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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not bother trying to ensure DDs have regular contact with in laws?

131 replies

MyballsareSandy · 30/03/2015 13:02

DDs are 14. In laws were quite involved in childcare when they were small which tailed off when they started secondary school. During school hols I still encourage them to spend a day round theirs to keep in touch.

So I dropped them off this morning and went to work. DD2 has text to say that her nan got into a rage when DD told her she didn't fancy going shopping with her. She's confiscsted her iPad and gone out with DD1.

It's as though MIL doesn't have a clue about teens. She's lucky they still visit and spend time with her on a regular basis.

I really wish I'd just left them in bed this morning instead of waking them up early like a school day to spend time with their grandparents and I'm tempted to just let them decide in future, at their age which would mean they see very little of them.

OP posts:

Roseformeplease · 30/03/2015 17:24

I think it depends on the "shopping" as well. If that was a long planned, full day trip somewhere special then your DD was rude. If it was to nip out and buy milk, your DD could have just gone along with it. But, I hate shopping! I would think (.and I teach teens) that negotiation with them would cause fewer problems and they wil, soon enough, have a choice whether to go or not and so Granny is ensuring a fairly lonely old age if she explodes with rage when they don't go along with what she wants to do.

katiekatie · 30/03/2015 17:27

I don't agree she was rude for not wanting to go shopping, I completely understand that having had a very loud, 'raging' & controlling grandmother myself! How on earth could other MNers know what their relationship is like? Could you perhaps invite G'ma over on the weekend for a couple of hours instead of them having to spend a long time at theirs if they don't want to.

BathtimeFunkster · 30/03/2015 17:31

they wil, soon enough, have a choice whether to go or not

They're 14!

Presumably they already have that choice.

Who (that isn't a control freak whose children will hate them by adulthood) forces a teenager to go shopping against their will because they are a "child"?

Momagain1 · 30/03/2015 17:46

Don't you think that a grandparent needs to adjust slightly though as children grow up - what is wrong with a discussion about what they might all like to do together? Rather than insisting on something.

Sounds like there was discussion, and her sister and grandma agreed on the shopping but this DD refused and grandma agreed she could stay home, but not that she could be on her ipad. Perhaps grandma figured the lack of screen would make dd change her mind and come along, but she didnt. Instead dd called you to whinge about it, and try to play one adult off against the other. I find that unacceptable. Do you let her do that between you and your mum, or you and her dad?

She didnt have to go shopping, she won that round. Doesnt mean she gets everything else just her way, especially if she was rude to Grandma.

drudgetrudy · 30/03/2015 17:50

Momagain may well be right and you only have DD2's account to go on. You appear very ready to jump into taking her slant on it.
Do your DD's usually agree on what they want to do or are you, yourself sometimes faced with disagreement and have to work out how to handle it?

GnomeDePlume · 30/03/2015 17:51

I have some sympathy with the DDs in this. Empathetic, aware GPs realise that the unconditional love and simple enjoyment of their company from GCs only lasts for a short while.

Spending a day pottering around the shops with Granny is great when you are little and have hopes of the delicious treat of a comic at the end of it. It is nowhere near so enjoyable when you are a teenager.

In their mid-teens teenagers dont see the enjoyment of spending time pottering around the shops unless it is to their own agenda. It is only later as they get older that helping Granny to shop regains some of its appeal when they get to show off how grown-up they are.

drudgetrudy · 30/03/2015 17:58

It does depend whether this was a boring trip to the supermarket or a visit to a city centre with lunch and treats. Also it sounds as if one DD did want to go.

TidyDancer · 30/03/2015 18:05

Of course your DD was rude but I suspect you have realised that by now. Has she apologised yet? And why was she allowed to take an iPad with her?

Teawaster · 30/03/2015 18:06

I don't think it sounds rude. DD said she didn't want to go shopping , I don't see anything wrong with that. My DT's nearly 14 would have no qualms about saying what they wanted to do and would not really want to go shopping with Granny on their first day of Easter hols. I think it depends on the relationship . My DT's see my MIL once a week and say what they think to her, not rudely but they are relaxed with her . They only see my mother a few times s year as she lives far away and they probably wouldn't protest to the same extent as they are not quite as relaxed with her. As someone else said it was different when they were younger in that they used to love going out with MIL as they got treats. Now they are harder to please

drudgetrudy · 30/03/2015 18:10

Again its impossible to say if she was rude or not. You have only one side of the story and you don't know if she politely said she'd prefer to stay at home or whether she said it rudely, backchatted your MIL and argued with her sister.
You just don't know and we know even less but you do seem kind of pleased that's she's being difficult with your MIL.

BathtimeFunkster · 30/03/2015 18:16

Empathetic, aware GPs realise that the unconditional love and simple enjoyment of their company from GCs only lasts for a short while.

I don't know.

It's 39 years and counting for me and my grandmother.

But then she always treated me as a person who mattered and took me seriously. Even when I was 7. Even when I was 14.

Nobody ever tried to convince me that she had superior status and that I had to do whatever she wanted with uncomplaining deference or suffer the consequences.

Weird thing to be teaching young women.

I can't imagine two 14 year old boys being expected to pretend to enjoy shopping with a 75 year old woman.

They'd be out "being boys", not being taught that it's normal to out up with being bored to keep other people happy.

Downtheroadfirstonleft · 30/03/2015 18:23

To me, the bit that stands out is the confiscation of the iPad.

If your DD refused to go shopping with her GM because she wanted to sit at home with her iPad, hen I think that is unreasonable.

duplodon · 30/03/2015 18:33

14, not 16, not 17... 14.

