If you’re a gran, what would make you be uninterested in your grandkids?

[nibdedibble]

Just that, really. My mother seemed to like my kids, liked being a gran, and though we live several hours apart she wanted to see them and play a role in their lives.

When the older was 10, younger 7, she stopped making an effort. The funny thing is I remember her mother being the same. I never had any sense that my gran was bothered one way or another. We got a card with a £1 coin taped inside at Christmas.

My mother now does gift cards for the kids (16 and 13) and that’s fine, but she never communicates with them. Phone conversations were 40 mins of chat about her life, random family members, and then ‘Are A and B doing ok? I knew they would be.’ The end.

As you can guess we are not close, and I prefer that she’s not around. If she made an effort with them, I’d make an effort with her, but she hasn’t even seen them or suggested we see her for a number of years now.

I just wonder what she thinks the outcome of this can be? I should say she has two step grandchildren and as far as I know she’s a normal gran, childcare and taking them to classes etc. (I’ve never met them.)

[Stay123]

Maybe several hours travel is too much for her. It definitely would be for my mum. Maybe she found bringing up children very hard and doesn’t want to be foisted on. My mum finds talking to her grand kids quite boring and annoying!

[Foxyloxy1plus1]

I love my grandchildren but we don’t see them that often, particularly now. They’re teenagers, so older people don’t feature very much in their lives. They have their friends and their time is taken up with them. If we lived closer, in more normal times, we’d probably pop in to see them ostensibly, but that’s not possible.

When we did live closer, we babysat, collected from school etc. They don’t need that now.

[WellQualifiedToRepresentTheLBC]

My mum is the same. DS is 8.

I think she just can't be arsed. She only had us kids because it's what she was supposed to do, plus she went to boarding school so has a tenuous grasp on what "family life" could look like. She is getting older, has less energy, would rather concentrate on her own stuff. I hear from her about 2-3 times a year now. She texts DS a birthday message each year, he writes her little messages on whatsapp and she reads them and doesn't reply.

It is sad, but the alternative is that I drive the whole relationship and try to stay in touch - she then gets arsey with me which makes me too sad. So I just leave it.

Sorry OP, it's hard when they don't care. I do feel that this sort of thing happens in many families, folk just don't talk about it so it feels like it's just you.

[nibdedibble]

I can understand the distance, but I don’t truly understand the shift in interest. And they still love to hear from their other gps, even if it’s a quick text. I gave my mother their phone numbers (thinking that going through me wasn’t necessary and I might be cramping everyone’s style) but she’s never texted them even. And she is tech-literate, no excuses.

@WellQualifiedToRepresentTheLBC I’m sorry for you too I can - it seems - take rejection from her but she’s rejected my children now. That is the worst hurt I think!