Daughter-in-law not watching twins very well

I am astonished that so many people have written in to be judgmental of the author. Why would you want to be so unkind? My daughter had twins 15 years ago and one of them was born with some serious skin issues which made it necessary for him to have the most sterile surroundings achievable in a normal home for the first two years of his life. Two nurses came three times a week to dress his wounds and other specialists like the tissue viability nurse and clinical photographer visited regularly to track his progress. My daughter and her husband did keep the house looking immaculate but it was incredibly hard work. they lived a long way away from both sets of parents so we were of limited help. When the little ones were two years old they moved home just a couple of miles from the other parents. They were marvelous and were prepared to do anything they could to help but the father in law became very ill and needed help too which my daughter and son in law were only too happy to help with. We went down about one weekend a month or the babies and their parents came up to us. We also rented self-catering holiday cottages and we went on holiday with them at least once a year. It was a lovely combined family relationship between us all and then the most terrible thing happened. My son in law's mother in the course of three hours went to feeling slightly unwell to being dead. Her poor husband was alone. they all pulled together and he died about 4 years ago. I am so grateful that my twin grandchildren got time to spend living close to their other grandparents and to appreciate what lovely people they were. The twins now 15 years old are the nicest young people anyone could imagine and we love them and their parents more than I can say. We are now in our later ears and they are incredibly kind to us in all sorts of ways. Difficult beginnings, for what ever reason can turn out well but it is not easy and it takes every member of the family including grandparents to offer unconditional love and help to all of the other members of this newly formed family which sounds to me as if this lady is doing. She is only airing her anxieties on here and needs to feel she can do so safely as we do not know each other.

4allweknow

With all you say DIL working as anurse full time and suffering from depression should she be working at all. What time will she have to address her depression. Yes medication will help but it's not usually a stand alone remedy. Could the number of hours be reducedto give more home and me time. Carrying on the same old way won't change anything. Hopefully your son does his share of giving support physically and mentally.

2 problems with this are her employer may not respond positively to her being off sick, even if it is for the long term goal of improving mental health, and her work might actually be a part of her life where she is doing well and feeling good about herself, lord knows she's getting none of that at home.

Another 2 are that they may not be able to afford to live off sick pay, and that she's unlikely to get any actual rest while she's off sick as hubby and MIL will just ramp up the pressure to manage the house better.

Your DIL needs help,no doubt she is up in the night with the kids as well.Best bet is try to help her personally,be kind buy her the odd nice thing,show her support——— nursing is very draining as you give your all to patients all day then rush to pick up children,make supper do laundry etc etc etc.
If you can suggest a cleaner,even just to change the sheets & towels and vac,could you pay ? Could your DIL cut her hours a bit,she needs help,if they divorce their lives will be even more of a mess.

Poor girl! She has had twins, gets little support from her husband regarding housework ... she works full time as a nurse? My God! .. what more do you want from her?! Oh, yes, and to top it all she has a mother-in-law who obviously thinks she is an unfit mother as well as her husband. She is depressed, and I am not surprised! If you think the house is 'filthy' tell your son to pull his finger out!

(Not read all the posts, the first one made me angry enough)

Let me explain how nursing works in the US right now.

corporations Hospital systems are taking over most of the running of the medical systems in the US. They are for profit.

During COVID, many in the medical profession left. They either didn't want to be vaccinated or they were scared they would get sick and die. Nurses especially, took the brunt of it. Legal staff to patient ratios were being ignored and even the government said it was ok because of unprecedented times. Medical staff spent over a year watching people die from Covid, over worked with more patients then they are legally allowed to have.

Now, 2 years in, the remaining staff that has not left the medical field are starting to flee in droves. They have had 2 years of a high stress job and do not want to do it any more. So now, the staff who are still working are getting ANOTHER hit. Their coworkers are leaving them, again, being overworked, tired and stressed.

Now, in the case of the OP, DIL had twins at the beginning of a pandemic. We all know how hard having 1 baby in normal times is like. DIL had 2.

Now, her husband is whining to his mommy and threatening divorce and to take her kids so he and mommy can raise them.

I cant imagine they type of person it would take to know what this poor woman is going through and threaten to divorce her and take her kids. I also cant imagine the type of MOTHER who would look at this scenario and decide to take another mothers children away. When nothing that this poor woman is going through is her fault.

She is not a horrible mother. She is a new mother who had twins in a time that not none of us have ever experienced. She needs help and support, not threats from her life partner and his mother.

