Shutterstock

When you have young children, you need to figure out day care while you are working, which can be difficult. In a perfect world, you can have family watch the kids since you can trust them more and it will be far less expensive.

What would you do if your father-in-law agreed to quit his job and provide day care if you paid him a little bit, but when you agreed, your Mom got upset that she didn’t get to see the kids as much?

That is the situation that the young mother in this story is in, but she actually had already asked her mom to watch her child, and Mom said she couldn’t do it.

Personally, I think that her Mom doesn’t really want to watch the kids, but she wants to make it seem like she does so that she can play the victim. Read through all the details below and see if you agree.

AITAH? My mom is upset she won’t be watching my son anymore.

I have a 20 month old son. My mom and my father-in-law watched him after my maternity leave ended until he started daycare part time at 10 months old.

Having the summers off makes child care a lot easier.

My husband and I are both teachers, so summers off means that we get to not worry about childcare for part of the year.

Anyways, our guy didn’t do well in the part time daycare. It was a fabulous provider but he failed to adjust after months due to many reasons that I don’t feel are relevant to the post.

I’m surprised they would have their kid in day care if they aren’t at work.

Our family decided to go back to splitting watching him full time this past March- the end of the school year last month. We decided we’d enroll him in daycare this summer again to better help him adjust since we are off work.

Well, we enrolled him with an in-home provider. She was terrible, and despite my son doing well, she did not want to continue services because he did not nap the full two hours that the other kids did.

Having the father-in-law babysit is a real blessing.

The original plan before we ended that arrangement, for the upcoming school year, was that my son would go to daycare MWF, be with my mom Tuesdays, and FIL Thursdays. So she would only have him one day a week anyways.

My FIL has now offered to quit his retirement job and watch our son full time during the school year if we give him some money. For obvious reasons such as we trust him, he has watched him frequently, and it is cheaper, we committed to this.

I think Mom just wants to play the victim here.

My mother is now angry and upset saying she can’t believe I did not consider her feelings when making this decision. I have offered to pay her numerous times to quit her side job and watch him full time (she is also retired).

She complains about wanting to watch him more, then makes me feel guilty for the work she misses out on. She told me she missed out on almost 30,000 last year watching him, which makes me feel terrible.

Mom should be happy that her grandkids are being watched by family.

And the last deciding factor is that I am pregnant. She said she cannot watch both kids at the same time. Understandable.

But my FIL is willing to do this and capable. It would be a huge advantage to keep the kids together and in one place, on a consistent schedule. She says I am being cruel.

Mom has lots of options and is choosing to complain rather than pick any of them.

I do feel bad, but I have told her she’s welcome to get my son any evening or weekend day to replace the one day a week she was originally going to watch him, and she is more than welcome to watch the baby whichever days she wants but no obligation.

They do have a good bond which is why I feel bad. I did consider offering for her to keep him the one day a week as originally planned, however she has a few months during her work year that she cannot watch him at all, and I just want to keep him on a consistent schedule this year.

AITA?

Her Mom has been given plenty of options to see her grandkids, but she doesn’t want to go with any of them. Instead, she wants to seem like the victim, which she definitely is not.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

There is nothing she can do to make her mother happy.

I agree, just do what works.

Put the child’s needs first. Ignore the mother.

She needs to do what is in the best interests of her child.

Her mom is manipulating her.

Her mom just wants to play the victim and get sympathy. If she really wanted to watch the kids more often, she would make it work. Instead, she just wants to complain.

This young mother needs to do what is best for her kids. In this case, that means letting grandpa provide day care and ignoring her mom.