Well well, so many views..! I cannot refrain from commenting upon this.. My views on this issue :

Firstly, once parents become grandparents, they do not become a seperate unit, though they might live seperately and elsewhere. Granparents, their children& their grandchildren are still family. I dont agree to grandparents "living their own life".. once their kids are settled. It is at this juncture that they need the support system of a family the most.

2. "Going to Work" by women is becoming more of a social phenomenon, than an individual choice which can be discarded at will. As parents who brought up the present generation(us !!) with liberal values, confidence & an ability to survive in the corporate world.. they surely have to take atleast a part of the responsibility of supporting their children when they become parents themselves.

3. "looking after children" is NOT a 24/7 responsibility. kids are put to pre-school when they r hardly 3, full-time school is by the time they turn 6, and by the time they are 10, dance classes, tuition classes, play, homework /assignments etc..keep the kids so busy, they hardly have any time left for themselves, leave alone disturbing the grandparents' "ME" time !!!

4. If groomed properly & in advance, kids by the age of 6, will ready themselves to school in the morning, leaving the mom/grandmom with precious little to do other than packing the lunch !! (My daughter - I only have to do the plaiting of the hair )

5. If the grandparents find any difficulty in looking after the children, they can always demand that a maid be appointed to attend to the children, under their supervision. I did this earlier on, and it worked quite okay for me.

6. Grandparents wanting to have a "ME" time is a bit too far fetched in our society, atleast at present. Both set of grandparents over my place dont do much during the daytime other than reading some books & going to the temple, napping in the afternoon. These activites are in no way hindered by the arrival of the kids from the school at 3.00, only to leave at 3.30 for all sorts of classes..

7. They brought up their kids until they were in their twenties, cant they do a bit more for a few more years.. ? Most parents these days have not more than 2 kids.. so whats the big issue ?

8. Its just a matter of time before the kids grow up, and can manage on their own. And parents will be grateful to the grandparents for a lifetime, and the children wud have grown up well nourished by the unconditional love of their grandparents..

9. I do not agree to the stand that " U chose to go to work, its your problem with the kids".. This is pretty irresponsible.. When some Corporates these days are willing to have creches at their office to retain the female workforce, cant a family extend that bit of a helping hand ? Agreed that the 0-3 age of a baby will be difficult for a grandma to handle due to her ageing, but with adequate extra support, this can be handled pretty well. Its all in the mind. And then ofcrouse, the mom who went to office at this time, will most probably have to do the same 'grandma' work when she becomes a grandma herself..

10. Finally, I had decided long ago, that I will support my daughter with all her baby related stuff as long as she wants, and I will definitely NOT tell her "Its your problem baby,  vacation time for me " !!!

Even if mom is willing to stay, in-laws and hubby should accept. How many men would like their MILs to be with them? They need their wife's income but won't support her in any other way. There might be a few who are otherwise, but the general trend is such.

Raji, I understand the situation u have mentioned here.... When we were young, our grandparents only knew to take care of the home and all the more they visit Kasi or Rameshwaram in a life time. No entertainment except for the marriages/functions. But now it is not like that there are so many things to entertain them. They have lots of places to visit right from the near by mall or a pilgrimage tour or a World tour.

They have spend their life for us. Now it is their time to relax. They too have only one life to spend. Let them enjoy it atleast for the next few years.

But at the same time speak with them your problem, ask them to take turns (Mom /MIL) to look after the kids when u are working. Give them break / Vacation now and then. (look for alternatives when u give them Vacation).

My exp. I am a working mother and the kid is being taken care by my parents (in laws in kerala). Its my Parents who is all the more engaged with the kid after she's back from school till I pick her up in the night from their place.

They do have their own plans and we discuss the same and look out for alternate ways of managing the kids in their absence. After all both our kids and parents are important for us.

I agree with you completely..I am mother of twin daughters  n not basically from Chennai..I am managing all alone with stupid maids around..even my MIL is widow, she does not even want to come n take care of them while they are sick. But somehow, I am accpeting this..I have forgo my 10 years career n sitting at home taking care of my kids..Yeah but I do not listen to crap that do not put them in day care or maid. My kids go to 4 hrs day care. I am going to increase it as that's going to be only solution for them..So it just that we have to take full responsibility do the best whaever we can..But there are some grandparents who go over board to take care of their grandchildren..Probably we are among the unluckies...!!!!

I definitely second u r views raji... I faced the same situation... my in-laws were not ready to take care of my kid and they din want me to move near my parent's house who were ready to take care of my kid... but by god's grace my husband supported me and we came out.... but as a general trend it is like they say we are old.. have done enough work .. it is not out job to take care of your kid ...

very true!!!!!!!!!! day in and day out....iam just keeping my fingers crossed that my MIL should not go out during the week days....(as she often goes out without prior information too...so finding it very difficult to manage the kid without any ones help...as she is will be gng to school only from jun and that too only till afternoon)....

