u/Own-Quality-8759

To be fair to them, my ILs don’t interfere in my life. We live abroad and visit them once or twice a year, and everyone’s distant but polite to each other. MIL has weird hang ups about eating my cooking (she is Brahmin), but that works out ok since I don’t have to cook. I’ve become thick skinned and don‘t get offended.

However, their incompetence at just running their lives is staggering. To begin with, they have zero savings despite FIL having had a government job with a good pension. True, they were not rich, but they never even tried to save, because they knew my husband is bright and would make money for them. Even that can be excused as normal middle class finances but:

- With FIL’s job, he was eligible for good health insurance. He never did the paperwork. When he had to be hospitalized, we had to pay a lot, which we willingly did, but what a waste when the insurance would have covered some.

- They own an ancestral home in a village. With some work, it could be rented or sold, and help provide them income in retirement. However, it’s been sitting empty for two decades. Because why get your own income when your son will take care of you?

- My husband bought them a flat of their choice. It was a mess because they didn’t do their research. It was shoddily constructed needing a lot of repairs and due to some bungling up, they don’t even have the deed in their name yet. My husband not only had to pay for the repairs but also run around getting them fixed and also identify that things were wrong in the first place, because they didn’t notice! And after all that, it’s not clear they even legally own the place.

- My husband has one brother who doesn’t help either financially or physically, always saying he’s busy. But guess who is the favorite, and which grandkids’ photos are all over the house and which grandkids don’t feature at all?

This is more of a rant than a question. I stay out of all this, but it’s taking up our family money and more than that, a lot of my husband’s time, with minimal gratitude. I’m happy to help support them financially but they’re behaving more helpless and entitled than my six year old kid. Anyone else in a similar situation?

I’m visiting from Bangalore where I obviously have access to a lot of good diverse food. Looking to try restaurants in Trivandrum with amazing flavors that I wouldn’t find outside Kerala. What are your top recommendation?

My 15 month old has always been very small but her weight has plateaued recently after she started walking. I’m looking for suggestions of what to feed her to help her gain heathy weight. I am temporarily in Bangalore if that helps for suggestions, and she enjoys regular South Indian food (mostly veg but also eggs and chicken).

She still breastfeeds a few times a day. She drinks some cows milk in a cup but only sips, and isn’t interested in taking more.

There was a horrific incident in the news in my home country of abuse in a daycare. I live in the US but it’s not like abuse never happens here either.

I have a one year old who will be starting with a new nanny soon. We are no strangers to paid childcare. My older kid was in daycare, with nannies, and in preschool. The toddler was with a nanny last year. Everything’s been fine, but the reports of the abuse in the news keep playing in my mind. There are videos involved.

I will be WFH but I won’t watch over the nanny all day, and they will go out often.

Please be kind and don’t come at me harshly about trusting nannies. I do tend to trust them. But bad things can also happen and I don’t feel I should trust strangers with my kids unconditionally.

What do you do to maintain oversight without being crazy and hampering the arrangement? I’ve never done cameras and AirTags, but I’m considering it until I build trust with the new person.

I had an awful time getting my baby to breastfeed. My supply was low, she was sleepy and weak and then easily distracted, and always seemed like she’d rather be doing anything else. At 9-10 months, after a particularly bad distraction phase, something switched and she started to actually enjoy it. Now she’s 15 months and eats solids well, but always asks to nurse (with words and signs) for naps and bedtime. We wake up with her latching on. I haven’t pumped or worried about supply since 10 months since I know she gets enough from solids and cows milk.

So hang in there! It gets so good after 1 if you make it that far.

(But if you can’t, give yourself grace. It takes a lot of persistence and I’d never have made it without a supportive spouse and job, and the absence of any major stressors like family crises and health issues.)

(Also, she had a bit of formula almost every day from birth to 10 months. You don’t need to EBF to breastfeed for a long time. My first was nursed until past 2, despite my supply being very low.)

