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ali-1411
member
why doesn't your mom watch your kids?
ali-1411
member
If your kids go to daycare, why doesn't your mom (or MIL) watch the kids? examples: distance, they work, they don't want to, they want to but you don't want them to....
Just curious. My mom doesn't work but she never wanted to watch our kids. She says she raised her kids and she's done. That's her decision and we respect it. But oooh it used to make me mad when I'd have to wake up Jakob at 6:30 am to rush him off to daycare and she'd be sitting in her pajamas reading the newspaper. I know, its her life, her decision. But now my sister has a 3 yr old and they want to have another baby. Except there's no way they can afford daycare for two kids. I suggested to ask Mom. Offer to pay her to make it worth her while. But no. My mom doesn't want to do it.
What's the situation with your moms? Help me come to terms with this, because I'm tempted to call my mom and tell her to suck it up and help out her daughter! She's not doing anything, anyway! I keep telling myself, Its her life, her decision. Its like a chant....
And to make this even longer....my mom does help. She did watch Jakob those first few months before we wanted to put him in daycare. And she watched my nephew for a couple months, too. But we all knew it wasn't a long-term thing. And she was always willing to watch the kids if they were sick and we couldn't miss work. And she's awesome about babysitting on weekends so we could go out or something. Dammit now I feel guilty for complaining.
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Re: why doesn't your mom watch your kids?
my mom is 66 years old and has bad knees.
she also would be afraid to watch both boys at once, I think. She lives in Austin, so if I really needed her, she'd have to drive down here (~45 min). My dad takes meds that make him fall asleep at any random time, so he couldn't be trusted w/ the boys for longer than an hour or so.
My MIL lives 7 minutes away, is retired and doesn't do too much, but she has the same excuse as your mom. She "raised her kids". But then again, she also raised my oldest niece for her entire life because my SIL had her at 18 and still wanted to party and not raise her own child (I'm sure I've complained about this before!). So, she's a bit of a hypocrite, my MIL. She'll raise her 1st grandchild, but is hard-pressed to baby-sit for a couple of hours my kids. B!tch.
Because they live in Dallas.
I know it seems frustrating to you, but I have to agree with your mom here. She did her "time" raising kids; her grandbabies aren't her responsibility.
b/c it's not her job.
Parents live far away. My parents work, but my Dad changed his work schedule to a graveyard shift so he can help my brother with watch niece and nephew. I am so jealous of my brother saving +$1500. MIL would also watch, but lives far away.
Logically, I agree with her too. I've never told her my frustrations about it, but I'm sure she sensed it. There's so much more to it, too (isn't there always?). Its just one of those issues I have with my mother that I need to get over.
Honestly, it really, really bugs me when people expect their parents to change their lives because grandkids arrive. Why on earth would a grandparent be expected to uproot their own lives because their grown-ass adult kids decided to have kids? There's nothing selfish about not wanting to handle the daily care of kids that you didn't choose to have.
I'm thankful for every bit of help I get from my parents, who live in town. But if we didn't have their help, or they didn't live near by, we'd either hire help or suck it up.
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Ooh you're right, that did sound really bad. How do I explain this? Up until about two years ago, my parents were loaded. And they were very old-fashioned. My sister and I did try to pay her before for watching our kids, and she was seriously offended. But recently their financial situation has changed and my mom was all depressed because she doesn't have any work experience, no way could she find a job, yadda yadda yadda. I thought of the perfect solution! She could watch my nephew! She could charge them a discounted rate from daycare, it would be a win/win for everybody!
Uhhhh not so much. I got the whole, "Couldn't take money from my daughter, I raised my kids" speech again.
It was so confusing at the time. But I know, Its her life. Her decision. I respect that (to her face, anyway). So I'm going to vent about it here, instead
Yeah, you do need to get over it and IMO you should never breathe a word of your ungratefulness to your mom. I've watched kids in addition to my own, and it's no ballpark. It's hardwork, it's tiring. Yes, it's fun at times, but I think it was fun because it was a way for ME to be home with MY baby. I don't blame your mom one bit for not wanting to watch your kids or your sister's kids. She's retired...she's paid her dues and for you to expect her to give up HER time really seems ungrateful to me. She isn't on the Earth to serve you guys for the rest of her life.
If I went back to work, my mom wouldn't watch Will. She enjoys her job and I wouldn't ever want to take that away from her. I also probably would never have the heart to ask her to watch Will for me every single day. If she offered, it'd be one thing, but to ask, IMO is asking a WHOLE lot of your mom.
Totally different. Her choice, her wishes.
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Watching kids is way different than being in a professional workplace with adults. You're stuck with kids all day long who can't communicate well. You can't have a conversation with them (usually). I can totally see wanting to have a job, but not wanting to watch your grandkids.
mom- works and lives in SA. mil- works and lives in dallas.
i agree with MC and Kateaggie here. even if they did not work and lived in town i would not expect them to watch my kids everday. they are not their parents nor are they daycare providers. they are both great about coming here when we need a babysitter which i know how lucky we are just to have that.
I see your point. But if you couldn't get a professional workplace job and you needed to earn some money, then wouldn't you do what you could?
Depends on how bad I needed the money. If I needed the money to just keep up the lifestyle I was used to, then probably not. If I needed the money to pay bills, then maybe. She might just like to complain about their financial situation/how she needs a job/how she'd never get hired/etc and not really be serious about it or they might not be as bad off financially as you think they are.
Because I don't have one. I haven't seen her since I was 7.
