None of the Grandmothers Can Pick Up the Child from Nursery. I’m Having to Pay a Small Fortune for Childcare.

None of the grandmothers can collect the little one from the nursery, so were forced to shell out a small fortune for daycare. Im fuming! Ive just had another row with my mum, and I dont even want to ring my husbands mother.

Lucky us, we actually have two grandmas mine and my husbands though lucky might be stretching it, because theyre not grandmas in the helpful sense. They both live a hop, skip and a jump from our sons nurseryabout a hundred metresbut they stubbornly refuse to pick him up. I could do it myself, but my shift ends at six oclock and I cant get him home on time. My partner cant always manage it either; he works the night shift at a factory. So weve had to hire a babysitter, and that extra expense is really putting the squeeze on our family budget. All this despite having grandmas nearby!

My mother works until four and passes the nursery every day on her way home. Her own life is the priority right now; shes freshly divorced from my stepdad and wants to live for herself, so she insists she needs to unwind after work with a cuppa and a face mask to look younger. On weekends shes always got something bookedgoing to the cinema, a museum, meeting friends. She only looks after her own son on rare occasions, and only on weekends. She claims my grandson disrupts her routine, darting around the flat and ruining her meditation. She loves doling out parenting advice, yet flatout refuses to get her hands dirty.

Now my husbands mother is another story altogether. Margaret never worked outside the home; shes been a housewife all her life. Shes got four children, all born within three years of each other, with my husband being the eldest. She seems the perfect backup, but noshe says shes already stretched thin looking after her own brood, and she has a mountain of housework: cooking, cleaning, laundry, feeding the family and then tidying up after everyone. She claims theres neither the time nor the desire to look after a grandchild, especially when her younger sonsan eighteenyearold and a twentyoneyearoldare perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

Once Margaret actually took my son from the nursery and was absolutely livid about it. She argued she had no time to spare, her husband and the others were back from work exhausted and hungry. Later she told me Id chosen to have the baby for myself, not for her, so I should sort out the childcare on my own. In short, she warned us not to count on any more help from her.

The cost of our sons care is gnawing at the family budget. Im incensed by the hypocrisy of the grandmothers, who meet their grandson every Christmas, gush about how much they adore him, and argue over who bought which gift. We dont need the presents; we need real help.

So today I had to practically beg my mum on the phone to pick up my boy from the nursery because we simply cant afford a babysitter right now.

We cant rely on our parents for anythingneither money nor genuine assistance. My husbands mother wont chip in financially either; she says her husband eats out every night and the whole paycheck vanishes on food.

I cant picture a way out of this mess. Every penny we earn disappears on groceries, clothes and household bills, and we still have to pay the nanny. How on earth do we get our grandmothers to actually lend a hand?