ST

Can we leave privilege out of this conversation? Having the ability to take time off is considered a basic human right, so anyone who can’t do that is having their rights violated. Having overnight childcare is also a necessity if you have more than one kid (is the birthing person supposed to give birth alone somehow?).

The OP is asking a reasonable question about whether he is overreacting to a family dynamic, and there is nothing in the phrasing that assumes everyone on the planet has the ability to go on vacation or be away from their kids overnight. Bringing privilege into a conversation about how to manage specifics is just playing into late stage capitalist rhetoric that we should be eternally grateful for having any support that gives us a basic level of human dignity.

Be pissed if you don’t have that support, but not at the OP for asking how to manage the support he has. That’s a bit like telling anyone who asks a question about food that they should be grateful they have enough to eat because so.e people don’t.

Maybe others don’t see it this way, but childcare like this doesn’t actually allow for a vacation: with most kids, this kind of extreme disruption of routine is going to make the return to normal so hard, you and your spouse will lose whatever chill you found on that vacation alone within a couple of days. I’m actually shocked at how many people on this thread are telling them to just let MIL pump this kid full of sweets, screen time and sleep deprivation. Long run for kiddo, this is no big deal, but what’s the point of going on this vacation at all if you’re going to come back to an chaotic mess and it takes days or weeks to get back to some level of normal? That sounds like the opposite of a vacation.

This is a mismatch between what everyone wants your family to be like (true village, overnight care!) what actually exists. Your in-laws are not endangering your child’s safety in an immediate way, but care that does not respect basic emotional, nutritional, and educational (wtf, kindergarten is not optional) needs of the child needs to be treated as an emergency back-up option only. Your MIL has made it clear that she isn’t willing to change (and she may not be able to: this much kindergartener time may be too exhausting for her, and thats why the TV is on?) and clearly the rest of your wife’s family is not going to stand up to this nonsense.

If I were you, I would cancel the trip, or bring your kid. An over-sugared, unscheduled, underslept 4 year old when you return is a much higher price than I would be willing to pay for a no-kids vacation. Sounds easier just to travel with a kid and hire a babysitter for some alone time. This doesn’t mean you will never get overnights without your kid. We are working on sleepovers with close friends we really trust (we live nowhere near family, and even if we did, no one would be able to handle multiple overnights). Easy way to tell MIL: “omg, we found out they have great kid activities and we realized we would miss kiddo so much if we went alone! Thanks for the offer, though!”

Everyone will be happier in the long run if you can approach your family/in-laws as they are, not as you wish they would be. Building this kind of village of help has nothing to do with blood and everything to do with trust. It sucks that it isn’t an easy, obvious situation for you guys, like it is for some lucky parents, but you are very much not alone, and acknowledging the truth of the situation can actually be very freeing.