I do not even have a standby time to request my mom to come and help me out...as my mom's place is very far from where I stay...she need to catch a bus or take a auto to reach my house which would atleast take 35 to 45 minutes.....poor lady she even does it for my sake...I can only feel pity for her..nothing in return that I can do...

 My views are totally different in this matter. If one has to go to office, I feel its upto them to manage kids and job. I strongly suppport your MIL's views, the old age is to sit and relax. Bringing up small kid gives a lot of mental and physical stress to them. So, they want to be stress free.

But there are certainly some good day care centers in the city. One can try to convince how essential one's income to the family is. Dont  handle situations directly with MIL, there are certain things which can be solved through husband's intervention. 

Infact my grandma asked my mom to quit the the job when I was born and I myself quit my job after working for a year, as my son was very unhappy, eventhough I sent him to one of the best day care centers. 

So if job is optional one can take a break and continue after the kid grows to 5 or 6. After all I feel nothing makes the kid happier and confident than his/her mother's presense.

Being a nuclear family ... undergoing this issue every second. But again , would like to say that our parents or in-laws have their own life ... they have to enjoy / experience thier life to some extent ..

Grandparents taking care of us :
Joint family or 2-3 childrens per family .. so our grandparents need nt monitor each and every second.
Neighbour families interaction was more .. siting outside most of the day .. so kutties were engaged in their own activities.
Not so- much cosious of everything .. like dont do this .. dont do that ..
Our moms were nt questioning their moms as we does now.

Our Moms taking care of our kids:
Single child ..no one to playaround ..so expecting leftout person @ hme to play with them .. whom to blame here .. kid or our mom ..
Not much interaction with neighbours .. watching TV .. so kid always stay @ hme .
we are very cautious about our kids health .. due to more easily affectable diseases spreading ..

so i can say our moms are same as our grandmoms .. but the changes in environment makes us to think in that way ..
This is my view .. 
 

Yes Raji, I am also facing the same situation... My kid is one year old. My parents and inlaws both are in coimbatore. Myself and my husband both are staying here for our jobs.. Both of us are the only son and daughter for our parents..Tht may be lucky or unlucky sometimes..

My MIL is not interested to take care of my daughter. Since she says i am geting old i dnt have the strength to take care ( she is of the same age as my mom) my mom is sitting here for the past few months to take care of my daughter. My dad is alone there cooking and eatng himself.. He has his biz so cant come here also he is not interested to stay in daughters home..

My mom is also not interested to stay here only for the sake of me and my compulsion she is here..She is so helpful to me.. in one way i should say i am lucky to have a mom like this who supports me to go for work..

But my husband will never understand my parents. for him his parents who is not helping us in anyway is more important to him and still now we are supporting his parents financially.This make me very angry and due to this there are lot of quarells tht had happend many times between us.

i am feeling very guilty to keep my mom and dad separately in their old age becoz of my happiness.

Now i have planned to send my mom and my daughter to coimbatore and keep her with them for 1 or 2 months and than asked them to return. and be here again for 1 or 2 months and go there which can happen till i put her in school.

Now my biggest problem is where to put her in school. chennai or coimbatore. My mom says put her in coimbatore till 5th standard becoz we will take care of her, by tht time u people earn and settle down after tht u leave ur job and bring her here. My husband is not accepting this.. he wants my daughter to be here itself and my mom to take care sitting here. He does not want a maid or put her in daycare.

moms if u can please suggest me some idea.

But when i think of sending my daughter with my mom for few days to coimbatore i feel if she will forget me.. and she will not be with me in future.

I am blessed as my mil and parents die to take care of my kids! my parents miss my kids during weekends as I take care of them during weekends to give rest to my parents. Since they live nearby, they atleast pay an hr visit! My mil miss my kids during weekdays when we leave the kids with my parents and my mil alone cant manage the 2 naughty ones.

Neraya per kathula irunthu pogai varathu theriyuthu... Coming to your point - Has grand parents become self centered. This has to be appreciated in my point of view. In olden days they lived in a joint family and not much of an outlet/privacy for the couple. They didn't have so many channels and so much soaps! They didn't have so much restaurants and entertainment zones where they can visit casually too! In my school days we go out twice a year (for diwali and pongal) for shopping and eat out. There were no home deliveries of pizza and burger! Mostly the trips is a family trip where they pack all food and go as a joint family. There were no summer vacation and winter vacation trips. It's usually to their native place! Now they have all these options while our grandparents didnt have! So our grandparents thought taking care of grandchildren was bliss and their only happiness. Might be in the current age they might even want to have their 'me' time instead of always taking care of the great-grandchildren!