My family in India is relatively privileged and can afford a part time cook and two cleaning maids. The thing is, my mother’s entire life now revolves around them. She needs to be watching the maids in each room at all times, giving detailed instructions to the cook and taste testing each dish, and just generally having her schedule constrained by watching them. She can’t even spend time with my kids because she’s so busy watching the help!

There’s also the issue that this system is extremely not robust. If a maid calls out sick, there is no dishwasher and my parents are aging and can’t be expected to suddenly learn to do dishes by hand after not doing them their entire lIves. If I offer to do the dishes, my mother gets very flustered and creates a major scene (literally grabbing the dish from me and huffily starting to do it herself) so I have given up and let them pile up until the maid returns.

When I visit (after years of living abroad), this setup is both amusing and frustrating, and worries me when it comes to how they’re going to manage as they age. There are so many ways it holds us back when it’s supposed to be a convenience.

One example: I have a baby in diapers. I tried to find out how to dispose of the trash. My mother said I have to wait for the maid to set it out in the morning. I asked why I can’t do it myself. She said street dogs will come before it’s picked up so I’ll need to wait by the gate until it’s picked up and she says it’s not respectable if the neighbors see me waiting by the trash. But the maid hasn’t come in the morning for a few days, so I have a smelly diaper trash bag in my small room. Somehow that doesn’t bother her as much as me taking the trash out myself. She said she has never taken the trash out except in emergencies.

Is this how life is in India? I was only there as a child and student, but the idea of being so dependent on hired help is horrifying.

I know this doesn’t apply to every destination, but I’ve traveled with my baby to big cities with good public transit, and babywearing has been a lifesaver. Left the stroller at home, used the car seat only for airport transfers, and took the subway and buses everywhere with my trusty Lark. No need to find elevators or plan outings around stroller accessibility. I wish I could go up to the tourists I see struggling with their giant strollers on the subway station stairs and suggest getting a good carrier instead.

The only disadvantage is not being able to carry a ton of stuff in a stroller basket but that hasn’t generally been an issue.

Anyone else a fan of stroller-free travel? Curious to hear your experiences in different types of places.

This may sound whiny, but I’m genuinely anxious about how I’m going to keep my cool and still enforce boundaries when i visit my mother for a month. I tend to lose my temper easily with her and I need to keep reminding myself to let it go.

I will be visiting with my 1 year old and 7 year old, without my husband.

Our main points of contention:

- She never lets me sleep if she’s awake. Literally. She’s a talker and she says she doesn’t get to spend time with me, so any moment the baby is down for a nap and I’m snoozing, she will come into the room and just start talking. She did this when I was pp with both babies, literally the day after giving birth. By the time I tell her calmly repeatedly that I need to sleep, both I and the baby are wide awake.

- I am pretty relaxed about “rules.” I am happy to do 99% of the baby care (just let me shower for 10 min a day), and in return, I ask for no screens and no sugar. That’s all. In fact, occasional sugar as an actual dessert is also ok. Just don’t get the baby used to drinking sweetened curd or Bournvita milk when she’s perfectly happy eating it plain. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.

- I’m still breastfeeding. No one in my family went past 5 months. My mom thinks I’m nuts and depriving the baby of nutrients by not giving her three cups of what she thinks is the best food in the world, cows milk. Possibly with Bournvita.

I really really want to make this trip a success with no arguments and I don’t want to make her feel upset. How do you handle your well meaning but boundary pushing moms when it comes to your kids and your sleep?

I found DJ very likable in the original. I liked that she was academically bright, had a wry sense of humor, and was fun loving in an oldest sibling, good kid kind of way. What happened to her in Fuller House? I mean, yes, she has a good career, but her personality is shallow and annoying.

Ever since my oldest was born seven years ago, I have completely lost interest in food, travel, and other surface things like interior design or fashion. I’m not depressed; I still enjoy many things like spending time with people, exercising, and reading. I just find food a very utilitarian thing not worth spending effort or cash on, and travel stresses me out. Anything purely aesthetic beyond neatness feels silly. I thought it was normalize after a few years because my mom enjoys at least some of that, and did during my childhood, a lot. I enjoyed it before becoming a mother. Curious if you’re in the same boat.

