A mother is completely busy after having a child and has no or very little time for herself. It’s crucial to ask for help when you need it, and mothers sometimes need some ‘me time’. Read on to find out what occurred when one woman asked her mum to babysit her child so she could take a break and do other tasks. What would you do if you were in this situation?
Source: Reddit
My husband and I haven’t been baby-free in months. My husband is a SAH dad and I work a few hours a week but am mostly at home as well. Financially we are stable enough but not where we could afford daycare or a babysitter.
As every parent knows, a break from the baby is much needed every once in a while. He’s had a cold so extra cranky on top of entering typical toddler phases. Between bleeding ears and being touched out, our nerves are shot to say the least. I asked my mom at 11am if she could please babysit for 4 hours so we could have a break. She said yes.
My mom is our only family capable of babysitting within a 2 hour radius. She lives 15 mins from us. However, despite her constant assurances, she is rarely available. She never says no directly but will beat around until I say never mind. Yesterday I was desperate. Had a migraine, needed to clean, and just needed to be quiet for a bit. She insisted he have a nap 1st. Logical, agreed. He slept an hour so I let her know I was coming. She said ok, then called back and said she had to step out and she’d be back in a bit but I can bring him over because I had a key. I said I’d wait til she got back. That was at 12pm.
I called at 1 to ask if she was home. She said no, getting food. I said ok, I’d go in another hour. She said ok. At 2, I let her know I was heading her way. We actually get there at 3 (giving her leeway since she hadn’t responded), she’s still not home. I video chat her, she’s at someone’s house. I told her if she didn’t actually want to babysit, she really could’ve said that. She says “no, I do I just hadn’t seen (her friend) all year so I stopped by to say hi and got caught up talking. I’m coming!” So we waited.
She shows up at 4:30. I’m upset, migraine on 100, baby extra cranky, nothing accomplished. I politely let her know the time frame to do what we needed has passed because dinner and bedtime was coming and I still needed to get groceries so there was no point in her keeping him. I gathered his stuff to leave while she’s sarcastically apologizing for taking too long, she’d already told her husband my son was coming and he wanted to see him when he got off work, just making it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.
I turned and told her this was a complete waste of the day, I should’ve never asked her because she’s unreliable, even in emergencies (which has happened twice where she’s agreed to babysit then call within the hour for me to get him), and I won’t ever ask her to babysit again because it’s obvious she has no interest in doing so but would rather lead me on about it than outright say no. She gets offended and starts a tirade but I’m over it so I leave.
Later she and her husband message me saying I was being harsh and she wants to be part of her grandson’s life. I wasn’t being fair. I’m wondering if I was being an AH because I was upset at that moment… So am I the AH here?
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