Apart from this irrespective of working or stay at home, they are older than we are. If we find it difficult to manage home and kids, they will be 100% more tired and weak to manage them all. We have to change our mentality and try not to depend on them as much as we could. In the current age, both the parents work and we have the money. So lets spend the money on day cares/maids and give some rest to our parents/in-laws and to ourselves too!  

I completely agree with you bhavani....but the problem which some may face is:

1. No house maids are allowed to kept(either to take care of kid nor to do houseold works). (if we tell anything, they would start saying that in our times, we only does all the things and there was no one to help us)

2. Nor, the kids need to be sent to the day care centres.

3. Also, making the kids stay at our moms place is also probhibited.

So, with all these limitations how can they expect us to continue the job, look after the family, speak with every one with a similing face all the time????? and to attend all the good and bad functions in the family????????????????

I doo agree with the fact that they need to relax at this age...but is that age criteria fixed only to MIL and FIL....In general trend its only ,our moms who is interested in taking care of the kid. If it comes for MIL and FIL...its been said as one great task which is done by them...while it comes to others its looked like a job which every one can do?

@Mrs.Ammu, as you say the grand parents are not put in jail . Accepted. But by taking care of the kids all 5 days from morning till night are you not restricting their mobility and freedom.? for 5 whole days. Say for eg. they have to visit a nearby temple or a relative or go for some purchase how would they do with the kid around. Can they carry the kid to all places?.

Just for the simple reason of taking the kid along they would sacrifice their outing.

Forget outing, inside home itself. they might want to take a nap in the afternoon or watch TV, with the kid roaming around briskily even during the afternoon how would they take a nap or watch TV. Each and every activity will depend on the kid. right from washing clothes working in the kitchen anything will depend on the kid. Pls don't call all these as dramatical these are practical issues for them.

Address these issues and they would definelty help u in taking care of the kid. There r many grand parents who take care of their grand children inspite of all these difficulties.

@Raji, the age criteria or MIL not willing to take care of the kid these are issues of a MIL and a DIL and her husband. Talk to your Husband make him understand. After all He also has a daughter and he needs to understand. Let him intervene when your MIL doesn't give a prior info if she's going out. Or ask him to take care of the kid until she's back :-)

As bhraman.. luckily i have my parents taking care of my daughter when i am away at work... and i have moved in with my parents so that it will be easier for all.. I feel guilty that i am tying them down just because of my own needs... but I try to keep them free during the weekends by spending my complete time with my daughter.. but still my mother insists that my daughter sleeps with her etc., as she is now more used to her and my daughter not being there around, she will feel more restless. As far as my MIL is considered, she would love to take care of my daughter however, she is not keeping well to take care of her... and she already has a handful for herself... 3 grandchildren to monitor.. and i didnt want to add one more to her list considering her health condition..

But we also have to consider the fact that grandparents in the previous generation were much more younger than the grandparents of today.. Also the yesteryear grandparents were much more healthier compared to today's grandparents.. Also most the grandmoms are working until 60 and now they would want to relax after all the work that they had done all those years...

Yeah i do agree that there are some grandparents who doesnt want to take care even if every other facility is being there just because they dont want to do it..

But look it at from this point of view.. in today's world, we as parents are yearning for a "ME" time, we feel that cant someone take care of the kids for a while, so that we can just do nothing and relax.. then imagine the grandparents as to they will feel.. Not that i am saying that we are less concerned or the grandparents are less concerned about our kids.. but just the sheer magnitude of nowadays taking care of a kid.. it is a huge responsibility.. I feel guilty most of the times when i ask my mom to watch serials with my daughter... that is the only relaxation my mother has.. but i dont want my daughter to be influenced by those.. I deny her share of entertainment... before the kid was born, i used to take her out quite often.. now it has also reduced...