Ok, I’m not a SAHM, but I’m taking two months leave to visit family and spend time with them. I won‘t have to do any housework, but I also won’t have any help with the baby (since my husband isn’t coming and my parents aren’t very hands on). Coming from my current life where I work full time with a nanny and have my husband to help, and also have lots of friends in my neighborhood for weekend playdates, I’m a little intimidated by the idea of doing only baby care 24x7, with no social life to help relax.

My baby is a year old and will probably be walking by then. I don’t want to get any paid help for the baby since it’s a short time period.

Curious to hear your day to day schedule as a full time mother and how you keep yourself energized and rested.

First kid: we started at 11 months, and by 13 months she was practically done with dirty diapers (signaled reliably), and out of wet diapers shortly after. Very smooth. We were smug.

Second kid, we started earlier, at 8 months, since we figured we knew what to do. Well, she’s 13 months now and she still doesn’t indicate when she needs to poop. She is ok being on the potty (we use a seat reducer), but she still hasn’t made that association. One possible complication is that compared to our first kid, she’s had more GI issues (CMPA, gassiness), and she’s also less verbal and seems more strong willed.

Any encouraging stories of things working after a slow start?

It’s easy to budget when you have a modest income and are single. As a family with HENRY, it’s harder. My spouse enjoys food delivery for himself as a late night snack, for example. Can we afford it, yes. Is it a waste, also yes. Same with being lax about parking meter top ups and getting hit with fines.

We save a fixed amount into index funds every month with the understanding that any leftovers will go in as well, but I feel like we usually don’t have much left. We stopped doing individual accounts after our first child was born. We each have personal credit cards and nominally have individual accounts, but it’s all a shared pool in practice.

She has no education and didn’t bother about her kids’ education. Fortunately, they were raised by their grandma who cared a lot, and they both ended up doing very well. My husband especially leapfrogged his way out of a lower middle class childhood to a really accomplished career. She’s never shown much enthusiasm about his accomplishments, though. There are millions of women in India who pray and fast for their kids to have half as good careers as my husband has. My MIL is just constantly unhappy he married me and has basically no idea what he does.

She is financially supported fully in retirement by her kids and will never have to worry about money in her life. Both my SIL and I work full time (while juggling two young kids) and contribute to that support. My MIL has four grandkids and has never spent more than 15 min alone with any of them.

She has no financial obligations, and no caregiving obligations. She barely raised her own kids and now has zero interest in her grandkids.

And yet she looks tragically sad that I come from a non-veg eating family, that I don’t wear sarees when I visit (even though I wear full sleeved kurtas in the heat for her), and that I don’t cook the way she thinks it should be done.

When I write it down, it’s clear that this is ridiculous, but for my husband, she is a great tragic hero and we should all feel sorry for her.

My parents are generously giving our kids a few thousand every year. They are adamant that it not go to a 529 and instead go to a UTMA, so that’s what we’ve done, since it’s their money and we want to respect their wishes. I just feel like it’s a terrible idea to hand off that much money at 21.

I suppose we could underfund the 529 and use the UTMA for college, but that’s a tax waste.

Interested to hear if you’ve chosen the UTMA and what you see as the advantages.

We may have the opportunity to do this soon, likely in Bangalore. We live in the US (citizens) and will come back after a year. We have two young daughters. Our sole motivation to do this is to spend time with family and expose the kids to grandparents and culture.

- Is it a hassle to set up bank accounts, etc and do we close them after we go back? Are taxes a hassle in both directions? We may move a bit of savings from the US.

- Which schools are good for this sort of temporary situation? My older daughter will be in third grade. She’s very academically bright, so I want to strike a balance between letting her have a fun, easy time to help with the transition, and having her actually learn something through this experience, like an Indian language or something to do with Indian spirituality. Perhaps the Valley School?

- Is it possible to find nannies that speak some English? My younger daughter will be 2-3, so we will probably have a nanny for her during working hours.

- One or both of us will be exploring startup opportunities. Any advice on that front?

- Is it easy trying to find freelance or consulting jobs in tech with flexible hours? We are both relatively senior in technical roles.