to be fed up with my parents?

[herwegoagain]

my parents are young, have 3 children, and 3 grandchildren( all my kids).
my parents have a thing about only spending time with 1 of my kids at a time, which is fine, they dont have to have them all, BUT they have been telling my youngest for coming up 2 bloody years that they will have him to stay at their house over night on his own. they keep saying to my oldest, infront of the youngest, ''oh do you want to come and stay in the next school holidays?'' que my youngest saying, ''whens it my turn nanny?'' and my mum saying, ''oh your too young still, in the next holidays''.
this has been her token responce for nearly 2 years.
i then took to saying no to any of these invites for my eldest to stay over, as each time i was left with the youngest thinking that next time would be his turn.
so this holidays they say the youngest can go, so they want to pick him up thursday,( last week) on thursday morning call to say they cant get him that day, will have to be friday.
so they get him friday at about 3. when they came he was a bit nervous, so i said i didnt think he would stay the night, from my parents i get, ''we have done this before you know, we raised 3 kids'' fine, off they go, at 8.30 i get a call, he wants to come home. so back he comes.
my mum then starts to give me hassle that he is too clingy, too babyfied.
and i feel that it is necessary to point out that cause of their flakey attitude none of us have been in their house since christmas and that he was just just out of his comfort zone and that by cancelling and building it up again they had over done it for him.
i do on fb this morning and there is a snidey message on there from my mum about how she just doenst get any time with her grand kids.
and i am fuming.
they never see us.
we saw them on boxing day, on the valentines weekend, and this weekend.
they never ask to see us, never come over, never invite us over, never call, never look after our kids, we invote them over and get told they will get back to us.. and never do.
fine, they dont want to be overly involved grandparents but dont bloody blame me. i try. but get turned down and im sorry but my kids are not there to provide them with something to do when they are bored!
yes, there is plenty of examples of how they just cant be arsed, but AIBU to think that if they want to see the kids it would be helpful for them to actually try to see the kids instead of not freaking bothering?

[RedHelenB]

IUthink they were right though about your youngest being too young to stay over?

[herwegoagain]

not really, he is 5. and has stayed at other people house before, but these are homes he goes too more than ones every 3 motnhs.

[CailinDana]

They sound like hard work. If they complain about not seeing the children then just say "right sorry about that, we'll be there on Saturday at 3." If they refuse then say "fine I'll wait for your call then," and sit back and listen to the silence.

[bintofbohemia]

Christ, mine are like that, apart from they bother less and still tell everyone we stop them from seeing the DCs. We've stopped communicating with them now and have moved. Good luck.

[herwegoagain]

i have tried both ways, calling and saying, do you fancy getting together some time soon, ( so they are not confined to a date that suits us and can pick a date, time, place etc) and saying do you want to come over on X day at X time and i get blown out on both approaches.
btw, my parents are my kids only sat of grandparents, then have 1 set of great grand parents who they see far far more than my parents, but who get shattered by having 3 kids running about them.

[CailinDana]

It sounds like you're doing as much as you can. Chances are they like to think of themselves as fantastic grandparents but when it comes down to it they don't want to put the effort in so they blame you for it. I could envision my own parents being exactly the same if we lived near them. Luckily they're in a different country :)

[ragged]

yanbu. I totally see why you're irked but no obvious way forward. :(

[herwegoagain]

oh they do see themselves as the worlds parents grandparents, my mum trained the eldest to say, ''nanny loves me more than anyone else in the world.''
the kids are her life apparenly
my boys are the sons my dad never got apparently.
the thing is, and this is the bit that will make me sound like a total cow, if there is an emergency, my parents are there, in a heart beat, they would crawl over hot coals to help.
BUT
they then hold it over us.
they tell people how they dropped everything to help.
but day to day, they dont give a shit.

[AwkwardMaryHadAnEasterLamb]

I agree that they knew he was too young...5 is too young for some DC. Mine wouldn't be able to do a nght without me yet...not even at their Grans house. The snarky FB message though...that's beyond stupd...so childish for family members too!

[CailinDana]

Yup, sounds familiar. What were they like as parents, when you were young OP?

[herwegoagain]

Awkard, he has had nights away from me before, and would happily have gone if his big bro was allowed to go with him, but they insist on only 1 of the kids at a time.

[herwegoagain]

cailin, they were ok.
not very interested in me. im the eldest so all the mistakes were made on me, they are far far more interested in my siblings and have always been so.

[CailinDana]

Sounds like they talk a good talk but don't want to put any actual effort in. It's time to start detaching I think. I know you appreciate their help but if they're going to hold it over you afterwards then it's not worth it. Ditto for looking after your children. Just let them whinge and moan and put nasty messages on facebook. You can't stop that. What you can do is stop worrying about it.

[AwkwardMaryHadAnEasterLamb]

Maybe he sensed the friction herewego...they tend to imo.

[herwegoagain]

it really pisses me off tho!
dhs parents are both dead, never met our kids. and it actually hurts that mine dont see how important grandparents can be.

[diddl]

Well, everyone is being silly & making a big deal about a 5yr old changing his mind!

I suppose your parents are upset that it didn´t work-at least they called you & didn´t force it!!

They shouldn´t be blaming you, but equally I don´t really see why you are blaming them.

He wasn´t ready-now leave it!

[CailinDana]

I know how annoying and hurtful it is, believe me. But there comes a point where you have to accept that they are the way they are and they're not going to change. It's utterly shit, but you are only driving yourself mad getting upset about it.

[herwegoagain]

diddl, its not about him not staying the night.
its their attitude towards seeing us.
they wont put any effort in and then complain that they dont see the kids enough, or that the kids arent comfertable enough to stay the night.

[diddl]

Yes, I do get how they turn it on you-try to brush it off.

If you´re OK with the times that you see them-leave it at that.

Don´t try to force a relationship with them & your children if it isn´t there.

[Agincourt]

This could be my parents too and they are young. Young when they had us and then I was young when I had mine. I have accepted that this is the way things are and turn off from it as much as possible. It does annoy me that they don't help at all (I have one who is severely disabled) and yet tell the rest of the family they do loads for me!

[MsVestibule]

Nothing to add in the way of practical advice, but if you want to piss her off, why don't you just "Like" her FB status? It will really flummox her .

[bintofbohemia]

The more you've posted the more they sound like mine. Can't tell you anything constructive as we've broken contact (but they are quite toxic in many ways.) What's the relationship with them like in other areas?

[herwegoagain]

Again, mine were very young when they had me and the same when I had my kids, I wonder if that contributes.

[Agincourt]

It might be I suppose but I know my Gran and Grandad were young too and they used to help them! Infact sometimes I spent more time with my Gran than i did with my Mum

[herwegoagain]

I am far closer to my Gran than my mum, always have been and I think my mum is jealous of it.