Do you have a village?

@jlkuhioe My mum lives 6+ hours away so isn't able to pop around. My brother is somewhere off the coast of Australia I think? And my father passed away 7 years ago.
My BIL &SIL moved to the other end of the country, you can't get further away.
And my MIL & FIL haven't made an effort to see my little one since her party in April (but have made two trips to the other end of the country see the other grandkids?!?)
 
@jlkuhioe I don't have kids myself, and I'm an only kid. So is my fiance. He doesn't have any kids either. My parents were indifferent about becoming grandparents. My Dad died in 2002 when I was 32 going on 33. My Mom is still living, and I know she doesn't care if I had a family or not. She's pretty self-centered at times. She really showed no interest. Also, none of my so called friends have kids. They're in their 50's as well. I don't even bring up the topic. I wouldn't have a village at all. Also, both of Steve's parents are deceased.
 
@jlkuhioe I have an amazing, yet small village. My kid (nearing 2.5 years old) describes her family as 6 people. Mom & dad, and then my in-laws, and SIL & her spouse.

My in laws, specifically MIL, watches my kid 5 days a week, and sometimes for half a day on the weekends. She buys her food & gets diapers at local diaper drives. She gets her clothes at local churches and thrift stores.

I realized how much she really does for us, and I am so thankful, but it made me realize I’m not sure we could really afford having my kid without her. (Thankfully my husband got a promotion recently and we’re headed to better days & hopefully can start paying for stuff at my MIL’s)

But I couldn’t bring another kid into this situation knowing I’m typically broke all the time and completely reliant on my in laws for childcare & snacks and lunch.. They’ve never asked for a dime & are not at all rich themselves.. I’m so grateful but also feel incredibly guilty and couldn’t see myself adding a second little one for them to do it all over again.

My SIL doesn’t really babysit but man, her relationship with my daughter is so beautiful. She’s always said she didn’t want kids, and recently changed her mind a bit, and we didn’t get along as teens.. but it’s amazing seeing my daughter have this cool aunt who adores her. I honestly don’t wanna add another into the mix so my kid can have her all to herself (until she becomes a mom herself, lol)

I couldn’t do this without my village so I ain’t about to add no more 😭
 
@jlkuhioe I have none, most of our family lives far away or overseas. My relationship and my life was really good before we got married, had kids and that made my family get too involved in our life, that is where it all went downhill. I literally live next to my parents but they are always busy doing whatever and very self absorbed, I have a really dysfunctional difficult family. My mother claims that she babysits but I usually wind up having to drag my daughter to her house and then my parents don't allow me to leave, i wind up getting roped into doing things at their house even if I tell them I have things to do. I have to make sure she's eating proper food and actually taking her naps in a safe place because my mom sometimes gets spacey. My family doesn't take me seriously, I was trying to switch careers and was studying for medical boards and they treated me like a joke...for this reason I will not have any more children. My life has been devastated financially and my career is non-existent. If I had more support my decision would be VERY different, I would be happy to be a SAHM but feeling invisible and alone just reinforces the fact that moms get the short of the stick these days and I'm over it. I also absolutely hate being involved with her school. I am too tired to have mom friends and just don't have the time for it because I am full time with my daughter and there's no balance. We've done 110% with our daughter at home and now she's thriving, she could stay home and be home schooled really ... so I don't need anything extra on my plate, driving her to school I hate that because I only get TWO hours out of 13 hours of my day to myself. I'm literally doing 13, 14 hour shifts with no break, no outings, no vacations. There's just no money for it. My husband has a WFH corporate job but it's demanding (all our money goes to bills and to our child) and he is so drained by the time the day is over.

I have given our child my all and there's no more I can do, I feel it's my turn to have a life and want to work but it's just all become so complicated, our child doesn't even let me lay down or read a book, it's always all about her ALLL of the time unless I just ignore her or close my door but then she screams like she is being murdered and there's nothing wrong with her. I have been home with very little support for 4 years almost and I'm just so done, done, done. I want it to be over.

