Who initiates grandparent - grandchild contact?

[Historyofwolves]

If you don't use grandparents for regular childcare and they live a moderate drive (1 hour), how often and in what circumstances do your children see them?

I'm curious to know whether people feel the onus falls on the parent to facilitate contact or for the grandparent to initiate it? I'm asking because there seems to be very little initiation from GPs but I'm willing to be told this is on me to organise. I'm also struggling for time with how busy weekends are with bday parties etc. GPs in this instance are retired and in good health.

I note the word ‘use’
I think both should make equal effort tbh.

I think parents should let grandparents know they’ve got an open invite/would be ‘nice to see them’. Maybe invite grandparents along to a day trip etc.

I mean if you’ve invited them a few times and they’re the never accepted the onus is on them for not making an effort.

You should both make an effort, but I find its me that does all the inviting and organising. My parents moan about not seeing the kids enough, and say that we are always welcome, yet never actually invite us to theirs or offer to come and visit. Its frustrating, but I do it so facilitate a relationship.

Sounds like a backstory/bad relationship. In our case it's mutual and also we want to see the GPs ourselves so it isn't so much "facilitating contact" as socialising. Appreciate we're lucky though. Depending on how bad a bad relationships might be I'd probably invite to events but not go out of my way to see them.

A bit of both, but it tended to be us more than the GPs as we had a lot more weekend commitments to work around and I suspect they didn't want to make us feel as though they were imposing on us.

Both

Thanks.

There's no significant bad relationship but I think there is some element of disinterest and therefore I'm not sure I feel inclined to go out of my way! But I accept I may be being unreasonable. As someone who was extensively looked after by my own GPs, it feels a little off (though I do not want to have GP childcare so that's not a source of bitterness).

I adopted a 7 year old, my family live in the north West, we are in the Midlands.
We just fell into a pattern very quickly.
We went up and stayed 2 nights at Christmas, Easter, October and February half term. They came to us for 3 or 4 nights in May half term. Summer holidays we tried to go up twice, when he got a bit older I'd take him up on a Saturday, come home on Sunday, leaving him there till Wednesday. I'd travel up in the afternoon, they'd meet me at the station, we'd have a cup of tea together and then get the next train home.
He also called them every week, when he was little he would sing to my mum which was very sweet.

The words facilitate contact strike me as being quite odd and quite distant.

I wanted my son to have a relationship with them. I couldnt give him the relationship I had with my grandparents as they lived 5 minutes walk away and I grew up between the two houses. So I made the effort to travel.

He's 21 now, they are a mutual fan club and he still makes time to travel up and see them, sometimes we go together, other times he goes on his own.

I think every family does what works best for them.

I would give them the benefit of doubt until proven otherwise. You said you are busy at weekends, they may well see that and not want to impose. Maybe they don’t feel welcome if you have had to turn them down because of other plans. Make the first move and ask them, put the ball in their court.

I think all you can do is reach out, offer different options (you go there, meet in the middle, they come to you) in case there is something that works better. If your efforts aren't reciprocated then return their energy spend your time doing other things.

Thanks for the different perspectives.

GPs have been away for around 4 weeks and not once have they asked to speak to/catch up with DC. But I suppose I haven't suggested it either, hence doubting myself. If I'm honest, I don't have a desperate urge to see them either!

I would love to see more of DCs and DGCs but tend to wait for them to say they’ll visit or for us to visit them, because otherwise I feel like I’m imposing and putting them in a difficult position of feeling obligated to fit us in. I know their lives are so busy.

I think both, but generally the onus is on whoever is busier as they'll have the more difficult schedule to work around.

The words facilitate contact strike me as being quite odd and quite distant.

This.
I mean, how often did you / your dp meet up with parents before having dc ?
How often did you invite them to come over for a meal, or to meet up somewhere, or to go to events together? Equally, how often did they invite you ?

I've never "facilitated contact" between my dc and my parents or parents in law, but we always invited them over to 'birthday tea' for each of our b'days (so that's 5 times, before you start on Christmas, Easter, or their own b'days or b'days or events of their other dc, or dgc, (so my dc's cousins). Then we'd also tell them if they were doing something (sports or music or some sort of special show that people could come and watch).

I'm using the word facilitate because it's not happening! So do I need to make it happen? There are no requests from GPs to see the GC.

We do have family events every couple of months or so, yes. As a young adult, I lived very far away from my parents so we've not ever had a relationship where we end up casually seeing each other. But weeks can go by which seems lot since they're relatively close (though they have recently moved a bit further away).

It depends on the parent’s personality, the relationship, how busy people are,
how much you each prioritise seeing each other etc etc. But you should both make an effort for the relationship to work even if their effort is them phoning up occasionally to keep in touch and saying when are you free to visit us, for us to visit you or shall we meet at X place etc.

My DM is now on her own and lives a 5-10
minute drive away from us but she doesn’t drive but even when my father was around it was always me that visited them. We received no help, support or offers re: childcare or baby sitting. But they looked after my sister’s child all the time. They even used to visit a supermarket round the corner from our house and wouldn’t dream of calling in
on the way there or the way back etc.

Occasionally I would get suck and I wouldn’t phone or visit for 3 to 4 weeks just to see if they would notice or be bothered or make any effort to see me or my DC but they never did.

Anyway when my niece had a baby DM made sure she visited regularly even getting a taxi to do so. That makes my blood boil. My DM has seen my nephew more in the last year than she has visited my two in their lives they are young adults now.

I used facilitate because if I didn't organise and make plans then It could go many weeks without the kids seeing their grandparents. I feel sad about that, but equally frustrated that I'm left to do the organization. I've explained how I feel to my mum but nothing changed.

I guess we aren't particularly close. Thats been especially apparent at the lack of support I've been offered during my very recent separation.

We'd go over regularly (every couple of months) and they'd come here for any significant events (Christmas plays, that sort of thing). They have more spare room than we do, which is why we did most of the travelling.

We live roughly 120 miles away from each other.