Posted 10th December 2011 4734

My sister-in-law got unexpectedly pregnant about a year and a half ago. She was and is not married or in any kind of steady relationship. She was in no position, financially or maturity-wise, to be having a child, but decided to keep it anyway. The guy she determined to be the father, who was likewise not financially stable enough or mature enough to be having a kid, was oh-so-excited that he was going to “be a daddy”. The in-laws immediately poured out overwhelming support for them, and leading up to the due date, my mother-in-law took SIL shopping and pretty much bought her everything she was going to need: a nice crib, stroller, car-seat, changing table, and a ton of other things. MIL was excited as well, because she was finally going to be a ‘real’ grandma (Father-in-law has three grandchildren via his children from his first marriage).

Fast forward to after the baby was born, and everything is a mess. SIL is on the verge of having to move back in to my in-law’s house because her income combined with the father’s child support is not really enough to keep her afloat. She dropped out of her college classes and doesn’t know when she’s going to be able to pick them back up. She frequently calls her parents and sometimes even my husband (DH), ranting and crying over how stressed out she is.

Before they had the baby, she and the child?s father imagined that once SIL went back to work, they’d be able to get their work schedules lined up so that they would be able to split their time “50/50″ and avoid having to use a commercial daycare by finding friends and family to babysit. Now that SIL’s maternity leave has ended and she?s had to go back to work, that’s all gone down the drain. They’ve ended up having to pay for daycare services, which are not cheap, and have gone from being pretty good friends to fighting all the time and resenting each other.

Luckily, DH and I made it clear to SIL before she gave birth that while we’d be happy to look after our future nephew when it worked out with our schedules, we were not going to be a daycare service, so she has not tried asking us to watch the kid more than we currently do, which is about once a month or so. Meanwhile, MIL doesn’t accept that and told us we need to be more supportive of SIL(read: provide a free babysitting service for her whenever she needs it), and even called on several occasions and asked if we “wouldn’t mind going to the store and picking up X, Y, and Z for SIL.”

Now, DH and I are doing fine financially, but we cannot afford to be doing extra grocery shopping for SIL, particularly because we are trying to save money right now. Why? Because I’m four months pregnant with OUR first child. My husband and I are essentially in the opposite of the situation that SIL was when she got pregnant: We are financially secure, we are emotionally mature, and we are in a stable, loving relationship. We are prepared and ready to start a family.

… And yet, when we announced the news to DH’s parents, what were some of the first things out of MIL’s mouth? “Maybe you should have waited a while longer” and “Are you really sure you’re ready for this?” This, from the woman who enthusiastically talked about how nice and exciting it would be to have a baby around when SIL got pregnant.

How backwards can you be?! It seems she thinks we’re being selfish for moving forward with our own plans in life and not dropping everything to unconditionally support SIL and have our resources available to her. If only we lived out of state!

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