It doesn't take a village

My mother is the biggest help we could ever have. My husband and I both work outside of the home, and my mother takes care of our ten-month old daughter while we are at work. Mom also cares for our daughter on our infrequent grown-up nights out. Our daughter loves her so much. It is wonderful to watch the way she lights up whenever she sees my Mom. There is no way I could ever begin to tell her how grateful we are. A thank you seems so inadequate. My goal is to one day be able to do for my daughter what my mother is now doing for me.

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My mother is a burden on us. Honestly. My in-laws are meddling. It's not their fault, they love their grand children but they really want us to raise our kids their way. No thank you. I would move to the moon if they had a house there.

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My parents retired and moved to the lower 48 about a month ago, and I can't believe what a difference it has made already. My 2.5 year old was having a hard day, after his 1 year old brother and me, and I was having a hard time keeping my cool. But instead of having a horrible day for both of us I took him to my parents, left him with his car seat and diaper bag and he watched the movers bring in my parents stuff of the moving van. My oldest was able to be the only kid getting all the attention on a hard day, and I got to get some distance so that I could miss him when he was gone for 3 hours.

And I have two more people to back me up and to brainstorm with. We were able to figure out what my oldest really needed - a space off limits to his little brother, and we solved that (a big boy beds that the youngest can't get into).

I don't know about my in-laws since they are not actually very educated when it comes to child development or parenting (seriously), but my folks have advanced degrees and the patience of having gone through it four times many decades ago. They're not interested in supplanting my husband or I, they just afford our kids an extra band of security, and my husband and I someone to turn to that we can trust.

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I'm pretty much on my own. The grandparents would help more, but living 1200+ miles away kinda puts a damper on that. When my sister in law was going through a divorce, and started nursing school, my mother in law quit her job to help with my niece and nephew. She took them to Mother's Day Out, kept them overnight when my sister-in-law had an early or late rotation for her practicals, and made sure they got to dance and gymnastics practice. It really helped the kids through a difficult time and it was only for a year and a half.

As a result, she couldn't really get away to visit us. But she did offer to buy us a tickets to fly down, so I could have a break. I am really thankful I got such an awesome mother-in-law. When my son was born, she never put any pressure on us to be in the delivery room, and told me my mom should be there, since it was her first grandchild. She came up a few weeks later for her visit. We try to visit as often as we can, but we all enjoy visiting them.

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My parents live in a different state, as do my in-laws. My sister lives in town with us, but it takes 45 minutes to get there, so while the cousins (and aunts and uncles!) certainly see each other and are involved in each other's lives, it's not like we are available to each other on a moment's notice.

But we have friends nearby with kids of their own, and honestly, it really does make a different. Sometimes just having someone to talk to, or go have a cup of coffee with while the kids scream and rattle around in the background is all it takes to make your day better!

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We have no family within a few hundred miles (thousands in the case of my husband's family) so we're lucky to see them a couple of times a year. When we are together they are enormously helpful. Though it means four full days on the road, I'm looking forward to our trip to see them in August. I might even get a few kid-free hours with my husband that don't cost me an arm and a leg in babysitting fees.

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Dh is an orphan so I don't have inlaws, but my parents are helpful. They respect my parenting choices and are involved in the kids lives.

They're a real blessing!
http://www.BecauseMomSaidSo.com

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I can't imagine having 8 kids with no grandparents helping, but I have 1 daughter and my husband and I don't have any family closer than 3000 miles away! It's hard to do, but not impossible! We consider ourselves lucky that our daughter sees her grandmother (husband's mom) once a year and her grandma and papa (my parents) once or twice a year. We wish we could be closer, but it's just not an option for us. So we make do.

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One grandmother is terrific - completely follows our instructions/parenting style, plans fun and age appropriate activites, and is truly an important part of family life.

The other, not so much. She is actually painful to be around as she is so uncomfortable in her roll as a mother and a grandmother. Needless to say, we don't see her very often.

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We have 5 kids, 8 and under. My husband works crazy hours, so it's just me for the most part with the kids and house work. My mother is not involved in any part of our family, my MIL live 18 hours away and we see them once a year for an hour. We also don't have friends in our new area.
From their show they do have friends that can watch the kids, in our case we have only been on one date in the past 8 years.

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Something is very odd about the grandparents in the Gosselin family. They don't show up on holidays (including Xmas) or birthdays.

There has got to be something more than "they are just not in the sextuplet's everyday lives."

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