None of the grandmothers will pick up our little boy from the nursery, so were forced to shell out a fortune for childcare.
Im still simmering with anger. Today I fell out with my mother again, and I dont even feel like calling my husbands mother.
Were lucky, in the sense that we each have a grandmother
But lucky is a stretch, because neither of them is really a grandmother in the practical sense. Both live just a stones throwabout a hundred metresfrom the little nursery on the corner of our street, yet they stubbornly refuse to collect him. I could do it myself, but my shift ends at six oclock, so I cant be there on time. Tom cant always manage either; he works the night shift at a factory. That means weve had to hire a childminder, an extra expense that is really squeezing the family budget, even though we have two grandmothers!
My own mum works until four in the afternoon and passes the nursery on her way home every day. Right now her personal life is her top priority: shes recently divorced her second husband and wants to enjoy her freedom, so she says she needs to unwind after work with a face mask and a glass of wine to feel youthful. On weekends she always has some activity bookedgoing to the cinema, a museum exhibition, meeting friends.
She only looks after her grandson on rare occasions and then only at the weekend. She argues that his presence upsets her routine, that he darts around the flat and interrupts her meditation. She loves to give me parenting advice, yet she flatly refuses to take part in the actual caregiving.
My husbands mothershes another story entirely. Evelyn has never held a job; shes been a fulltime housewife. She raised four children whose ages are spaced less than three years apart, Tom being the eldest. One would think shed be the perfect backup, but she says shes already stretched thin looking after her own kids and that she has a mountain of household chorescooking, cleaning, laundry, feeding the family, and then tidying up after everyone. She claims she has neither the time nor the inclination to look after a grandchild. Her younger sons, an eighteenyearold and a twentyoneyearold, are fully independent and can fend for themselves.
Once Evelyn snatched our son from the nursery and was absolutely outraged. She claimed she had no time to do anything else after picking him up, while her husband and son returned home exhausted and hungry from work. Later she told me that I should have taken responsibility for the baby myself rather than rely on her. In short, she warned us that we could no longer count on her help.
The cost of our sons care is a heavy blow to the household budget. Im furious at the hypocrisy of the grandmothers, who meet their grandson every Christmas, gush about how much they love him, and argue over who bought which present. We dont need the presents; we need genuine help.
This afternoon I had to phone my mother and practically beg her to collect my son from the nursery because we simply cannot afford another childminder.
We cant expect anything from our parentsneither financial support nor real assistance. Toms mother also refuses to contribute money, saying that the family eats out and all the cash is gone on groceries.
I cant see a way out of this mess. Everything we earn disappears on food, clothes, household bills, and the childminders wages. How can we persuade our grandmothers to lend a hand?
