OP, I get what you're saying and if it is an ideal situation then yes it is easy to be envious. My brother lives less than 2mi from my parents, who elected to retire near him and his family. They babysit my two nieces one full day per week and are as flexible as they can be about pinch-hitting. They also see the kids multiple times a week, meet at the pool for playtime and dinner after the kids are out of school. My brother and SIL often get date nights or weekends away. This only works because my parents are very active and involved grandparents with a good relationship with my brother.

I wish for my kids' sake that we had the same situation. I know it's the unicorn, but it does exist in my family so it's hard not to be a tad envious or at least a bit sad for my own kids, not to mention nice knowing you have the extra support.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live very far from family. My family is crazy so it's worth the privacy and less interference for me to not have free sitters.

Same here. Far away by choice and better off for it.

Can I just say how sad it is to see so many responses like this?

Anonymous wrote:We live very far from family. My family is crazy so it's worth the privacy and less interference for me to not have free sitters.

Same here. Far away by choice and better off for it.

I grew up without extended family around, so it felt very normal. It still feels normal now that I'm an adult with a family of my own. And, frankly, given their penchant for meddling and having seen their utter disregard for the parenting choices our siblings made (who do live close to family), I think we are better off not having them around.

Our kids are older now, but we did. We live here in the DC area, all our family lives in California.

But--we moved here (from California) when our oldest was six. So we did have "local" family for the first several years. It didn't matter much. My parents worked full time, so it's not like they would have provided daycare. Even just occasional babysitting, like for date night, was maybe 3 or 4 times in the six years we lived there with kids...so not even once a year.

Anonymous wrote:The only benefit is that you are free from potential interference.

Otherwise there are no benefits, none. It's not about "free childcare services" as you put it. It's about the opportunity to form relationships with your family.

This is a HUGE benefit for someone like me. I much rather prefer to pay a babysitter than ask my local MIL to watch the kids.

Yes, it's a bummer to have to pay $1000 to just go away for two nights.

We don't have any family near by and it is hard. We do have friends that we rely upon to be our emergency contacts and celebrate holidays and just borrow things. We also have a full time nanny so that we can have very secure child care- we don't have anyone else to call if someone is sick or snow day or whatever, so we prepare for that.