Woman Vows to Help Daughter-in-Law Postpartum. Then Does ‘Nothing’ Once Baby Arrives

A woman shares her disappointment after her mother-in-law promised all the support she could need during pregnancy — but did “nothing” once the baby arrived.

In a Reddit post, the woman explains that she and her mother-in-law are “on decent terms” and that when she and her husband announced the pregnancy, her mother-in-law was “over the moon.”

“But that excitement… never really translated into action,” she writes.

“During pregnancy, MIL made grand promises. She talked loudly about how this was the moment she’d been waiting for, how she’d buy everything, set up the nursery, support us through it all,” the new mom adds. “In reality? She did absolutely nothing. No help. No gifts. No presence.”

She notes that baby showers aren’t common where she lives, so she and her husband “slowly picked up everything [they] needed” for their baby, mostly “second-hand” and “hand-me-downs” from friends and family.

It wasn’t until just days before she gave birth that her mother-in-law asked, “what should I buy?”

“We were like, ‘Um, nothing? Everything’s already washed, folded, and ready. The baby’s coming next week,’” the new mom recalls. Her mother-in-law then got “offended” because she “wanted to be part of the ‘experience,’ even though she’d been completely absent until then.”

The heart of the issue, the woman explains, is that her mother-in-law “promised us help postpartum.”

“She talked about bringing food, helping with baths, dishes, laundry, anything to let us rest. She even talked about a ‘meal train’ she wanted to organize,” she writes. “Guess what we actually got? Nothing.”

“Not a single meal. Not a single load of laundry. She’s babysat maybe three times in the last 11 months!!! Every time we ask if she can help, she’s ‘busy’ — off on a trip, has an event, meeting friends, sleeping, whatever. Nine times out of 10, if I call to maybe meet in the park or let her see the baby, she doesn’t answer or says she was napping.”

Still, whenever they visit, the mother-in-law complains about never getting to see the little one and “how she wishes she could help more.”

“But it’s all words. No follow-through,” the woman adds.

When she asked if her mother-in-law could help out a couple of days a week so she could reenter the workforce, the matriarch instead “offered us the number of an 80-year-old nanny she knows, who charges only 1.5x my salary.”

“Cool, thanks. But that’s not helpful. That’s just another way of saying no while pretending to be generous,” she says.

While she “didn’t expect” her mother-in-law to raise their baby or go above and beyond, she says she is “just tired.”

“All around us, our friends talk about how much help they get from their parents. Here, it’s the norm, culturally expected even. Most families have 3-4+ kids, and grandparents are simply part of the equation,” she explains. “They do pick-ups, babysit during sick days, drop off food, help with bedtime. It’s not a favour, it’s a given. And we’re just… not a part of it.”

“We feel kind of abandoned,” she adds. “Like we were told we’d have this village, this support network, and when the time came, it just never showed up.”

Others on Reddit shared similar experiences. One wrote, “My MIL was like this but I knew she was a flake so I planned around her. She couldn’t guilt us at all and it was great. The only issue is when our child got sick and husband and I had to figure it out.”

Another added, “You don’t want this woman babysitting your child. She will neglect them.”