Parents and grandparents don't have the same dynamic with children. Most people cite that grandparents are more relaxed with the next generation.
But their stamina is often different as well, especially if they're older grandparents with very young grandchildren.
A grandmother turned to the "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) subReddit for feedback after setting what she thought were reasonable limits for sleepovers with her young grandchildren.
Due-Flight-621 asked:
"AITA for restricting grandchildren sleepovers to 2 at a time?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"My lovely daughter and her husband have 4 children (ages 6, 5, 3, and 1). My husband, age 80, and myself, age 66, enjoy having them for the occasional sleepover—and the two oldest children ask often to sleepover."
"However, my daughter says the 3-year-old feels left out and must be included too. He hasn’t yet because he’s only recently been potty trained. I am aware that he sleeps with his sibling and oftentimes returns to his parents’ bed at night. So, I’m hesitant to have just him without one of his siblings because he’d be sleeping alone at our home."
"But it’s quite a lot for us to take care of three at a time and we know we won’t be able to do it with four. My daughter says we need to take them all or there will not be a sleepover."
"I tried to explain that, at our ages, it’s just too physically exhausting to do this and that we needed to set the boundary at two at a time for their safety and our sanity. She reiterated that it was all or nothing."
"I’m so sad that we won’t be allowed to host grandparent sleepovers anymore, and that the children won’t be able to experience it any longer."
"AITA for trying to set this boundary?"
OP later added:
"Your responses have given me a lot to think about. I would like to clarify a few things:"
"My daughter is a loving mom who cares deeply for her children. This is not about her trying to get a free night of babysitting. We take the three older children for their 'date nights' (She is breastfeeding the 1-year-old)."
"Our goal for overnights, as grandparents, is to deepen the relationship with our grands. Two car seats and us fit in the car. So we can include an outing along with the overnight."
"We are willing to take one or two children at a time. One adult for each child."
"We are both in excellent health currently. However, things change quickly as we age and we feel that the boundaries should be set earlier rather than later."
"We deeply love all the grands. Overnights are certainly easier when they sleep through the night in the bunkbeds we have for them in the kid-themed guest room. However, we are willing to start overnights with the 3-year-old, but not in addition to the older two. The dynamic is different with 3 than with 2. I am open to any configuration not exceeding 2 children."
"I oftentimes (at least weekly) do outings with 3 children at a time. Usually only me because of fitting everyone in the car, but sometimes Grandpa meets us."
"I empathize greatly with my daughter and the 3-year-old. I hate that there’s big feelings there."
"Looking down the road to later adding the youngest. It just feels like way too much. It also feels like the experience for the grands would also change. I mean, what’s the difference between grandparents and home if all the siblings are there?"
"I raised 2 children, not 4. I greatly admire my daughter for her willingness to take on a larger family. I was raised as 1 of 6. Big families are crazy chaos."
"I offered to do one child at a time, as well. She has dug in her heels: all of them at once or nothing."
Redditors weighed in using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
"I’d outright ask your daughter if she’s genuinely suggesting you take all 3 despite the fact you cannot safely manage them all and if she’s actually going to punish you for wanting to keep them safe by only having 2 at a time." ~ Puzzleheaded-Fig6418
"She’s punishing everyone not just the grandparents." ~ Shellzncheez689
"She's even punishing herself, if she holds to it." ~ RobinhoodCove830
"Cutting off her nose to spite her face." ~ BeefmasterDeluxe
"The obvious solution here is to shuffle who gets to sleep over: one night, it's the 6 & 5-year-old, another night it's the 5 & 3-year-old, another night it's the 1-year-old, another night it's the 6 & 3-year-old, and so on." ~ SomethingComesHere
"One of my siblings is 20 years younger than I am, and our grandparents couldn't do sleepovers with her the way they did them with me, but, they still wanted her to have that sleepover experience."
"So, once she was 4 or 5 (old enough to remember sleeping over) I'd bring baby sister to their house, and I'd stay over for a sleepover too. That way, grandparents still got to have baby sleep over, baby got to have the memories of sleepovers, but I did all the supervision of baby because my 80+ year old grandparents couldn't help wash her hair in the tub or bend down to help baby tie her shoes."
"If OP's daughter really thinks it needs to be all the kids or none of the kids, then she (or her husband) needs to go sleepover too! She can care for the kids, and they can all sleep at Grandma's house." ~ Magerimoje
"I was thinking this. Sounds like OP and OP's husband know their limits, and I admire that! It's not that they don't love the littlest ones. It just isn't safe." ~ TaiDollWave
"I have 4 kids and this is what we do . Pairs or individual. But that also means I don't get a break, but that's on me because I chose to have 4 children. " ~ AccomplishedPlum8640
"As a kid, I don't remember ever visiting a relative's house for longer than a few hours with more than one sibling, unless my mother was with us. Overnight visits and vacations were rotated for fairness."
"We didn't even go to the neighbor's all together without Mom. It's just not cool to dump more than a couple kids on someone unless they're insistent that it's welcome, even grandparents—especially grandparents, because the energy levels and physical abilities aren't what they were when they were chasing their own kids around." ~ shannondobrien
"This is how we did grandparent sleepovers. Although a child had to be three years old before being included. This also gives the children a break from always being 'lumped together'." ~ floorgunk
"Or, and this is obvious, one kid at a time. Each kid gets two sleepovers a year with grandparents." ~ Alternative-Pear9096
"Just ask her to explicitly confirm if she wants an 80-year-old grandfather chasing three toddlers at once." ~ Yzelrion
"Right, it's not a matter of favorites, it's about knowing your limits. What if one child is injured or the grandparents aren't up to speed with the others? Four kids under 7 is a lot, and two at a time is sort of a good deal for everyone, really." ~ Few-Werewolf-8079
"Absolutely. What would the options be in this case? 66-year-old Grandma takes the one injured kid to the hospital, leaving the other three kids with 80-year-old Grandpa indefinitely?" ~ HauntingNinja170
"Agreed. Something unsafe shouldn’t happen regardless of if the children really really want it."
"What I don’t understand is why any child would feel left out. Can’t they take turns? Can’t Mom/Dad come sleepover too so there are enough adults unless the real goal is to dump all the children and bail?" ~ Relatents
"NTA. But I bet if you hold this boundary, your daughter will cave. She’s trying to make you cave by being difficult. UNO reverse her." ~ twelvedayslate
"Agreed. This is very much an 'I understand why you feel that way. We'll miss having them over, but whatever you think is best'." ~ kipsterdude
"The daughter doesn't even realize that she'll lose more in this situation. Imagine losing the break she gets because of the sleepovers. Her kids will also be unhappy." ~ IceSeeker
"This is what my grandparents did; they would only do 2 grandkids max, but a lot of the time it would be 1 at a time, and they cycled through the grandkids (there were 10 of us total)."
"Every other weekend was sleepover weekend, and one kid would go on Friday, and then Saturday around lunchtime one of my cousins or siblings would come to sleepover on Saturday; we would have a few hours to play together too before Friday kiddo got picked up. Fun times!" ~ SomeEpicUserNameIDK
"I am the youngest of 5. My grandmother took us for overnighters one at a time. It was the most special time and the most prominent memory I have of my grandmother. It’s a win-win to take one at a time." ~ doubtful19
OP knows their own limitations, but unfortunately their daughter does not. Her refusal to compromise will hurt her children more than not being included in every sleepover.