Fair enough if you think 'young women' need to learn that their need to be on an IPad is infinitely more important than spending time with their grandparents, but I wouldn't expect any different of my 'young men'. I do not think 14 year olds are adults in any imaginable sense of the world.

I think deciding a woman wanting to spend time with her grandchildren is petty and petulant but a fourteen year old wanting to stay on an iPad is just exercising personal sovereignty is hilarious, frankly.. Only on MN!

BathtimeFunkster · 30/03/2015 18:34

If her grandmother took away her iPad for not wanting to go shopping, then that was unreasonable.

Who would she be hurting if she spent a few hours on the iPad while her GM and sister went shopping?

duplodon · 30/03/2015 18:40

And no one ever taught you to have respect for your grandparents? Weird. Well, both my grandmothers are still alive and being taught to have respect for their age and the importance of our relationship hasn't affected the depth and quality of our relationships which are actually flourishing, as is mine with my mother.

You don't have to be acting like an adult at FOURTEEN in order to have healthy, equal relationships with adults as an ACTUAL ADULT. Kind of like the way you don't need to read Shakespeare to a five year old to ensure that they have an appreciation of literature as a grown up.

SaucyJack · 30/03/2015 18:41

There's nothing petty in a grandmother wanting to spend time with her grandchildren.

It's the absolute refusal to consider what they might want to do and then punishing them for not giving her her own way that's childish and spiteful.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar yadda yadda yadda.

BathtimeFunkster · 30/03/2015 18:42

It is petulant, and very childish, to think that people are obliged to spend time with you.

If you want to spend time with someone, the normal way to do that is by coming up with a shared activity you both enjoy.

It's not really modelling good behaviour for these girls to be expecting them to do what their gold or get punished.

That's not how adult relationships work, and that's what they should be moving towards here.

14 year olds aren't adults yet.

But neither are they children. Treating them as children who have to put up and shut up because more powerful/important people have decided they want to "spend time with them" is terrible parenting/grandparenting.

Although this thread suddenly makes so much sense of all the threads about how shit it is to spend time with family.

And also the ones from women who think their boyfriends should spend time with them even if they don't want to, come to think of it.

highkickindandy · 30/03/2015 18:46

hmmmmm....... maybe she was rude, we weren't there, we don't know.

I could have been that teen, my grandmother overtly favoured my brother. Everything I did was wrong - if I spoke up, I was rude and cheeky, but if I kept quiet I was sulky and surly. I couldn't win so I stopped trying - and hid my nose in a book counting the hours till the visit was over. My hair, my clothes, everything about me was fair game for criticism, including the fact I spent too much time reading. I held my tongue for as long as I could, but eventually would say something and then my poor mother would get a lecture about how badly brought up I was - when I was old enough to have a choice, I disengaged completely and wouldn't visit anymore - is that what your daughter is doing ? Maybe I am projecting too much....

BathtimeFunkster · 30/03/2015 18:47

I didn't need to be taught to respect my grandmothers.

I respect(ed) them because of how brilliant they were/are and how much I love(d) them.

The idea that either of them would have issued diktats about my "spending time with them" rather than just making plans together is just weird.

A 14 year old not wanting to go shopping is not worth a row.

duplodon · 30/03/2015 18:48

No, they are children. How many of them do you know? They really are very, very young in my experience. There is a world of difference between a 14 and 16 year old. They're practically like different species.

I don't think it is at all healthy for kids of this age to be allowed to sit in on an iPad instead of going out on a trip. This isn't an every day occurrence, it is one day and there is no need to be on a device. Perhaps her grandmother took the device not wanting to be responsible for what she was doing on it while her parents weren't about?

JassyRadlett · 30/03/2015 18:49

Why teach 14 year olds that the world revolves around petulant, petty old ladies?

These are the 14 year olds who in a decade's time are going to get a nasty shock when they are in the workplace and discover they're not special snowflakes and that their wishes are not primary in all things. I've had a few through my work. They find it very difficult, some so much so that they find they can't live up to their talent and potential. They don't last long in a tough environment, mainly because they're convinced that the world revolves around them, because that's what they've been taught.

Bathtime, I can introduce you to my two brothers if you like. They both did lots of stuff with grandparents of both genders when they were teens, including shopping and other things they found tedious, because my parents thought it was important to raise us to be kind to others, particularly their grandparents and others of similar ages.

They are both charming adults. My brother and I both have sons, and have talked about the importance of raising them in a similar way.

Why on earth did the girl take an iPad to a day at her grandparents' anyway? That in itself....

DaemonPantalaemon · 30/03/2015 18:50

I think you (as in the whole family) should stop trying to force a relationship between your MIL and DD2. It simply isn't working.

Well the relationship certainly worked when the MIL was needed for childcare! Now though, she is too embarrassing to go shopping with!!!

waithorse · 30/03/2015 18:51

Your dd didn't want to go shopping with her gm in case a friend spotted them together ? That's really horrible.

I also remember your other thread about your MIL.

ApocalypseThen · 30/03/2015 18:53

Maybe the 75 year old should learn the important life lesson that nobody is obliged to spend time with you, and that as a host you should try to make sure your guests have a good time?

Well it's the circle of life. The grandmother cared for the children when they were small and needed it. This probably included tedious activities, being tied to the house, listening to the same joke a million times, all kinds of dullness. But she did it.

When life turns around it's not too much to spend a day with your grandmother even if the activities suggested by a 75 year old aren't necessarily those that appeal to a teenager. Sometimes you do things just because someone else would like to. Even if you're 14.

JassyRadlett · 30/03/2015 18:53

As a thought - if a 14 year old wants to be treated as an equal / an adult, they should perhaps consider behaving like one....

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