Both my husband and I work full time. We used to have Alice, our three-year-old daughter, in a day care program that she really loved going to and we felt was good for her. However, when my mother-in-law had a forced retirement a couple of months ago and said that she’d like to be Alice’s full-time baby sitter, we took her out of the program. We thought it would be a good thing to do because my mother-in-law wouldn’t charge us to sit for Alice and we are saving up for a house.
This has been a mistake. As it turns out, although my mother-in-law adores Alice and takes good care of her, she doesn’t really interact with her in stimulating ways, e.g., puzzles, books, creative play, helping her with coloring and basic writing, all things Alice was doing in day care. I’ve asked my mother-in-law to do more of these activities and cut down on the TV time, but things have not really changed. My husband agrees with me, but is afraid of hurting his mother’s feelings. I don’t want to let this continue because I think Alice would be learning more back in day care.
Your husband is your immediate challenge, not your MIL, but we’ll discuss that in a moment. First, the fact that your mother-in-law was forced to retire, often a traumatizing experience resulting in hasty and emotionally-driven decisions, may mean she never had a chance to plan and prepare for her retirement. She may have rushed into offering to be Alice’s full-time sitter so she could feel needed and have something purposeful to do.
As often happens, you and your husband got pulled into your mother-in-law’s circumstances and, in retrospect, and understandably, you made a hasty decision that you now regret. You saw a way to help your MIL deal with her forced retirement, while at the same helping you save some money. It all made sense at the time, but the current situation is that your husband’s heart is in the right place in not wanting to hurt your MIL’s feelings, but sparing her feelings is negatively impacting what you both want for Alice.
You need to help your husband do some shifting. Right now it seems he is overly focused on not hurting his mother’s feelings, but this is at the expense of doing what you’ve both decided is best for Alice. At this point you have probably stated and re-stated to your husband several times the changes needed. You’re probably in a loop: you express, your husband nods in agreement, and nothing changes. You need to break this loop.
The first thing you might do is work with your husband in scripting the message for your MIL. For example, something along the lines of: Â “Mom, we’ve made a decision we want to share with you. First we want to thank you for taking such good care of Alice these past few months. You and Alice had some special time together and you helped us add to our fund for a down payment on a house. You are such a great help. Thank you!
“We’ve decided to re-enroll Alice in her day care program as we feel she’s at a good age now to really benefit educationally and socially. What we want to talk with you about is that we’re hoping you’ll continue to be available to help us out, occasionally doing drop offs and pick-ups and maybe the two of you spending one afternoon a week together. We want to see what might work for you. Again, we can’t thank you enough for your help.”
You’ll notice that there are no apologies in the suggested message, as you have nothing to apologize for; you are just exercising your parental responsibilities. Also, you are making it clear that your MIL’s involvement has been a big help, you’re very grateful, and that you want to explore mutually beneficial ways for her to stay involved, if this is of interest to her. She may now have some other ideas on how she wants to spend her time.
I suggest your husband needs to take the lead giving your MIL this message, to make it clear that you and your husband are aligned on this. You and your husband can figure out whether your husband first e-mails the message to your MIL and then you both discuss it with her, or if you and your husband together deliver it to her in person.
Having a scripted message may help your husband take action on what the two of you have decided. If he is still hesitant, you may think about involving a third party so your husband can hear from someone, other than you, that he needs to shift his priorities. This third party should be someone you both respect, e.g., family member, a friend, Alice’s pediatrician, your own physician(s), a family counselor or practitioner, a colleague, someone from Alice’s program.
This approach of using a scripted message may help your husband feel more comfortable in removing his mom from full-time baby sitting, while at the same time reassuring him that being both a great dad and a loving son are not mutually exclusive!
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