I'll try and keep it absolutely unbiased, facts only.
Family of mum, dad, two teenagers and a 4 year-old kid. Both parents work, dad works in another city and comes back at weekend. Mum works in the centre. Kid goes to a nursery exactly 5 miles away. Teenagers are old enough to catch a bus and do their own thing. Parents can't afford to have a nanny, enter grandma. She is dad's mother-in-law and mum's mother. She is 66, lives 100 miles away in a lovely flat, happy but not in the best of health, enjoys a friendly community and has lots of friends. She agrees to live with the family to look after the toddler. Mum drops it to the nursery in the morning but grandma takes two buses, collects it, takes two more buses home, feeds it and plays with it till mum arrives home. Grandma doesn't have her own room but shares with the kid, it's big, modern, has a double bed. In addition to the above, grandma does the cleaning and ironing and some cooking. Grandma is taking no money whatsoever for her service. A nanny in this capital would cost about a grand.
When her duties are finished she loves television, her soaps and stories and wotnot, and she doesn't want to sit with the family, preferring her own company. There is no television in the toddler's room but in the office there is a tiny 14 inch tv and a office chair where she has been sitting for the last few months. She has found it so uncomfortable that she's decided to take credit and buy a new 40 inch tv, exactly like the one in her flat. She wants to watch her evening programmes in/on her bed with her new tv. Dad is furious. His opinion is that it is his house and he should decide who puts tvs in the room. Regardless, she buys the tv and it was delivered last week. However there is no arial socket. She orders an indoor arial and it came today and of course, there is no reception. All the other rooms have a socket and she thinks she can simply use a cable from another room in the evening and clear it away in the day. Dad is now incensed. His opinion now is that if she wants to watch television in his house, she can only watch it in the office. Mum's opinion is unknown but her disposition is nervous.
Those are the bare bones of the case.
What would you say to dad? What would you say to grandma? What about mum?
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>> What would you say to dad?
Show a bit of class, pay for the TV and put a socket in the old girl's room. What is she, a slave?
>> What would you say to grandma?
Take it as your due, but don't be rude or demanding. Be amusing if you can.
>> What about mum?
My dear, you have all my sympathy, trapped between those two raving nutters... No one would blame you if you ran away and joined Isil...
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Tell dad to get the TV working pronto or I am off home, and the new TV comes with me.
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>> What would you say to dad?
nothing
>>What would you say to grandma?
Leave the house and family and go back to the comfort of your flat
Leave your new tele behind with a note on it saying "I might be back if you get this working"
>>What about mum?
Well I guess I'll take a leaf out of your book and ask if she is up for a quick one.
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I prefer Zeros solution. Grandma could add to the note "I will be back to check if the TV is working in a week or so, if it isn't I am taking it home". That should give them long enough to realise how useful she is.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 19:00
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I guess one of the problems is that Dad is not home during the week and doesn't properly understand the difficulties.
I guess he resents Gran's presence. Ask him what solution he can offer to give Mum an easier time and Gran a life.
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Well, if all I had to do to keep my mother in law away was not connect a telly...
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Don't know they're born, do they Humph?
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What does the family think about the toddler being imprisoned in a room with wall to wall tripe? Not sure I would be keen as a father, to have a TV on for hours with a very young child subject to evening programmes. Watch the soaps in comfort, in the office, away from the infant. Making that room more comfortable might be an answer.
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 19:54
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What that geezer ^^^^^^ said. EDIT Geezer was nortones though Grany anex is another answer
PLus, if she wants to watch in bed, can Grandma stream TV onto a ipad or other tablet?
Meanwhile Dad can sort toddler care in his work town.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 19:58
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>> What does the family think about the toddler being imprisoned in a room with wall
>> to wall tripe? Not sure I would be keen as a father, to have a
>> TV on for hours with a very young child subject to evening programmes. Watch the
>> soaps in comfort, in the office, away from the infant. Making that room more comfortable
>> might be an answer.
Clearly the family is not doing much thinking at all, how suitable is it for a granny and a toddler to share a bedroom?
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>> Clearly the family is not doing much thinking at all, how suitable is it for
>> a granny and a toddler to share a bedroom?
Unless Granny is an active Cougar working from home I'm not sure it's a problem at all.
Such roomshares would have been commonplace in UK a only a generation or so back.
As BBD is in Poland this may be a 'local difficulty' so mores may be different anyway.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 20:08
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If they can't organise their lives so that they can look after their own child then the least they can do is put themselves out to give a selfless volunteer everything she wants.
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>> Such roomshares would have been commonplace in UK a only a generation or so back.
Over crowding a generation or more wasn't healthy back then either. A generation or so back, children were not stuffed into nursery, so wives could go off to work.
I'm sure you are not really trying to advocate granny sharing bedroom with kiddy is a good thing. Or is that good old fashioned socialist values?
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>> A generation or so back, children were not stuffed into nursery, so wives could go off to work.
b******s.
