causes of death in the US? You know how broken the medical system in this country is? Why not insist on the tests just to be sure she's ok? Why are you getting annoyed at us? We're her grandparents, right? We just want her to be healthy. We know you're a great mom, but no one's perfect. What if you're missing something? What if the doctor is missing something? What's so wrong with us working as a team to make sure Larla is healthy? Isn't that the outcome we all want?"

So I'm still kind of lost about the bigger picture of how to deal with this short of totally cutting the relationship, which I don't want to do because 60%-70% of the time things are not this insane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op absolutely is missing something. There is no reason dh should be so exhausted he can’t provide childcare and needs grandparent help. In my household one of us has been out of work this whole pandemic. Guess what he has been doing??? Childcare!!! We have never had any need for a sitter or grandparents or whatever. Sounds like OP and her husband need to figure out how to live life as adults.

OP here. It's easy to write anonymous snarky posts, but if you're really in the same situation, how about some constructive advice?

My husband is actively job searching, which is taking upwards of 20 hours per week. Between searching for jobs, writing cover letters, reaching out to people to network, working with recruiters, interviews and prep for interviews, pro bono projects to develop skills and make contacts, it really is like a job. So it's not like he's just sitting on his ass. To get concrete, here's how our day looks:

Morning: he is on kid duty, I work frenetically to get a full day's work into 4-5 hours.
Afternoon: I am on kid duty, he does his job search stuff and catches up on groceries, bills, house repairs, mail, all that "adulting" fun. He makes dinner while I watch kids.
Evening: we eat dinner together, then bedtime routine. After kids in bed, we finish the work we didn't get done in the morning. We pass out from exhaustion and then get up and do it all over again.

Are there other families with young kids and similar workloads and no childcare? I'm sure. I know some of them. They are always tired and their romantic lives are nonexistent. I'm not really interested in living like that. I like having romantic evenings, spending time with my husband and having regular sex. I like going on vacation just the two of us every year. If you are satisfied being with your kids 24/7, all power to you, but there are plenty of families that do use sitters and grandparents to get much-needed time away from kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op absolutely is missing something. There is no reason dh should be so exhausted he can’t provide childcare and needs grandparent help. In my household one of us has been out of work this whole pandemic. Guess what he has been doing??? Childcare!!! We have never had any need for a sitter or grandparents or whatever. Sounds like OP and her husband need to figure out how to live life as adults.

OP here. It's easy to write anonymous snarky posts, but if you're really in the same situation, how about some constructive advice?

My husband is actively job searching, which is taking upwards of 20 hours per week. Between searching for jobs, writing cover letters, reaching out to people to network, working with recruiters, interviews and prep for interviews, pro bono projects to develop skills and make contacts, it really is like a job. So it's not like he's just sitting on his ass. To get concrete, here's how our day looks:

Morning: he is on kid duty, I work frenetically to get a full day's work into 4-5 hours.
Afternoon: I am on kid duty, he does his job search stuff and catches up on groceries, bills, house repairs, mail, all that "adulting" fun. He makes dinner while I watch kids.
Evening: we eat dinner together, then bedtime routine. After kids in bed, we finish the work we didn't get done in the morning. We pass out from exhaustion and then get up and do it all over again.

Are there other families with young kids and similar workloads and no childcare? I'm sure. I know some of them. They are always tired and their romantic lives are nonexistent. I'm not really interested in living like that. I like having romantic evenings, spending time with my husband and having regular sex. I like going on vacation just the two of us every year. If you are satisfied being with your kids 24/7, all power to you, but there are plenty of families that do use sitters and grandparents to get much-needed time away from kids.

Wow. You are either a troll or raised with immense privilege. What you are describing is normal and yes, many -- most -- other parents do it every day. You're "really not interested in living like that?" LOL!

You don't stop working for pay and start a business that you *hope* will support you in a year (but not until) with a spouse who isn't working. If you don't want to deal with your own kids full-time and yes, be exhausted (welcome to adulthood, again), then you need to stop playing house and one or both of you get a PAYING FULL-TIME JOB. Then you can afford the "breaks" you so desperately have convinced yourself you need.

Agree with the PP. Some people are not cut out to be parents and maybe OP is one of them. The only people who have the privilege of "support" are those who give up control of their lives and those who can pay for it. Since OP can't pay for it, then she either needs to adjust her expectations about life or give up the control that her parents are demanding in exchange for the support she believes she is entitled to have.

If OP really wanted free time for romance, then she would learn to multitask. There is no reason that you can't take your kids on errands and to the grocery store. There is no reason that you can't cook dinner and watch your kids. If she actually did what most of us do, she would find that time for evening romance after the kids go to bed.

And, no, most parents don't go on annual vacations without their kids. In fact, I don't know any personally who have ever taken one without kids except us and in the 2 decades that I've been a parent (kids spaced far apart), we took one.