to think DM is unfair to ban the twins from visiting?

How long do the children visit for ? If it's a normal visit of a couple of hours then she's being unreasonable. If it's a daily visit where Dsis let's the toddlers run wild for hours then I can understand .

This l agree

So why is your sister letting this happen? Is it because it gives her a break from the older ones? You said she has her hands full with all four of them

Its the same thing ultimately but if you want to use emotive language, you go for it. She presumably didn’t sit the twins down and tell them they were banned from ever crossing her threshold ever again.

On the plus side, these kids have a loving set of grandparents from the other side of the family. This woman will have to accept that she will see her adult daughter a couple of times a year child free (which is probably the amount of time a mother of four young children can afford in time).

Absolutely this but let’s also remember that she doesn’t have a relationship with the other two grandchildren either. She tolerates them by giving them screens. It’s not as if she’s actually engaging with the older two just by letting them cross the threshold.

Tbh Id rather have visiting kids (of any age) playing, running about/games/activities than glued to screens
But…. All siblings visit or none at all.

She gives them screens so they don't interrupt her conversation?!? WTAF.

She sounds absolutely vile, I'm so sorry @timetoban. If I were your DSIS I would take this as the perfect opportunity to end the relationship entirely - she can simply say that if her twins aren't welcome then she won't be able to visit. The end.

I've got some sympathy for childless friends not liking your kids or wanting to spend time socialising with you without them. I don't think it unreasonable to have higher expectations for your own parents. I didn't get a lot of time to see friends without my DC as toddlers so I wouldn't be impressed if my parents expected me to use this precious little time to see them too.

Or she is just a deeply unpleasant person. We have no way of knowing which of those is true. But OP says that her nieces just make a normal level of noise and mess for their age, and that her DM was a terrible mother so it seems, on the balance of probabilities, that the.DM has an unusually low tolerance cor young children.

Of course she can make that choice, but it appears that a natural consequence is going to be seeing her own DCs much less and to have no relationship with any of her grandchildren. I don't think I'm alone in finding this sad, and quite unusual.

Is that the choice of the mother or grandmother though? And who provides those screens?

She wants a relationship with her adult daughters but as they won’t meet with her without the children then she has had to make the choice not to meet at all. It must have been pretty bad to get to this point

I don't know I'm not there. The fact that the older ones are expected to sit quietly on screens makes me think it's her threshold that's low rather than the toddlers being particularly bad but who knows.

There is no reason to assume that to be the case though. And shared genetics don’t mean a thing. She has no bond and struggles to spend time with them so why would she suddenly want to bother when they get older?

For it to have come to an actual ban, it must have been pretty bad. She has taken the nuclear option and that isn’t something people do lightly.

People don't always. Some people believe in the power of familial relationships regardless of whether there's a real relationship between the people. The toddlers won't be toddlers forever, these kids will grow up and it could be that this woman will expect a family relationship with them because of the shared genetics but these people will see her as a stranger.

Why would she feel hard done by? She has clearly come to the decision that she doesn’t want to see the toddlers, not sure why people think she won’t have considered the consequences

I mean she might think she's found a solution but will she be ok with her grandchildren having no relationship with her as she gets older or will she feel hard done by?

We do all have to do things we can’t handle, I agree. However she has found a solution. Compromise doesn’t work in general because at least one party gets a crap deal.

She had made an effort by having the children round, despite it being problematic. However the situation has clearly spiralled and she doesn’t feel able to continue to do that.

She wants to spend time with her daughters so she compromised by spending time with their children too.

She is entitled to make her choices, just as the OP and her sister are entitled to make theirs

That would be a reasonable approach if we were talking about learning Mandarin or scuba diving. Not so much when the activity is “having a relationship with your daughter and two of your grandchildren”.

In some ways, yes you’re right.

But then what if people were only doing what they can(easily?) handle?
Like I have 2 kids but I can’t handle the noise they make so …. I give up? I I get away from their life? Give them up for adoption?

What is this woman going to say in 20 or 30 years time when she needs support herself? That her two daughters should help regardless even if they struggle to handle it? (Let’s be honest here. The mum isn’t an easy woman and it’s not Gou going to get better as she gets older). That her grand children should visit so she isn’t as lonely? Or no she’ll just do with carers and/or a care home. Never mind that at that age, with no one to oversee what’s going on, she is likely to get crap support. And that’s without talking about the fact that support will at least be partially state funded. Another one of those support imposed on us even when we can’t handle it easily .

It’s back to a reality many people don’t want to acknowledge. We’re dependent on each other. We’re all interconnected. It is not possible to live your life, esp not living it well, wo being in contact with other people.
And that means you can’t only acceotable things you ‘can handle’ wo a secong thought. Sometimes it means making an effort, compromising, finding solutions. That’s part of living in society.

She doesn’t like the noise and mess that children create. Plenty of people don’t. Even removing the issue of how she apparently treated her own kids, it’s okay not to want to be around a situation like this.

She wants to spend time with her adult daughters and it’s a shame that, as they clearly want to see their mother, this isn’t possible,

Sometimes there is no compromise.