Raji.. but in your case, if your MIL feels that there shouldnt be maids or day care also, then i suggest you take your husband's help in strongly suggesting that you should have a maid... that is the only way out.. on namba air india pilots strike madhiri.. 2-3 days strike thaan... but on the lighter side, after reading all blogs about maids.. i feel that we do more work for the maids rather than for our own kids.. .. may God bless you with a good maid and may God seed that thought strongly in your MIL's mind that you need to have a maid at home to support you or send your kid to daycare...

this topic has brought in a lot of responses ! and a very touchy topic too...

in my case, i don't have a MIL. my mother stayed with for a year, to tk care of my daughter. but by then, i realised, she was finding it very difficult to manage her, and do all the household chores etc. my FIL was not willing to keep a maid or send my daughter to day care. so well, i finally decided to quit my job, and sit at home and take care of her.

i didn't feel angry with my parents, since only after i quit, did i relaise that taking care of a baby is such a difficult task, and i couldn't balme my parents. infact, they didn;t want me to quit the job, but i felt bad making them go through all this at their age.

after all, in their young days, they too have worked hard, going to office, taking care of kids, atleast, old age should give them sometime to relax and rest... they have given all their lives for us, shouldn't we give them some peace and rest in their retirement ?

and lets hope what we do foru parents/in-laws now, our kids will return for us :) or am i keeping too much hopes ???

My case is different. i dont have MIL. But my mom is ready to stay with me. But my hubby doesnt like that. He is ready to leave his child in daycare. But not with my mom. Still my mom is thinking to stay with me for taking care of the child. How can i tell to my mom that u dont want to stay with me, I'll put my child in daycare? How to change my hubby? Since 1 year am trying to convince him. No improvement. Even he dont want my mom during my delivery itself. But he cant able to avoid this directly. If he do so, he knows that everyone scolding him.

He is always telling that i dont want anyone to take care of u and child, i can do each and everything for u and child. He is irritating me lot. He shows to me pure love like my mom. But i dont know why he is not accepting my family.

Help panna virupam illadha MIL & Mom oru pakkam. Help panninalum vendamnu avoid pandra hubby oru pakkam. Ivanga naduvula naamalum namma childmdhan kasta padurom.

@Raji, if you can't leave your child in day care, neither allowed to hire a maid, nor would your mil help or allow your child in your parents place - it means you won't have your  'me' time. Well everyone deserves to take sometime off (no offence to the moms who are obsessed over their kids!). There are only 2 options (not considering the help from your mother and mil):

1. Make your hubby share half the burden.

2. Convince him to leave the child in day care, hire a maid.

There is no point is discussing what your in-laws could do as you are sure they won't do. Since they don't help you take care of your child, they should not hinder in your decision of day care, maid etc.

Raji as   ANU4NIVEDH says when the kid is over 3 and starts school the pressure for grandparents reduces. Now that your kid would also start schooling next month people at home can relax a bit until she comes back. Further get the support of your husband to appoint a maid to take care of the kid in the evening. Make him understand that appointing  a maid will certainly lessen his mother's job. If this not working out arrange a day care for her where they conduct extra activities in the evening. so that when she turns 4 or 5 she can join those activities in the same place itself.

Quite true. Beforehand even if the females were not working still grandparents took care of their grandchildren but now when we are working they tell us that its entirely our duty to look afer children and they will not be tied for us. I am dr. by profession and opened my clinic at my residence and did not decide to go out to work because my in-laws said they will not look after the home or the kids(although we have servants to do everything). Now that i am working at home, they find it difficult to even play with the child for the hours i am seeing a patient. I am looking after the child handling everything as i am at home. They have to only play with the child for the time i am seeing patients, but that too is burden for them. They are tied to a place for my working hours, because they cant go to visit their friends with whom they have to play cards. Its very surprising for me.

Hi raji,We cannot say in generic like that.. yes some grandparents have become self-centered.. true.. but my case is opposite… my mom always wants to take care of my daughter even after I come from office…we stay in the same apartments.. me , my hubby and our kid in first floor and my mom, dad and brother who is unmarried stays in g. floor.. my mom doesn’t like me taking her to our house after I come from office.. at times it is irritating for me because I want to spend atlest 2 – 3 hrs with my kid so that only she will be attached to me( but I always make a point to keep her with me after I come from office and on weekends..)..my mom takes good care of her like another mom .. no doubt in that and iam always grateful to her…even though she is having giddiness and all, she wont mind having my daughter with her.. and I LOVE U MOM.. and she loves me too …she says u want to be happy always..

In my case too, my parents are always ready @ any time to care of my kid...actually my parents in turn are very happy now in seeing her chutti activities ..My mom is a sugar patient .. she needs to go for a walk aleast for 30 mins .. but bcoz i come late from office. she cannot go for walk.. i really feel bad for that ..so i try max to relieve them ASAP. My FIL is an expert in taking care of kids .. but bcoz of my MILs misunderstanding .. he doesnt stay long and wants to take kid to his native .. which i dont want  to happen .. i can say its all give and take policy and doing some sacrifices which is always rewarded later ..

Yes...as everyone states...my moms...is interested in taking care of the kid... (but the family situations makes her to stay out)....I just have a lovely mom for whatever it is....(moms are  always great...and no 2nd thought to it).... but the same mom when turns to be MIL?????????????