Perhaps not nurseries, but regularly dumped upon relatives for lots of time.
Quite the thing in my childhood to be shipped off for a week at a time during holidays to my Auntie Let's* and for days during the week to my grandmother's.
*we called her "Let", no idea what her real name was. But she was my Grandfather's aunt anyway and about a million years old.
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>> >> A generation or so back, children were not stuffed into nursery, so wives could
>> go off to work.
>>
>> b******s.
If I were your father I too would be keen to get shot of you as often and as long as humanly possible.
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>> *we called her "Let", no idea what her real name was.
I had a great-aunt who was known as 'Aunt Lit'. Her name was Elizabeth I think. Perhaps 'Let' is another diminutive for Elizabeth?
And I agree that the idea of a toddler sharing a room with a grandparent has nothing unusual about it. It was common in my childhood and undoubtedly still is common.
Indeed a toddler would probably prefer sleeping in the same room as a grandmother to being left alone in a bedroom the size of a ballroom (as in BBD's Polish hacienda).
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 4 Mar 15 at 14:39
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Lettuce has been used as a girls name. I think.
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>> Lettuce has been used as a girls name. I think.
Normally spelt 'Lettice' Humph. I know a girl called Laetitia which is the same name.
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Someone you met in your salad days presumably AC?
;-)
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I had a colleague once who was called - and spelled it - Lettuce.
She never did understand the Aleister Crowley quote - "Do as thou wilt..." for some reason that escaped me.
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Being permanently wilted, perhaps I should change my name to "Spinach".
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>> Over crowding a generation or more wasn't healthy back then either. A generation or so
>> back, children were not stuffed into nursery, so wives could go off to work.
I agree overcrowding is not healthy but I'm not clear BBD's account makes overcrowding explicit. Neither am I saying child sharing with Granny is 'good'.
OTOH in what way, other than overcrowding, is it bad or different from sharing with parents?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 20:36
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>> OTOH in what way, other than overcrowding, is it bad or different from sharing with
>> parents.
Granny is 60ish and in failing health, child is 4, at nursery and a breeding ground for all sort of fresh young vigorous illnesses.
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>> Granny is 60ish and in failing health, child is 4, at nursery and a breeding
>> ground for all sort of fresh young vigorous illnesses.
If she's going to catch stuff from the kid it'll be when he gets in and gives her a kiss and then sits on her knee while she reads a story. And that's before they prepare/share food.
So called winter vomiting virus kicks off after Christmas cos (a) we all do greeting clinches with the rellies/friends and (b) criss cross the country providing a vector for the virus to exchange genes.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 20:47
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If I were granny - I'd walk.
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Did Grandma volunteer for this role or was she asked to do it? And, TVs apart, how do the 3 adults get on together?
Strikes me as very unreasonable not to make whatever effort they can afford to make her stay comfortable when she's saving them a mint.
If Dad is furious, and His opinion is that it is his house, he might consider its his family too so isn't the onus on him to provide for them and not rely on his infirm in-law to bail him out free gratis..
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I am extremely uncomfortable with most aspects of this tale. Of course we don't have the facts as stuff gets lost in the telling, but if I had to make a decision based upon what I perceive the facts to be then Dad would get a BG Kicking.
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Turn the office into the child's bedroom. Move office to gran's bedroom for emergency office requirements (dad does not work from home). Put TV in gran's room - now solely her room. Sorted.
Or pay 1000 for childcare. I think the gran is missing out on her life.
And if she's staying and bought a TV on credit.... why didn't she bring the one from the flat?
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 2 Mar 15 at 22:52
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Fascinating reading the replies. I love us Brits.
My advice was to go back to her flat and wait for the phone call apology.
Yes it's my mother-in-law so she's a big, tough cookie and I have enormous respect for how she raised her girls in a police state. But she has health problems. The other characters are my wife's sister and her husband. They bought that house just as it was being finished when she was pregnant with that kid. It's truly huge , every bedroom has a walk-in wardrobe and to judge the size, I reckon you'd get 6 double beds in the regular bedrooms, the master's is twice as big. The kid has it's own bed so overcrowding isn't really an issue. At the time, he was a financial director, but he was made redundant a few months later and just to pay the mortgage he took the only job he could find - an accountancy position 100 miles away. His cv may have looked impressive but he's had a serious personality by-pass. I've known him for 15 years. While I'm happy to listen to his dreary waffle at functions and parties, I try and avoid him if possible. I'd sum hum up as 'ok guy but tight-fisted Victorian control freak'. If ever I'm driving him to the airport, it's always fun to drive a different way than he would go. He goes apoplectic.