The other part about being a mom that I hate is the attention that she brings like if she screams or yells. If she starts throwing a temper tantrum, people blame me or they think something is wrong with her but she's just doing it because she ran out of peas!! Then everybody gets on my case and tells me I did something wrong when I literally can't be a better mom or give her any more, I just can't. I understand why some people leave and never come back, I Get it now. It's just never going to be enough.
 
@jlkuhioe I’m a Sahm and I have a village. My parents are practically second parents to my son and babysit whenever I want. They jump at the chance to take him. My husbands family who live 40 minutes away take him for a whole day at least once a week.
 
@jlkuhioe My in-laws are great and live 10 minutes away; however, we don't often ask them for help. They would do anything they could in a heartbeat, but we pay for full-time daycare as everyone works full-time, we rarely go out for dates (a couple times a year, at best) and really only ask for babysitting once per quarter or so for a few hours so we can slog up to the club store in another county to buy bulk diapers and shit.

TL;DR: I have in-laws close by but rarely depend on them (our doing). My mom is not close by or helpful and I'm NC with my dad. Soooo... maybe? not really though.

Editing to add that last night, my husband and I were talking about how we really like this couple whose (only) son goes to daycare with ours. He said how nice it would be to get a babysitter for the boys and go out with them to a winery or something. So even in that instance, we are thinking of finding childcare for an outing but not necessarily from our village.
 
@jlkuhioe Nope. Just my husband and me. I’m a SAHM and my husband WFH. My parents don’t live close and our MIL lives with my BIL+SIL and is more actively involved with them and caring for their LO.
 
@jlkuhioe Im a SAHM. My OAD dosent even know her fraternal gradparents, my dad lives 5 minutes away we see him more by accident then on purpose. My mom moved in with us a year ago when she finally sold her house. She’ll be here for probably another year. She helps sometimes but not alot. My husband can sleep through a tornado much-less a baby crying. Trying to sleep through some of those late night feeds she had was impossible when your smacking your partner to get up and do it. Hes great during the day but im not being sleep deprived like that again. Im OAD because how the fuck do i do this again.

My mom had covid a couple months ago. I locked her ass up as soon as she didnt feel well. Right at the end of her quarantine my husband got it. Me and daughter separated from him. Three days later I finally got it. At this point my mom was like 13 days post covid. Feeling fine. i couldnt move. high fever ect. I asked her for some help as im obviously super sick so was my husband. She said let me tell you a “story”
When you were little, on break from school me and dad got a horrible stomach virus. But you and your brother were fine. I couldnt move, or stop throwing up - anything. So i called my mother (who lives 4 hours away) i said mom please come help i cant take care of the kids. And my grandma said i cant do that. I dont wanna get sick. I can send you a cleaning lady to the house. Would that help? And my mom told her no that would not help she needs someone to watch us and my grandma declined and would not help. She said it was horrible and she was soooo pissed. She couldnt move how would she take care of kids. And she never forgot that
And then she told me thats just how it is sometimes.

So i said so your not gonna help me. Thank you. Get out.
WHY TF WOULD YOU TELL ME THAT STORY AND WHAT , YOUR NOT GONNA HELP ME BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER WOULDNT?!? she fucking lives here! She just had the covid she gave us.
So whenever my mom asks if were going to have another kid. I tell her that story.
 
@deb9969 Wtf!? That's madness that she told you that story and said that's just how it is. Sometimes I feel like our parents just want us to suffer like they did, for some super fucking weird reason. My MIL says similar stuff, I tell her I'm struggling without any help and she just says...yeah well nobody helped me. Okay...thanks.

If my daughter choses to have a child(ren), I will be her village. Another OAD reason, I will have more capacity to help her navigate adult life when she needs, instead of washing my hands of her once she's moved out.
 
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