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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think grandparents should not have legal rights to see their grandchildren

101 replies

hardhatdonned · 31/03/2011 00:10

Instead it should fall on the parents to include the extended family in the childs life and shouldn't fall on the resident parent to provide access to every member of both families and their dogs?

(Just reading the news before I go to bed and one article in the Daily Toiletpaper riled me a lot!)

OP posts:
midlandsmumof4 · 31/03/2011 00:15

YABVU......and grandparents should NOT be compared to dogs. Angry.

LDNmummy · 31/03/2011 00:17

It is very handy in cases where grandparents see their grandchild being abused or neglected (by their own child, the grandchilds parent or the other parent) and want to take action as extended family members.

Or for when their child (the grandchilds parent) dies and they want the legal right to maintain contact.

I think it is valuable that many grandparents have that right.

LostInTheBlackHole · 31/03/2011 00:18

Grandparents are different to every member of the family though. And if anything happens to me and ds goes to live with his father I think that my parents should have a legal right to see their grandson, my sisters their newphew. His fuck wit father however, dislikes my mother and would happily forget to take him to see them.

I can see cases where there are risks to the child should they have contact with the grandparents or where there are family fueds but I think there should be some provisions to enable grandparents to have access to their grandchildren.

Original poster
hardhatdonned · 31/03/2011 00:18

Did i compare grandparents to dogs i do not believe I did. I simply am pondering why the burden of access should always fall on the parent with custody and none of the responsibility with the parent without custody.

I take DC to see my extended family on 'our' weekends and would expect the ex to do the same, i would be very agrieved to have to enter into protracted legal proceedings in order to lose some of my quality time to give to his family when it is, surely, his responsibility to maintain contact with his own kin?

OP posts:
midlandsmumof4 · 31/03/2011 00:33

Maybe you should have left out the reference to dogs then...Smile. Sorry,thread title is a tad misleading. This is a very sore point at the moment. And yes... I agree that when & if my son gains contact with our GD it is up to him to share HIS time with her with all her paternal family (including the dogs).

Sleepingonthebus · 31/03/2011 00:40

My ex mother in law went to court to get her own contact arrangements.

When added to her son's contact with the children, I only saw my children 2 Saturdays every month and no Sundays. I was adamant that she should see the children when they were with her son, but the court overruled that.

This has now changed, but for a while it was tough going. I certainly don't agree with separate access for grandparents.

AngelHMum · 31/03/2011 00:41

I have always included both sets of grandparents in everything.
I regularly update my ex husband's parents and sister with regards to what our son is involved in and his development.
I might not be in love with their son anymore but they are my son's flesh and blood and his family and I feel those ties are important.
I do not feel his father should take whole responsibility for keeping in touch.

tabulahrasa · 31/03/2011 00:41

"I take DC to see my extended family on 'our' weekends and would expect the ex to do the same"

but if he didn't, or for some reason wasn't allowed contact - it falls by default to the other parent surely?

sugared · 31/03/2011 00:50

LDNmummy ''It is very handy in cases where grandparents see their grandchild being abused or neglected (by their own child, the grandchilds parent or the other parent) and want to take action as extended family members.

Or for when their child (the grandchilds parent) dies and they want the legal right to maintain contact.

I think it is valuable that many grandparents have that right.''

So very true. Unless of course it was a situation that would be detrimental for the kids to have involvement.

midlandsmumof4 · 31/03/2011 01:04

OR for when the resident parent refuses access to ANY member of the non resident parents family-including the non resident parent IYSWIM....pity there aren't a few more AngelHMums around.....Envy.

sakura · 31/03/2011 01:42

YOu are most definitely NOT being unreasonable

Father's rights, grandparents rights, anyone's got bloody rights except the mother

All rights and no responsibility is what most people want

Mothers OTOH, get all responsibility no rights. They're even forced to allow their children to visit an abuser father.

WHat about all the parents/in-laws who make mothers' lives a living hell because of their control issues?

I would really like to see a society where mothers are given a modicum of respect. The status of mothers is so low ATM, they're just the wombs.

Heaven forbid a mother have an opinion on who should be with the child she carried in her body for nine months and gave birth too!!!! We must squash that at once and override her with laws

sakura · 31/03/2011 01:48

Basically, I am of the belief that women are reasonable people.

To suggest otherwise is to buy into the misogyny our society peddles about women.

MOthers are reasonable, and need a break from the day to day of child-rearing . Most would love to have decent people around to take the strain off. Raising children is hard work. Add to that, women like to keep the peace and are people pleasers.

