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Daughter doesn’t understand

(91 Posts)
Seasalty Sun 13-Sep-20 23:15:10

Hi, our daughter expects too much from us we think (her dad and me). She is currently expecting her 5th child with a partner who gives her extremely little help himself.
She has started several arguments because she says we should drop everything whenever she needs it or goes into labour.
Today it was because she wanted us to be on call for the other 4 children, even though we both work and it would take us a couple of hours to get to her home. We talked about it before and it was decided her mil would be better placed being 5 mins away and she could come and stay with us after to rest with the baby.
She says we are selfish and she is embarrassed in front of her friends whose parents apparently drop everything whenever they need it including flying in from Paris.
Are we being unreasonable, btw we cannot afford to miss work my husband is self employed and I cannot have time off in term time.

loopyloo Tue 15-Sep-20 10:16:03

There is more to this than meets the eye. What does this man do all day apart from begetting children?
Is he having a large family because he feels emasculated by his healthy mother?
If they have that much money that he does not need to work they need to hire a live in nanny.
I think this young woman needs some serious help when baby is born and should consider a sterilisation or ask the husband to have a vasectomy.

mistymitts Tue 15-Sep-20 12:01:25

Loopy loo, second that.

bingo12 Tue 15-Sep-20 14:08:23

Tell her to stop breeding.

Shropshirelass Wed 16-Sep-20 09:36:34

I think she is being very selfish, stick to your guns. She is an adult and has made the decision to have a large family, her responsibility not yours, you are grandparents and have done your bit. Be gently determined in your response, give her an inch and she will take a mile.

JenniferEccles Wed 16-Sep-20 14:18:35

Does your daughter work?
You say her husband doesn’t (why on earth not?) so what are they doing for money?

I guess the poor old taxpayer is picking up the bill.

Others have offered good advice about sitting down calmly with your daughter to try to come to an arrangement which suits you all.

As you live a fair distance away and both work she can’t expect too much from you.

She chose to have a lot of children knowing the situation with you.

Judging by the number of threads we have had recently on problems like this, there are an awful lot of grown up children who expect too much from grandparents.

Fuchsiarose Wed 16-Sep-20 22:31:35

Typical. Adult kids with a sense of entitlement. My mother had 4 kids by the age of 26. Looked after us all while dad worked. I remember being called to see my new sister. Mum gave birth at home. Then when midwife left, I remember her getting up to make a meal for 6pm for us all. No backbone in this era at all

Seasalty Wed 16-Sep-20 22:44:14

So to clarify , they are not using taxpayers money the SIL has a private income.
He does not have to work but is very lazy which makes it worse when she complains we don’t help enough but yes you are all correct she choose to have 5 children and I agree its too many.
Just feel guilty sometimes I guess but want to enjoy grandchildren and not feel obligated.
I did use MOnica ‘s phrase of ‘don’t measure our love for you by the amount of help we can give you’ and I think that hit home. So thank you for that.
I stood my ground and the baby was born yesterday, MIL looked after the children. All is well there.
They are well versed on contraception btw but I do wonder with SIL being so useless (and btw she never gets a birthday or Xmas present) she has more children to feel needed?
Idk why she puts up with it but after 15 years I don’t think it will change.

NotSpaghetti Thu 17-Sep-20 10:18:40

Seasalty I'm glad this has worked out ok in the end. Congratulations on your new precious little one.
I hope your daughter recovers quickly and it won't be too long before you are able to visit.

Thank you for the update.

Madgran77 Thu 17-Sep-20 11:27:53

Seasalty onwards and upwards. Hope ttge chat on here helped; telling others how you feel and hearing views can really help to see ones way through things. Enjoy your family. smile

Fennel Thu 17-Sep-20 17:47:48

As Madgran says, good to know you appreciate the help on here and have kept on replying.
The only thing I can, add, not very positive, is encourage her to look to the future when they're all lively difficult teenagers and she's a bit older with less energy.

NotSpaghetti Fri 18-Sep-20 10:43:09

Ha ha Fennel - I loved my 5 as teenagers! Not sure that will help!

FarNorth Fri 18-Sep-20 16:20:23

Good news, Seasalty.

Maybe later on, make sure your daughter knows that her family is the responsibility of her husband and herself, not of her parents.

It's completely wrong for her to accept her husband's laziness while trying to bully you into filling in for him.

Enjoy your grandchild! smile

FarNorth Fri 18-Sep-20 16:22:58

Btw, if there is so much wealth around, can they employ help with housework and/or childcare?

ExD Fri 18-Sep-20 16:37:51

I was thinking the same FarNorth.
I have to say, people don't appreciate that for self employed people to 'take time off' means total loss of income for them - no holiday or sick-pay for the self employed.
In my husband's case it would cost him more than that as he'd have to employ someone else to cover for him, so even a week's holiday costs more than the price in the brochure.
Anyway - you'd be breaking the Law of Six surely (though having said that - her MIL will have done just that won't she/) I don't know how you get around that one.

Mistyfluff8 Sat 19-Sep-20 21:11:32

No you have to do what’s right for you .You cannot just drop everything when you are working you have commitments .My daughter gets cross when I say no to her as I work occasionally real reason she gets cross because I’m paid to look after other people’s children .Tough I say I didn’t get much help from my in-laws when Oiler’s had kids they were always on the golf course liked being grandparents inName only