[warners5]

I need help figuring out if I am overreacting to what I perceive as my MIL and FIL's continuous lack of dedication and commitment to my 3 children. My MIL lives 1.5 hour away. FIL is retired from a good job with no financial difficulties, MIL raised 5 children and never worked outside of the home, MIL decided to accept position of babysitting for a family in her city M-F full time. My husband and I have had our children in daycare and have felt it wasn't a great place for them to be. I work full time and make my schedule every weekend so that my husband and I rotate childcare, so no daycare but we never get to spend a weekend together. I work three 12 hour shifts Thu, Fri, and Sat night and sleep Sunday until 2pm ish. I do have a college student babysit of Friday so I can get some sleep after staying up 24 hours from Thursday8am to Friday 8am. We pay our babysitter the same for 6 hours of care as my MIL receives for all of the week: 5 days at 9.5 hours each day. MIL refuses to even discuss possibly helping out one day a week or one day every other week. My children are the only grandchildren nearby. Then, MIL will rarely take a day off for our children because "its hard when you babysit for people that work, they depend on you to be there" So.. they have missed birthdays, school events, etc because they "can only come on the weekend" to see our children. They also refuse to have our children at their house without parents while babysitting because "we dont want to upset (the babysitting kids parent)".

We finally told them over the holiday that they cannot come to our house on the weekend because the added chaos makes it difficult for me to sleep well during the day, and I'm obviously sleep deprived as it is. We told them they are welcome anytime M-Th in our home and that we are upset about their lack of involvement with our kids. BTW, we have offered to pay them to temporarily watch our kids 1-2 day/week while the babysitting kid's father was unemployed. They said "no, he's going to get a job soon" Well, it took 8 months, and in the meantime MIL still took babysitting kid for free on a regular basis so she could attend playgroup.

So, what are we to do? We are trying to take a kid's best interest/our marriage's best interest spin in our conversations with them. They claim we are pushing them out and they are upset that they are unwelcome in our home. Also, we would never ask them to come to our house and watch our kids full time. We just want them to be available some days during the week for birthday parties, school events, OB gyn apptmts, those kind of occasional things. And maybe actually watching the kids a couple days a month so I could spend a weekend with my husband. MIL has no compassion, states "I love my job and I won't quit" Also, we had suggested that she get a parttime babysitting job or other job so that he could be more involved with grandkids and she states"im not going to work at mcdonalds" PLEEEASE HELP with advice, I am losing it (especially with my crazy schedule, 3 kids and lack of Sleep)

[Abuhar]

Nobody answers, so far, so I will try.
Have you thought why your parents-in-law want to deal with other people's children rather than with their own grandchildren? Perhaps, they find more joy there, some kind of respect and recognition from other people. Their own children, perhaps, think that their parents "owe" them their time and they don't want to feel obliged, even to their own children. Of course this kind of relationship didn't happen overnight. Nobody can change it, unfortunately, and bringing sense of guilt or force won't help. So, perhaps, NOT expecting from them anything would help you to organize your time well, without hoping for outside help. Also, looking at your parents-in-law as they are welcome to your home just "to visit, to have a good time, to have dinner together" and not to"babysit" would make difference to their attitude.