To feel like Grandad should step up

I agree with this.

You don’t know what he is dealing with in his own life or with his mental health. Your grandkids could be quite frankly the last thing on his mind right now.

He may also have lost his confidence looking after young children so you palming them off on to him for an outing to the park isn’t ok.

You should never assume that people should feel a certain way about your children or that they should have a certain role in their lives. That is up to the individual.

Not so in my case. My husband and I are the paternal grandparents and we dote on our 3 year old granddaughter. We’ve always babysat her from a very young age . She has sleep overs for 2 nights or the odd 3 nighter . We have a great bond and we take her out and do things with her as well as spend every waking minute of the day fully focused on her when she’s here . And my husband plays with her heaps .Her grandfather on her mothers side hasn’t even physically seen her yet . It would have just been a short flight but he wasn’t bothered. Anyway , each case is different and it also depends I think to some degree how people are wired and the relationship between the grandparents and their own kids and in-laws .

I always think its strange that in this type of thread the word “childcare” comes up. Usually the op just hopes their parent(s) may be interested in their and their grandchildrens lives and want to spend some time with them- and that time may occasionally for fun be without the parents, because they want to, not as a service to the parents, but also thinking, oh my daughter could probably do with an hours peace, i’ll take the kids out to the ice cream shop etc etc.

i cannot imagine not being interested in my grown up children, and grandchildrens lives, that is completely separate from childcare.

OP you are not unreasonable to be disappointed and sad, but i’d not ask your dad to take them if they don’t know each other too well.

My parents are not active in their Grandchildrens lives either, they are both extremely busy in retirement and see them on birthdays/Christmas and the odd days in between.

Not weird in our family, as their aunty i see them about as often as the GC's do - we just live different types of lives.

Edited to add, i never saw my GC's very often either, so totally normal for us

The mums parents are usually a lot more involved than the fathers parents. My paternal grandfather never took me anywhere. My maternal grandmother took me out all the time. This is pretty normal in all honesty. I don't think grandfather's tend to do a lot and if they do it's often led by his wife.

Occasionally , but when we had a newborn we visited weekly and as the children got older it got down to fortnightly. But it was inlaws choice.

they actually visited one birthday and ds said “ mum and dad said they didn’t think you would make the effort to visit” 😂😂😂

My parents are dead and my husbands mum is shit, never watched my children for a minute alone.
just remember not to put yourself out in their old age.

My DH parents have never taken our 6year out in his life. Not even looked after him. You can't force people to be involved.

An awful lot of men are pretty ambivalent when it comes to kids, even their own.

It's the end of term holidays, not half term.

So you invited him round, he said yes, was flexible to fit in around you, and you are now questioning whether he wants to see you? It sounds like he does but doesn't want to be a bother. Or does he find it odd to see you without DH there?

I think inviting him round so he can take the children out will not give him the impression that you want to see him more.

I personally think being in daily contact is more unusual than once every few weeks.

'his lack of effort has always been strange for me, even with his own kids. He goes weeks and weeks without speaking to them.'

So entirely predictable then, that his disinterest extends to his his kids kids. 🤷🏼‍♀️

This.

My in-laws never saw our children out with their house, they only saw them if we visited them.

no visits to the park, no days out , nothing, the children were lucky if they visited them on their birthdays.

but we never expected them to, that was their choice.

I’m 68 and adore my grandchildren 5 and 3, but find them exhausting. I have a painful shoulder, due for an op, arthritis in my hands and I worry I could not look after them safely. Young children, though lovely, can be a handful, but don’t assume grandparents do not care because they are not involved as you would like. Personally I wish I saw mine more!

You dont know what is happening in someone else's life. Maybe he's unhappy about this break up. Maybe his wife told him when they broke up his son was not his son. Maybe he just cant be doing with childrens games any more, young child like repetition and it's boring enough with your own children.

You cant expect from other people what they dont want to give, you can only change your own expectations.

That's the point @Trufflebutter24
That's why it's unreasonable to have any sort of expectations based simply on the fact he is a grandparent.

I can certainly understand someone's sadness or disappointment if grandparents don't want to have close relationships with their dc, but that's different from feeling let down that a grandparent doesn't volunteer to take responsibility for looking after your dc.

It's unfortunate, but sometimes it is the case that people are slightly disappointing on the grandparent front. My in-laws never ask to see our children, offer to babysit or take them anywhere. Occasionally if we are desperate we will ask and they do more for SIL, but I find it strange that they don't seem bothered whether or not they have a relationship with them. We've had to accept this is how it is, and we are grateful that the other set of grandparents are awesome.

It’s not how I intend to behave as a grandparent one day, but each to their own.

You’ve got two grandparents consistently involved so I’d consider that quite a huge blessing. Some people have no grandparents on the scene at all. We have one, my Mum, and I am so so grateful for her involvement. Everyone else is useless; my Dad has met my daughter twice, ever.

How do you help him out? Or is it a one way street?

Your children, your choice, your responsibility.

You can't expect anyone else to parent them. If they want to help out, that's great. But, in my experience, men (sorry, a bit bashing but speaking from my personal experience) don't want to look after children.

You couldn’t from your initial post though op it was like he’s off work so help me! Lol I’m glad you can see that yabu.

Your entitlement is insane op really is grandparents are there when they want to be and have the luxury of enjoying gc at there own leisure they’ve already raised there’s!

I don't speak to my dad for weeks and weeks. Doesn't mean we don't love each other. Some people (including me) are just a bit shit at staying in touch. I'm one of those that tbh didn't see the point of talking unless there's a point! But always happy to see people when it is arranged by whoever.

Asking him to take them to the park is v cheeky. But I think you know that now!