Mother-in-law has always put herself out. She did it for both of mine, I brought her to London to look after them so I could work and wife could recover from cesareans. Of course I had plenty of clashes - Brits and Poles do it differently - I could write a thread about that and how many times she's jabbed me with a finger. But I kicked out a lodger (which cost me a few hundred quid a month), gave her the room, gave her a big telly and bought a dish and sorted out the box thing so she had Polish telly. And she was happy. I was happy. The kids were happy. She stayed there till I moved to Warsaw and when we bought our house I put a double bed and telly in the spare room or 'babcia's room'. And for the first few years, she was there when we needed her. I couldn't ever repay for what she's done for my family but what I can do is always make her as welcome as possible within my means (and tease her incessantly). She's often here all weekend to get away from him and raid my fridge. Doesn't bother me.
So when I look at her situation, I see a huge contrast and it infuriates me. Repay all she's done by sticking her on a stool in front of a little box in the office for the evening? Not me. Perhaps it's not the right thing to have a tv in the kid's bedroom but it usually sleeps in mum's bed when he works 100 miles. Besides, their office is bigger than my living room, at least they could stick a sofa in there and install the new telly there, so there is some excellent advice in this thread. Cheers chaps. But then he's of the opinion that he decides who can be comfortable or uncomfortable in his house.
Wifey said that babcia is thinking of going home so we'll see how it pans out. And yes Zero, the sister is doable, and yes I was knicker sniffing in their walk-in-wardrobe while wifey was trying to fit the arial yesterday.
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>> Granny is 60ish and in failing health, child is 4, at nursery and a breeding
>> ground for all sort of fresh young vigorous illnesses.
>>
Good thing. People get strong and healthy by good food and exposure to common illnesses, not by worrying about segregation.
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"Good thing. People get strong and healthy by good food and exposure to common illnesses, not by worrying about segregation."
Absolutely. That was one of the big disagreements I often had with mother-in-law.
The Polish view is to stay indoors at home in a warm room because 'going outside = getting ill'. At all cost, wear scarves, coats and gloves until it hits 30 degrees outside. Then, and only then, remove a layer. The child may be insufferingly hot, but it won't catch a cold. If the child ever gets flu and a slight fever, heat the room up another few degrees and wrap it in more blankets. That happened to my daughter, the doctor came out and shout at m-i-l, opened the window and removed the blankets. As soon as the doctor went, close windows, more blankets.
My believe is that germs multiply on lamp switches and tv remotes in warm houses. Playing outside isn't dangerous and unhealthy, it's healthy and fun. When a bug goes around, take them to school and spread it around a bit. Wearing coats and scarves on a warm sunny day does not protect you from illness. The amount of times m-i-l has run out screeching about putting a jumper on that child - as I'm relaxing in a deck chair drinking lemonade in shorts. If you thinking I'm exaggerating, take a plane over in summer and see how they dress their children. Truly comical. I've been abused so many times by total strangers for allowing my children wearing t-shirts and shorts in the summer. And it's always in the 30s in summer over here.
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Remember when you were told that you catch a cold from going out in the cold and wet, or not drying behind your ears? And the scientific types said that was rubbish, colds are caused by viruses not by getting a bit damp?
Now it seems that that getting cold and damp will make you more susceptible so both are true. And no doubt you will catch more stuff if you mix with more people.
There's much wisdom in the old sayings though and it's surprising how many have turned out to have more than a grain of truth in them. Your MiL is probably right about sweating a fever out. On the whole I think immunity is the way forward and you need to eat a certain amount of muck etc. Trying to avoid all germs is futile.
On the allergy front, the latest is that children who are given peanuts in their first year are far less likely to develop a peanut allergy. In the article I read this was presented as a surprising finding. It didn't surprise me at all.
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"serious personality by-pass"
What a great concept! I'll remember that, BBD.
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Must be 25yrs ago my colleague described the head of our organisation, who'd been on 'walkabout' in our office, as having had a charisma bypass.
Colleague's Welsh accent gave the the phrase an extra zing.
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>>I've been abused so many times by total strangers for allowing my children wearing t-shirts and shorts in the summer.
Had a similar experience in Holland where I took daughter out in the rain. She was in a pushchair with one of those clear, plastic bag things over it. Family member told us 'they don't do that sort of thing here'.
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>> Had a similar experience in Holland where I took daughter out in the rain.
And in UK. Twenty or so yrs ago when The Lad was sub toddler, say 6mths, he was being wheeled round Abington St in Northampton in his pushchair. Well togged up in babygro plus nech to wrists/ankles anorak thing with socks and 'padders' on his feet. He kept though pulling the footwear off and discarding it onto street.
Eventually I stopped picking it up and left him barefoot. After two minutes a pair of teenage girls are alongside sounding off about poor fackin kid with no fackin footwear....
Looking back it's likely his eczema and/or dislike of heat was bothering him and kicking off his shoes was a rational response.
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I love to see a pregnant woman smoking.
Just for the filthy looks and tut tutting she's getting from everyone else.
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Perhaps they were wrong for caring.
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Perhaps they were wrong for making an assumption with no information.
They were definitely wrong for voicing it.
Pat
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Family problem. - Armel Coussine