And my Step-mom lives in San Antonio.
So then she can "take" a job that she doesn't want and feels obligated to keep regardless of what else comes up, because now her kids are dependant on her for childcare? If she really needs the money, there are a lot of options that don't involve working for family. And quite frankly, unless she's asking you for money, you don't get to tell her what she should be willing to do.
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Yeah, you're probably right. That makes sense.
My mom is an awesome person, she really is. I take back what I said before...we HAVE talked about this before. We have a very close relationship and we can talk through just about anything. I had talked to my sister last night and we had the baby talk, and it set me off for a minute there. Ya'll have brought me back to my senses. Thanks
Glad you're back to your senses.
My mom watches DS. We pay her about the same we would pay for daycare. It's worked out well because my Dad was unexpectedly retired so they actually can use the money and she loves spending the time with DS.
If you pay a family member you can't deduct from your taxes which sucks!
My mom however is done with cooking. She cooked for all those years and no longer wants to cook. I don't get it.
I admit it, you are right. She does not have to watch her grandkids.
But she had been saying that she couldn't get a job. She has no work experience, no college. She worked as a waitress for a few years when my parents first got married, and she's stayed home ever since. I had thought I was offering a logical solution. I was wrong, and I haven't brought it up since. Except on here.
My Mom passed away July 2008.
My MIL lives out of state and is crazy.
My stepMIL lives out of state but is awesome.
My mom lives in Arkansas.
She does work (she's a preschool director), but if we lived close by and I wanted to go back to work full-time, I know she'd consider quitting to do the grandma thing full-time. Or perhaps a combination of her and my aunt being our daycare providers - I'd pay them. I would NOT expect them to be free full-time daycare. That's a lot to ask any grandparent.
When we're up there are they're down here, my mom is awesome about helping with the kids. She offers to babysit so we can have a night out sans children, or to watch Alex so we can take Meredith to do something without her baby brother tagging along.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
a) she lives way far away
b) they all smoke
c) she watches my non working sister's kid (they live with them)
d) she's so f'ed in the head I wouldn't dare
Interesting, Taytee. My mom bailed when I was 9, and I've probably seen her a handful of times since then (I'm 33 now).
My mom lives a thousand miles away and LOVES her job. Plus, I want to stay at home and raise my kids. My MIL lives 700 miles away and she doesn't work and would LOVE to watch him. But, again I want to raise my babies at home.
I have a friend here whose mother watches her daughter while she and her husband work. She only pays her 300 a month and expects her to watch her ALL OF THE TIME. At night so they can go out and on the weekends. It is insane and really pisses me off. I consider the grandma the mother, b/c she really does everything!!
ha! I was going to say this about my ILs...they would LOVE to move down here and watch DD fulltime, but I've always been clear that even if they lived here and offered to watch her for free...she would still go to daycare.
MIL- Lives elsewhere, and as much as I love her I wouldn't want her watching DD that much. She thinks my parenting choices are completely off-the-wall and doesn't understand them in the slightest; I've also seen how her daughters have grown up and DH andd I both agree we do not want DD to be ANYTHING like that!
My mom is only 50, so nowhere close to retirement age and she works FT. She would love to watch DD every day, and quit her job to do so in a heartbeat if we could either pay her enough or support her in our home.
am I the only one that sees a glaringly obvious problem here? Why the heck is your sister considering having another child if she can't afford to take care of it? Flame away, but to me, having another kid without having the means for childcare (however that occurs - daycare, family watching, nanny, SAHM, what have you...) is equivilant to saying you want another child but know you can't afford to feed it.
My mom works full time and supports both her and my dad, and my ILs live in another state, so none of them could watch my child unfortunately, though any one of them would quit/move here in a hearbeat to watch A if it were even remotely possible.
MIL lives 2 hours away.
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She's not, that was my whole point. Ideally, they'd like to have another child but they can't afford to. So they are not going to have another child.
I'm glad you came to your senses.
But I understand where you're coming from... it sounds like she's being selfish. But she's put in her time and earned the right to be a little selfish now, ya know?
My parents live in Austin and my FIL lives near us in Denton (MIL deceased). There's no way in heck I'd let FIL watch a LO for more than an hour. In fact, when he was living with SIL while her husband was in Iraq, he refused to watch the kids while SIL went to church once a week. Even though he was living in the same house. And literally doing nothing except sitting in his chair and watching golf. Not to mention having almost a completely opposite parenting philosophy from us in general.
If we lived close to my parents, I'd love for them to say they'd be the daytime caretakers. My mom is an elementary school teacher and I think that our basic values are very similar so I'd love it if she was around our future LO a lot. However, I know that she and my dad (once they retire) want to be free to do what they like. Play golf during the week. Take road trips. Renovate the house. Etc. They'd be totally up for babysitting or taking kids for a week if we had a trip that we couldn't take them on once in a while. But they don't even want the responsibility of getting a dog, much less caring for a child on a daily basis.
BFP 12.20.2010 :: missed m/c 1/2011 around 8 weeks
BFP @ 9dpo 5.24.2011 :: missed m/c 6/2011 around 7 weeks
positive for ANAs (1:40) with a speckled pattern
MTHFR c677t mutation (heterozygous)
*folic acid, baby asprin, Prometrium, acupuncture, Lovenox*
BFP @ 9dpo 2.1.2012 || HCG = 8 : Progesterone = 19.2
2nd HCG @ 11dpo = 40 || 3rd HCG @ 21dpo = over 5000!
Stick, little one, stick! EDD October 15, 2012