Women are not the vicious manipulative bitches that the media/fathers etc tries to paint them as

But, if a mother takes it upon herself to make a decision about who should come in contact with her and her child then that should be respected.　 Nobody outside a family knows the dynamics involved or why a woman might have taken the drastic decision to decide she's better off alone.

But respecting mothers is not the done thing at all.

sakura · 31/03/2011 01:52

Sleepingonthebus that's exactly what I'm talking about. MOthers get shafted in the workforce by having to take jobs that fit around the children, but then are not even allowed to enjoy them because fathers and grandparents then have the right to take them off at the weekends for all the fun bits.

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 31/03/2011 02:13

It's generally better for children to have a relationship with grandparents no matter what the state of the couple-relationship between their parents is. But it's not so good when there is an abuser in the mix - or some other problematic behaviour on the part of one or more people (alcoholism, drug use, giving deranged violent friends or partners free run of the house when DC are there, etc).
After all, sometimes when a couple have separated, it's the grandparents on the NRP side who are able to help out from time to time as they live nearer the DC than the PWC's parents, and they may well be able to provide some form of extended family to the DC which is good for the DC.
THe bottom lie is surely, the more people in a child's life to love him/her, the better.

DaisyChain721 · 31/03/2011 06:04

I understand where you are coming from but in certain situations I think grandparents should have legal rights. When my uncle split up with his wife they arranged their own custody, but my uncle is, and always has been unreliable so was frequently late and occasionally wouldn't turn up at all. Many weekends when he was supposed to be looking after his children he would leave them with my nan during the night so to avoid further hurting and disapointing the children his ex wife stopped contact completley. This meant not only did my uncle not see his children but my nan didn't get to see her grandchildren grow up which devastated her. The eldest got in touch when he turned 18 but it still doesn't make up for all those years lost. So I agree, if the partner is still around it should fall on them to take the children to see extended family but if the partner doesn't have a relationship with their children then it shouldn't be taken out on the whole family.

Sirzy · 31/03/2011 06:25

I think as much as possible it should of course be up to the parents to ensure grandparents see there grandchildren but I don't see a problem with the courts helping grandparents have some level of access when it is otherwise denied.

GColdtimer · 31/03/2011 07:15

Sakura I see where you are coming from but I think your assumption that all women are reasonable a little rose tinted. My uncle who is a lovely man has been stopped from seeing his grandaughter because the mother is pissed off with her ex (his son, not zbusive just a bit feckless). She is depriving her daughter of a relationship with her grandparents out of petulance. On the other hand I have a friend who quite rightly wants to keep her son away from her toxic ex and is equally toxic parents.

It's not always clear cut but to say women are reasonable is a bit of a sweeping generalisation.

BakeliteBelle · 31/03/2011 07:34

Perhaps it should be illegal for grandparents not to see their grandchildren. My deceased DP's mum never bothers

diddl · 31/03/2011 07:51

I think that there should be some recourse for GPs who are being deliberately blocked for example where parents have split.

But on the whole I think it should be for the parents to decide who does/doesn´t see their child/ren.

pingu2209 · 31/03/2011 16:50

I would fight with every last breath in my body if my FIL tried to see my children. He is a smoker and refuses not to smoke in front of the children. He never washes and smells to high heaven. He is over 23 stone due to eating habbits and the children that live in his house with him are all very obese because he feeds them crap all the time. He literally only buys fruit at Christmas.

Why should he have rights over my and my dh (his son) to see our dc? He was a terrible father, why would he be a good grandfather?

5Foot5 · 31/03/2011 16:57

pingu2209 I can understand how you would definitely not want your FIL to have any custody rights if anything happened to you. I can even understand, to a certain extent, why you would not want them to stay at his house for even a short period. But are you actually saying you don't let him see them at all? For the reasons you state?

Sounds a bit harsh.

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 31/03/2011 16:58

Pingu: that's a fairly good example of someone who should be able to take legal action if he wanted to see your DC. Sorry but your grounds for denying him access to his GC are a bit precious - smoking, eating junkfood and stinking are not things that will do GC harm on an occasional visit.
Children are not their parents' property, and they do better mixing with a variety of people than they do being kept away from other people on trivial grounds such as poor hygiene or religious/political views that the parents don't share.

0891 · 31/03/2011 16:58

Vajazzle!

0891 · 31/03/2011 16:58

WRONG THREAD SHAME Blush

LDNmummy · 31/03/2011 17:02

"To suggest otherwise is to buy into the misogyny our society peddles about women."

Really because I have met many o woman or known of many a woman who has used her child as a manipulative way to punish fathers and extended family. Some of them have even been women in my own family or married to men in my own family (not my immediate family though thank goodness).

Men get stereotyped as women hating abusers too, it works both ways.