Solidarity, OP. My parents are local but for various reasons (health, all energy expended on my dysfunctional sibling), they can’t help much; DH’s mom and stepdad aren’t local and are also minimally interested in our kids.

Plenty of people choose to have kids and also have tons of help from extended family. It’s not possible to predict every future outcome; those who have extended family they can rely on are lucky, of course.

Anonymous wrote:I get it OP. Our kids are older now. I had to watch MIL bragging about keeping her daughters (plural) kids for one - two weeks while the daughters went on overseas anniversary trips, or whatever. MIL would never do it for us. It was pretty crappy.

It is what it is. We enjoyed our vacations with the kids, and would have just missed them and talked about them, anyway. MIL had help and should have been grateful, but she is kind of bitter, and I refuse to be that way. So, I will hopefully get to help my children when they have families. I consider it a privilege, and they won't be expected to kiss my feet about anything (unlike MIL, who thinks the world owes her something - for what, I have no idea).

My mom will keep two sets of her boyfriends kids for a week or two and fly out and on the rare occasion we have an emergency and need help, she will not even watch mine for an hour. And, she then wonders why, now that they are older they don't care if they see or talk to her and when they do its only because I force them.

My MIL had early onset dementia so she couldn't help (and we took care of her).

It really sucks not to have family you can count on even for a few hours. But, it is what it is. I would never leave my kids and go on vacation alone. We consider vacations as family time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

Presumably OP chose a career path that doesn't allow for nannies. That's a valid life choice, but a life choice.

OP also chose to have children.

OMG. Please stop acting like people who were born rich or with hyper involved parents did anything to deserve it. They are just lucky. I’m fact the ones I know with the extremely involved parents are quite incompetent parents themselves and somehow seem proud of their laziness.

+1. The ones I know with involved parents become so used to the extra help that it’s multiple times a week, weekends away every month, to the point where they slowly become incapable of independently parenting their kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

Presumably OP chose a career path that doesn't allow for nannies. That's a valid life choice, but a life choice.

OP also chose to have children.

OMG. Please stop acting like people who were born rich or with hyper involved parents did anything to deserve it. They are just lucky. I’m fact the ones I know with the extremely involved parents are quite incompetent parents themselves and somehow seem proud of their laziness.

And, now we get to why a lot of people are limiting how many children they have.

People expect you to be able to afford to have a nanny or just shut up.
OK.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

Presumably OP chose a career path that doesn't allow for nannies. That's a valid life choice, but a life choice.

OP also chose to have children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

Presumably OP chose a career path that doesn't allow for nannies. That's a valid life choice, but a life choice.

I feel the same.

I saw my SIL for thanksgiving and spontaneiously burst in to tears when she was talking about a trip to napa valley with her girl friends and then a trip to seattle with her DH a few weeks later.

I am typically not emotional or a crier and was really taken aback by my own response as weird as that sounds.

I have not had more than 90 mins away from my kids (and this has been maybe 4 times to grocery shop, I typically order otherwise) in almost 2 years. I tried to get my haircut in March and got called home before it was my turn in the chair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

OP chose to have children. Aging parents is not difficult to predict.

Aging, yes. Poor health, no. I know people with parents in their 70s who are active and involved. My own parents are in their 60s with limited mobility. My dad has a serious heart condition. My mom has had a large amount of weight gain in the last 6 years that has caused a host of issues. I would never have anticipated this, and I thought I was making a good choice in having kids while my parents were still “young”. Instead I am in the squeeze of ailing parents (who are likely to continue to struggle for another 15-20 years based on life expectancy in my family) plus young kids. It’s very challenging and no, it’s not something I would have predicted 5 years ago.

I get it OP! I am super lucky to have local family who I love and respect and they are actually young enough and healthy enough to both still work! Not full time but quite a lot. I was jealous of my friends whose families would come for weeks when my kids were little and I was using all my leave to be home with the sick baby who couldn’t go to daycare because enough people knew o had local family that they never really understood that I didn’t have back up for those no notice unplanned during the week things. Of course they were able to do more for a younger sibling’s family who lived super close and had kids later when they had cut back on hours more, but they really aren’t ever childcare for us aside from a random weekend evening here or there planned long in advance (Although that is MUCH appreciated!) my kids are not the easiest anyway.

But I’m mostly just so so grateful that they are reasonably happy and healthy. My in-laws are NOT and my DH worries about them a lot. I am upset the pandemic robbed us of precious time with all the them before things get really bad.

My parents immigrated to this country with me. So no grandparents or nearby family. They would occasionally (like 1x a year) leave me with their close friends for the weekend, who had similar aged kids. And they would reciprocate for those friends as well. Couldn’t you do the same?

Anonymous wrote:As a grandmother, I love it. I always do a week for each set of parents to get away. Also, weekend trips.

I love that my parents do this and will definitely pass along the favor to my kids one day, God wiling.

As a grandmother, I love it. I always do a week for each set of parents to get away. Also, weekend trips.

We have this and yes, we are super appreciative.

That being said, we don’t always use the grandparents to get away - we have had fantastic resort type vacations at places with kids club (generally potty trained ages and above). It’s really nice because you can relax during the day kid free, but also reunite for dinner or special activities as a family. Kind of the best of all worlds.

And yes, now that the kids (and my parents) are older, we use sleep away camp. It’ll come sooner than you think! We started sleep away at age 9 with success for two kids, and sometimes I feel like I blinked and time flew so fast to those ages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

OP chose to have children. Aging parents is not difficult to predict.

Aging, yes. Poor health, no. I know people with parents in their 70s who are active and involved. My own parents are in their 60s with limited mobility. My dad has a serious heart condition. My mom has had a large amount of weight gain in the last 6 years that has caused a host of issues. I would never have anticipated this, and I thought I was making a good choice in having kids while my parents were still “young”. Instead I am in the squeeze of ailing parents (who are likely to continue to struggle for another 15-20 years based on life expectancy in my family) plus young kids. It’s very challenging and no, it’s not something I would have predicted 5 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personal life choices.

You think OP CHOSE to have her parents in poor health?

OP chose to have children. Aging parents is not difficult to predict.