To think a child won't miss what they never had

[sherapower]

One of my friends keeps saying it's such a shame for my children as they don't have any grandparents.

I agree it's nice to have grandparents but I don't see it as a massive tragedy that they don't.

Or AIBU?

YANBU and your friend is very rude/thoughtless to keep bringing it up

I don't see how a lack of GPs will adversely affect your DC unless annoying people like your friend make a point of mentioning it all the time

Our 2 young adult daughters (both grown and left home now) knew their their grandparents a bit. DH's died before our daughters were born, and mine died six months apart when our daughters were 3 and 4. Sorta had a little bit of life with them.

They see photos of them with them, but they don't really remember them very well. They have the occasional flashback of grandad taking them to the canal for a walk, and grandma showing them how to knit, and one of the Christmases we spent at their house, and a couple of other things...but not much.

They both say that they are not massively fussed, as most children they went to school with had dysfunctional families and blended families, and some didn't even know grandparents that well, (if at all,) and in some cases, the parent they stayed with moved to another town and they only saw the grandparents 3-6 times a year anyway.

I think the days of grannies being hands-on with the kiddies, taking them blackberry picking, feeding the ducks, to the park, and making cookies with them, and grandads taking them fishing and hiking and cycling etc are probably pretty much behind us. As I said, families are not that close anymore, many families are spilt, granny has a new boyfriend, and she often works, and grandad moved away and is rarely seen and works a lot himself too.

So OP, the cosy little grandparent/grandchild relationship is not as common as you think, and I doubt your kids will be massively affected by having no grandparents... Mine aren't.

Your friend as an arse btw. Bin her. Inconsiderate bitch. What a nasty thing to say to you.

I get this sometimes. It does make me think if I said back -

Isn't it a shame your kids have poor parents. I mean they'll never have lovely holidays that we have will they?

Isn't it a shame you kids have inherited your giant nose. I'm glad my kids are pretty.

Isn't it a shame your kids are thick. Is there any point when going to school or should you just send them down the mines now? Mine are gifted and talented don't you know.

I would never ever in a month of sundays say such things because that would be awful right?

But it's absolutely ok for people to say 'it's a shame' about a lack of family and imply implications of that..

Zombie, but an interesting one!

I have this sometimes (not with GPs, as we have a full set). I'm expecting my first and have it in my mind that we "must" have a larger home, "must" be near a great school now etc - lots of circumstantial/material things. My family didn't own their own home until I was 9/10, DP's was still living in a Soviet tower block. At one stage there were four of us in my aunty's 1-bed flat. Neither of us felt deprived. It's nothing to do with the child, it's a reflection of something in the adult's mind.

I grew up without Grandparents and I felt the loss. Not sure what I felt I had lost out on but I knew there was a sense of 'extra love' or some other sort of unconditional love/attention that I was lacking. Having watched my mother be a grandmother to my sisters' children however, I'm not sure she is what I would have been looking for either .

I have two kids with no father and no grandparents. They do have aunts and uncles on the other side of the world that they have met and have some concept of but my oldes child does ask a lot about daddies and grandmas and why she doesn't have one. I guess I just try and emphasise and celebrate what she does have: a mummy who loves her, a little brother and in our case aunts and uncles and some of my friends we refer to as 'Aunty name' etc.

It won't traumatise or damage them growing up without grandparents but it's wrong to suggest they won't miss what they don't have as GPs are talked about and referenced all the way through school and in all the kids literature and film/tv stuff.

Good luck OP, I'm riding the crazy single mother of two with limited family connections and no back up plan (thank bloody fuck no HV has ever come at me with that telling off!) too.

It's also important to remember that even if you DO have more extended family, it doesn't always mean instant support. I have known a number of people have kids with the intention of having nana look after them whilst they went to work, and nana died, or got sick and could barely look after herself, or they all fell out quite early on, (a few months after baby was born,) or nana was ony 48, and decided she would retrain for a new career.

On a slightly different note, I know one woman RIGHT NOW who has become a first time nana at 50 who works at a place where they are open 7 days a week, 10 hours a day. She has become the unofficial childminder for her first-born grandchild, and has been having her 27-30 hours per week for her daughter, and telling work she can't/won't do weekdays in work hours; only evenings and weekend, as baby F needs her. She has been told she has no right to special treatment because she is looking after her grand daughter! She has now had several warnings and was close to getting the sack, so has had to tell her daughter she can no longer be the childminder.

Also, I know a number of people who had grandparents that weren't too great; bossy, rude, insulting, added little good to their lives.

So although people who are 'deprived' may feel miffed; having a nana and grandpa isn't always the cosy little picnic it's portrayed to be. I had a nana (mom's mom) til I was 12, and all I can remember of her is her shouting at me, hitting me with her walking stick, telling me children should be seen and not heard, and calling me chubby!!!!!!!! I don't have nice, cosy memories of her at all! Her hubby died when I was a baby, and my dad's parents lived 300 miles away which was the other side of the planet in the 1970's, and I only met them twice. They died when I was 8-ish. I don't feel I lost out as I had my parents and brother and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends.

Each to their own.

My 16 year old used to say how much he would of loved to have a nan, as I guess he used to see his friends from schools nan pick them up from school and storys about what they would get up to.
Unfortunately one nan passed away before he was born and the other nan I am nc with due to abuse.
So in a way they can miss what they never have.

Pff, I have no siblings or father, and all my mum's relatives lived in a distant country. The only time I missed having a wider family was when I was grown up and realised how close my cousins were to each other. So, no, I don't think your kids will miss what they didn't/don't have.