I have an opinion of you OP but putting it here would get me banned.

What I will say is that I hope she gets wind of your bull hockey and dumps you and your son to the curb.

Son sounds like a right Mummy's Boy. They need to find a more suitable playground, and take equal responsibility for watching both twins in the playpark.

imaround thank you for your useful post and insight.

Poor girl, a full time job, twins, a house to clean and probably does the shopping and cooking too, and i bet she works shifts too. No wonder she,s depressed, i would be too in that situation. I think your son is wrong to be telling you and your husband before talking to his wife. Instead of calling your daughter in law i agree with Callistemon21, you should be telling him to buck his ideas up, pull his finger out and help a lot more than he obviously is at the moment instead of whinging to you. Get her a cleaner, offer to do the shopping or cook a meal. Your son is making it worse by talking about divorce and taking the children again.

I think you probably believe you are a caring mother and grandmother, but you can't see that behaving the way you are is causing more distress.
Stop taking sides.
When your DS tells you about a child running out of a playground , climbing too high or doing anything similar simply ask him "And what did you do to stop it?" No one watches just one child playing and no one parent would be held responsible if there was an accident. Both would be culpable.
When he mentions divorce warn him that he might not get custody. In fact it's highly likely that he wouldn't. If you have treated your DiL badly, as seems possible from your post it is possible that you would not see much of them either.
Help look after the house if you want to but do it with good will and not resentment.
The children only have one mother and you can't change her for a different one. Accept her and support her or you may lose more than you expect.

"Difficult beginnings, for what ever reason can turn out well but it is not easy and it takes every member of the family including grandparents to offer unconditional love and help to all of the other members of this newly formed family which sounds to me as if this lady is doing. She is only airing her anxieties on here and needs to feel she can do so safely as we do not know each other."

Kwest, no, it doesn't seem to me like OP is providing unconditional love or help at all.

Her help seems quite unhelpful and critical to me and she seems to think her son is the perfect parent and everything wrong is DIL's fault.

Some of the posts are quite harsh and must be difficult to read. I don’t condone the unkind ones, but I do hope that the OP does take some of the comments on board. I think that the son definitely has a lot to answer for, and should never be siding with his mum to the detriment of his wife. My advice would be to step back and simply be there for them. Have a gentle word with your son and ask him not to share intimate details of his life. Many times on this forum I have seen the phrase ‘they are not your children’ and these are wise words. Be there when it all hits the fan but don’t add to the mess. Good luck.

Being parted from your new born baby and worrying about their health day after day is exhausting in itself as I know, doing it for two babies must be terrifying, it doesn't make bonding easy. Being a nurse probably means she knew all the possibilities as well.
Poor girl, dosed up on antidepressants that probably make her tired, working away from her babies who she would probably rather be at home with and a husband who thinks he might like a divorce, she has my sympathy. Please don't sympathise with him too much just encourage him to do more if they are both going to carry on working.
I also like to think I get on well with my DIL but I know we are not bonded like she is with her own mother. Very occasionally we might do something together or with the GC but it is not expected on a regular basis, she also works full time.

I feel sorry for your DIL. Poor girl! She must be exhausted! Could she work part-time? She could then bond with the children and catch-up with some household stuff. However, your son should also step up to the mark and help. She needs help and support desperately.

Totally agree paddyanne54
How dare he complain to his mother. Tell the wimp to manually and help his wife.

To even attempt a full time stressful job when she has 2 yr old twins at home WITH NO HELP is courageous. She needs help, not criticism. Is it safe to assume she only works because your son does not earn enough to support his family?

If outside help with the children is not desirable, hire someone to keep her house and laundry clean.

I agree kwest and the OP hasn't said her d.i.l. is a "horrible" and/or "unfit" mother. FGS, surely it's possible to disagree without personal insults to the OP and without injecting into responses criticism for things that haven't even been said.

As the mother of two sons, I hate the term mummy's boy. It's insulting to the mother and the son. Mother's are at times blind to the faults of their children, sons and daughters, but that doesn't make the son being supported a 'mummy's boy', even if the support is misguided.

