Just a little (link) love: we all have bad days edition
June 6, 2019
‘The Sun Is Also A Star’ Author Nicola Yoon Wants To Normalize Relationships Like Her Own
This is, oddly enough, how I think about parenting: what time remains to me to spend with JB (or our dogs). I wonder if this is a side effect of losing so many loved ones in our teens and 20s.
Many Americans Will Need Long-Term Care. Most Won’t be Able to Afford It. We have LTC for PiC right now through his work but we don’t have anything for me yet. We should do something about that but I’m kind of exhausted by adding hefty bills to our expenses.
A nice little piece on Randall Park and the origin of Always Be My Maybe, now out on Netflix. I’ve heard many happy reviews of it!
On the less happy but so important note: Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us is a powerful series, also out on Netflix. Bree Newsome’s thread on this.
I didn’t do it for the feature or recognition but I’m so so happy that our relatively small gift made such a big difference.
I find this sort of story on kinkeeping that ignores the parent to grandparent relationship to be rather exhausting: “Thus, you hear sorrowful tales like this one of a 72-year-old grandmother whose name I am not using to prevent further discord. She moved to Southern California last year to help her son and his wife with their new baby, her first grandchild. “I expected I’d be hands-on, babysitting in the evenings,” she told me.
It hasn’t worked out that way. Her daughter-in-law, whom she didn’t know well before her pregnancy, “did not want me to be close,” she said, and didn’t accept gifts and offers of help.”
One, I don’t know how it makes sense to uproot your life to be near a new grandchild if you haven’t developed any closeness with one of the new parents, and particularly the one you’re not related to. I don’t understand that presumption. I understand wanting to share this new stage of life, as a parent, but if I wasn’t close to the new grandparent, I think it would be equally presumptuous to assume they’d want to care for my new child. Two, birthing a child didn’t automatically make me want to be any closer to anyone who I hadn’t grown close to before the kid was born. I welcomed it when it happened organically, but basing it solely on the existence of the kid made as much sense to me as basing adult/mom friendships on the existence of kid friendships. It doesn’t work like that for me. I know it does for other people but why is there is automatic assumption that we’re to welcome everyone with open arms and zero discernment? Personally, in that DIL’s shoes, I’d have been quite wary of the new grandmother and her assumptions.
We all have bad days
Here’s about what I think about the mother in law/daughter in law thing: why not put the focus on the sons and define them as the problem, rather than the daughters-in-law?
My mother became closer to my brothers’ kids after she had a major health crisis and my brothers took responsibility for running their relationships with her. Before it happened, she routinely drove them (the guys) crazy with elaborately-planned suggestions of things to do and giving bargains she’d found that they didn’t want. They reacted by avoiding her calls and not visiting. Result: less grandchild time. Nothing to do with the daughters-in-law– it was all about my brothers. After her health took the hit, it was on my brothers to help with care/life decisions, and they started visiting her much more frequently. Result: more grandchild time.
Do women generally shoulder the burden of kinkeeping stuff? Yes. But I would argue that the real problem is that many men believe it’s okay to be lazy and self-centered when it comes to maintaining relationships. With my brothers, it took the shock of worrying that we’d lose our mom to wake them up, followed by her ongoing need for help to keep their eyes open.
Exactly, why is it somehow my fault that my husband does less work to keep the kids in touch with his own parents.
Yep agreed. If it’s your kid, it’s on you to build that relationship, regardless of whether it’s your son or daughter. It’s not the daughter’s-in-law responsibility to build on your son’s behalf. HE is your kid, HE should be doing that work just like she should be doing the work on her side.
I’m not close to my family at all given their abuses, so I do the work of building other carer relationships for my kid.
Yeah, that grandparent article irritates me too. At the time my first child was born I had known my own parents for 25 years and my in-laws for 6. I had seen my parents caring for and interacting with infants & young children for thousands of hours. I had seen my in-laws interacting with young children for maybe a few dozen hours. Of course I’m going to feel more comfortable trusting the known babysitters!
Yep, that’s fair. And it doesn’t always go that way but don’t put it on the DIL to do all the work.
Yea, if you aren’t close to in-laws, having kids doesn’t automatically bring them closer to you. It’s not a given. But at the same time, I feel it’s worthwhile for the kids to interact with their grandparents regardless as time can go by too fast.
Definitely it CAN be worthwhile. My objections has to do with common sense and equity. The responsibility for making that happen should be equal, not all dumped on one parent, particularly if they don’t have a close relationship to the grandparent in question begin with.
Grow it if you want to but don’t dump it on the IL. No one would ever accuse PiC of being the problem for not having anything to do with my father.
I read that post from Penny earlier this week and love that the both of you we’re able to help that student with his school attendance. Who would have thought that breakfast bars would be able to do that. Props to you for providing the bars and to Penny for that great idea.
It was an opportunity, I’m glad we worked together on this.
A depressing list of links to start out the day. Awful in-law situations, not enough money for long term care. Ugh, those are both issues I’m grappling with right now. I did love Penny’s write up though. That was such a great story about the power of small gestures. Kudos for making such a big impact!
It was a bad theme for the week 🙂