His Mother-In-Law Is At His Beck And Call For Childcare, But He Doesn’t Want To Drive Her To Family Events

Liz Wiest

2 months ago

Source: Pexels/Reddit

Having a newborn is a near-perfect “Get Out of Jail Free” card for any family event you don’t want to attend as a couple.

However, what would you do if those same family members did a lot for you and your new kiddo? At what point do you stop owing them?

One guy recently took to Reddit for advice on how to troubleshoot this tricky situation.

Here’s what went down.

AITA for telling my mother in law we will not be attending a party with a newborn ?

My wife and I are in our mid thirties, and my brother in law is in his early fifties.

We were invited in a couple weeks to go to a party at my BIL’s girlfriend’s house to meet his girlfriend’s side of the family and the party is a little over an hour drive away.

Definitely not ideal.

I believe they have been dating for around a year which normally we would be attending because my wife looks for any reason to spend time with her family (as we should).

But we have just had our second child who is only a couple weeks old, and we are really going through it this time.

Yikes, that definitely makes it tougher.

The usual no sleep, no time, feel like we are constantly running around, a little bit of baby blues (nothing too out of the ordinary) and we are just both exhausted.

Not to mention neither I or my wife are really excited about meeting a bunch of people for the first time and having our baby there.

We don’t want to go through the hassle/anxiety of telling people to wash their hands or let people we don’t know trying to hold our baby.

That’s never a comfortable time.

Now my mother in law is awesome and a super woman, she and my mother split watching our my toddler when we were working and she does so much for us.

Although my MIL is in her 70s she keeps up with my toddler which is more than what I can say for myself some days lol.

When the subject was brought up about going to this party by my MIL, I joked that the only way we were going is if my BIL was proposing to his girlfriend, and my MIL did not take that well at all.

Oof, yikes. Sounds like an understandable reaction.

It was one of the only times my MIL has gotten mad specifically at me for the 15 years I have known her.

I tried to explain our position, but my MIL is the type of person that if there is any way that she can do something or even if it is at extreme inconvenience she will do it, and she has a hard time seeing why we can’t be the same way.

Could be the generation gap.

Later to find out from my wife that she doesn’t think that my MIL would be able to go to the party if we do not go, because my father in law is in his early 80s and is starting to get uncomfortable with driving that far, and my MIL only drives in town.

On one hand, I feel really bad because my MIL does so much for us as a family and I would like to keep her happy, but on the other I need to do what is right for my immediate family (newborn/toddler/wife).

To be very frank situations similar, but not as extreme as this, happen at least a few times a year, and I’m really struggling setting boundaries with my MIL especially because I feel like TA doing so.

This is a divisive one for sure. Let’s see what the good people of Reddit had to say about it.

Some were in favor of the MIL.