A grandmother has taken to Reddit to ask for advice on a pretty sticky situation…
The grandmother explained on her post that she rejected her daughter-in-law’s request to care for her grandchildren for a week while she returned to work after being a stay-at-home mother for four years.
After finally securing a job, the daughter-in-law had apparently found it difficult to find appropriate childcare.Then, due to a delay in securing daycare placement for her two young children, aged four and two, she asked her mother-in-law to step in temporarily.
However, the grandmother refused. She said that this was because her daughter-in-law had a set of strict rules regarding the children’s care. The grandmother expressed that she was willing to care for her other son’s children but found her daughter-in-law’s demands to be rather unreasonable.
Among the rules was the daughter-in-law’s desire for her children to maintain a vegetarian diet, which she did not provide. She also had harsh language guidelines and didn’t like her children watching TV. Not only this, she demanded that the grandmother to come up with educational worksheets for her four-year-old.
Furthermore, the daughter-in-law did not want the grandmother’s friends around her children. It was this rule in particular that broke the camel’s back for the grandmother, who said that it was unreasonable as it would affect her daily interactions with her friends.
When her son practically begged her to help out with the kids, but the grandmother flatly refused, saying that her daughter-in-law’s demands were excessive and better suited for a professional. However, her daughter-in-law, desperate not to lose her job opportunity, called her in tears.
As a result, the grandmother posted on Reddit to ask what others thought of her decision… and the responses were pretty mixed.
“I’m so sick of people treating grandparents like free childcare. They’re just kids and it’s okay if the rules slide for a week…that’s why kids love going to their grandparents!! I think you should make it clear that you’d absolutely love to take them if DIL is willing to compromise but if she won’t budge then that’s not on you she can find someone else to be a boot camp instructor,” someone wrote.
Though, some were more critical of the grandmother, saying: “I thought you were going to say you’ve been asked to look after them full time but you’ve been asked to help for a WEEK. Yes ok the rules are a bit much but you’d rather your DIL not get this job to support the family because it would inconvenience you for 5 whole days. Do the right thing and help your son and DIL out.”
In the end, the responses on the tricky situation seemed pretty 50/50. But what do you think? Let us know in the comments!