I was lucky to be a stay at home mum til my children went to school but to manage this my hubby worked early/late and on Saturday mornings. I joined with other stay at home mums to organise fund raising events for local childrens charities and all the kids played together whilst we met. It kept me sane, but my house was also a mess as I couldn't manage everything. I was proud of my achievements but all my MIL could offer were veiled criticisms ... " oh, it must have taken a lot of time raising all that money ... then "is "X" (hubby) still working on Saturdays? then a bit later "of course when my children were small I left them with my parents and went to work" (I have since found out that that was not the safe environment she thought it was, but I won't go into that!). That sort of talk just meant that I just spent our whole relationship disliking her and keeping her at arms length as much as possible. If only she could have respected our decision we might have had the sort of relationship which is closer to what it sounds like the OP would like.
Maybe it's not too late to get onside instead of maintaining this critical stance. Her grandchildren will hopefully relate better to her too.
NB My children came to no harm in a messy and sometimes (well maybe more than sometimes!) less that clean house! One of them is very clean and tidy in her house and the other is messy but has very happy kids! I support as much as possible and rarely interfere and I have (I hope) a good and appreciative relationship with my sons in law as a result

it takes every member of the family including grandparents to offer unconditional love and help to all of the other members of this newly formed family which sounds to me as if this lady is doing
kwest I understand why you feel as you do and I'm glad your twin grandchildren have grown into such lovely teenagers after their difficult start.

However, I cannot agree that the OP is offering unconditional love and help.
Quite the opposite, in fact - she seems to be criticising her DIL and enabling her son even to the point of perhaps divorcing his wife who seems to be struggling.

It souds very one-sided and from what the OP says, it may not end happily for all.

Just to agree with everyone else.

OP, I really recommend that you are very careful what you say to your son, and particularly how you behave to your DIL. Try to support her and to support the marriage. Don’t let yourself act critically. Those children will probably be much better off if their parents stay together.

What country are you living in ? I think you are being very lenient with your son and it must show, your DIL must hate you. I think you are lucky that she allows you to the house and to look after the children when you are so mean towards her. The children are just turned 2 and you have very high expectations of your Daughter In Law but seem to have none of your son. How unfair, he should be doing as much as possible to take pressure off his wife or does he just want to stand by and watch her fail so he has an excuse to divorce her ? He sounds nasty and frankly so do you.

I am astonished that so many people have written in to be judgmental of the author. Why would you want to be so unkind?

I agree, kwest and Smileless. Many of the things posters have piled in on are simply incorrect or just supposition.

There are ways of saying things and of disagreeing with others without resorting to insults or name-calling, as some have done.

OP, your son and DIL are obviously struggling and in dire need of more help and support. Could the cleaner’s hours be increased, or could one of them cut their paid work to part-time, or even take a career break till the twins are a bit older? Is your DIL getting the best treatment for her depression, or does she or your son need to look for better? Are there any support groups nearby for families who’ve had multiple births, with all the extra responsibilities that come with them - I know there’s one in my town? If not, might an online support group help?

I’m so sorry that divorce has been mentioned - I hope this was just as a knee jerk result of the stress the couple is under and not a serious prospect. And I hope this little family finds ways of improving its current situation.

They've cobbled together free child care between my husband and I, an aunt and her parents

Are they struggling financially?
I do realise how rents/mortgages can be extortionate now and bills are rising but it does seem as if reducing hours might help both of them.

I hope your DIL gets the help and support she would appear to desperately need.
Is she still breastfeeding or expressing? Lovely if she is relaxed and has time but not really necessary for two year old twins. That must take it out of her.
Has she had medical checks? Is she anaemic/lacking nutrients?
Even if she is fine physically, their life sounds exhausting.

Free childcare is a myth

There is always a cost

GrandtanteJE65 gives excellent advice. This is the way to help your grandchildren your son and your daughter in law without adding to their difficulties, or risking estrangement .

Dear OP
Like you, I am a grandma who provides some childcare to support my working children.
I also am the mum of twins.. who are now the full time working mothers of my grandchildren.
I wonder what you and your childrens father did when you had your children? Did you work? Full time? Part time? Not at all?
Did you have family support with your children ? Whether you were working or not? What value did you place on that, whatever it was? Or was not!!
I could tell you my story, but there are thousands of variations of such family situations, so it wouldn’t be helpful to tell just my story!
My advice is to take a huge step back from your current judgment of your daughter in law, really think about the pressures she has, and bring yourself to a position where you can support her and your son in reaching a mutual understanding of the realities of a current day family that juggles competing demands that most (but not all) of their parents generation, maybe including you, didn’t have to juggle.
I’m not perfect, but I listen and learn from my family - all of them.