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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want any grandchildren?

307 replies

Manzanilla55 · 10/06/2021 15:08

Just that really. I had ds my only child at age 41 and am now 57. By the time he moves out I imagine I will be 62. I just want peace and quiet after that. He doesn't want children either as he has plenty of family on his dad's side in London. Of all ages. I happened to mention in passing I did not want any to a couple of people and boy were they shocked. There are plenty of things to enjoy in life without grandchildren. Am I really unusual and am I missing something here? I just prefer a nice simple life hobbies interests plenty of me time and a modest social life. I don't even crave a bloke. Am I really strange as I just don't feel that I am.

OP posts:
Totallyrandomname · 10/06/2021 21:27

@30degreesandmeltinghere

Be prepared to lose a dc over your decision.. My mil refused to acknowledge our ds. Dh went nc. Been over 6 years since any contact at all.
As they just wouldn’t talk to them or mention them at all?!!!
30degreesandmeltinghere · 10/06/2021 21:32

They bought gifts for my dc - not her biological dgc but never a thing for ds. Never asked about him. Never text or rang. She did visit in hospital despite being told I def didn't want visitors. One other time she held him. Tried to pass her bosses gifts for ds off as from her as she got him nothing...
When she didn't want to visit us over Xmas we clicked she had no interest. She popped in on Jan 2nd and saw my dc. I was still in bed with ds. When I got up she left without a word...

ProbablyProbing · 10/06/2021 21:35

YABU. I'm shocked by anyone saying you're not. Of course YABU to not want someone ELSE to have children if they choose to do so. Would people feel this was reasonable behaviour if you said you didn't want your neighbours to have children or your siblings?!

thepeopleversuswork · 10/06/2021 21:52

The attitudes on this thread are pretty bizarre: everyone seems to be assuming the OP is actively trying to prevent her son from having kids. She's not. She's simply exploring the fact that she doesn't want children because its counterintuitive. Why are people so judgmental and defensive about this?

I can understand this. My DD is only 10 so I haven't really given it much thought yet. I think on balance I'd probably quite like them but I'm not going to feel cheated if I don't. It seems an entirely rational perspective that, having brought a child or children up yourself you might decide that that part of your life is over with.

MaBroon21 · 10/06/2021 21:59

My close friends are very hands on gms who provide childcare and it all looks and sounds exhausting

I’m very hands on and I also look after my youngest grandchild two days per week. All in all I think I have 2 days per week where grandchildren aren’t part of my day even if part of my day just means I took one horse riding before dropping her back home. Sometimes I’ll then stay for dinner with the family and other times I’ll go straight home.

I’m never exhausted and I travel a lot. I have hobbies and I do voluntary work but I also spend lots of time with family. It’s my absolute pleasure

I do have an child who’s now an adult and he requires 2-1 round the clock care that a team of home based carers now help me with and I can honestly say that nothing else I ever do in life will exhaust me as much as looking after my boy did. And I think for me that having my son, he’s the youngest of a large family, has reinforced the belief in me that there is nothing in this life like family and the more the merrier.

Fleetw00d · 10/06/2021 22:00

It's not really your decision whether or not you have any, just how involved you would be if you did. Could just be a once a month grandparent which is a fine, or a 3 x a week grandparent which is also fine. Try not to focus on it because he may well change his mind

Isitsixoclockalready · 10/06/2021 22:07

I'd be tempted to keep an open mind over it. Your son is pretty young so if he decides that he does want a child in say 10 years then you've got plenty of time to decide whether you'd want to play an active part.

mustlovegin · 10/06/2021 22:37

I just prefer a nice simple life hobbies interests plenty of me time and a modest social life

Nothing wrong with not wanting grandchildren, but you can still have all of the above if you become a grandmother. You don't have to provide childcare if you don't want to

Checkingout811 · 10/06/2021 22:41

@MaBroon21 I just wanted to say, you sound absolutely lovely and your children and grandchildren and lucky to have you.

I too have a son who is still very young but who I suspect will always live with us and require a lot of care and it has given me the same outlook.

mustlovegin · 10/06/2021 22:55

Also, you don't have to conform to all the posturing, forced gestures, and 'over the topness' that surrounds child rearing nowadays. You can have a loving relationship with grandchildren on your own terms.

Is there anything that is worrying you in particular OP?

TedMullins · 10/06/2021 23:29

@ProbablyProbing

YABU. I'm shocked by anyone saying you're not. Of course YABU to not want someone ELSE to have children if they choose to do so. Would people feel this was reasonable behaviour if you said you didn't want your neighbours to have children or your siblings?!
It’s reasonable to hope your neighbours won’t have children because you don’t want to hear a screaming baby through the walls. It would be very unreasonable to tell the neighbours you felt that way. OP isn’t trying to influence her son, she’s said many times she hasn’t voiced this to him. Nobody is unreasonable for feeling a certain way, it depends what they do with that feeling and if/how they act on it.
BoofyBoo · 10/06/2021 23:46

I actually find it massively reassuring to read all the people including OP saying they don’t want/care about having grandchildren. I wanted children but have never been able to have any.
Listening to the narratives around me, and the obsession with children and now grandchildren in society has made me feel the biggest failure - especially next to my little sister who wasn’t that fussed but now has two children. My parents have always insisted they weren’t bothered and care more about my and my sister’s happiness than whether they have grandchildren … but I’d never have believed anyone who had chosen to have children (and been able to) would not have cared about then having grandchildren. I’ve felt terrible for not being able to be give my parents the only thing you’d think mattered from everything we see and read around us.
My parents love their grandchildren, who came along quite late in their lives and that’s bittersweet for me to watch - I’m of course pleased others feel the same about theirs. But as someone who’s not been able to give their parents grandchildren it’s massively refreshing to read not everyone is obsessed with having them and maybe my parents are telling the truth when they say me and my husband also give them such a lot and they’re equally proud of me.
My sister is always slightly resentful they don’t spend more time actively looking after her children but I do think there’s an expectation these days that grandparents will be massively hands on and have little life of their own. The media play this up. So I can see where the OP is coming from.

toconclude · 10/06/2021 23:51

@Manzanilla55

Does anybody else feel the same?
Me. Both mine are childfree at 30+ and likely to remain so. Fine by me.
FaceyRomford · 10/06/2021 23:51

It's not your decision OP.

saraclara · 10/06/2021 23:53

@FaceyRomford

It's not your decision OP.
She knows that. She's made it very clear that she knows that. She's simply asking if she's unusual in feeling that way about grandparenting after her friends expressed shock.
WithANameLikeDaniCalifornia · 10/06/2021 23:58

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toconclude · 11/06/2021 00:01

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esterwin · 11/06/2021 00:25

I feel the same. I am working and life feels busy enough without fitting in grandchildren.
And being brutally honest, I used to coo over babies and young children, now I feel totally indifferent. I would fake it, but I am really not interested in young children anymore.

phoenixrosehere · 11/06/2021 00:33

There's a difference between being indifferent to grandchildren and actively wanting not to have any. The latter is weird.

OP didn’t say she didn’t actively want them. She seems more in the indifferent camp, following her son’s lead and taking into account how old she will be when he is likely to have kids if he chooses to, and going off of what she has seen from her friends. She could also change her mind about it if her son changes his mind.

It isn’t out of the ordinary for some people to not want children and to know this in their teen years. My cousin knew she didn’t want children and has since she was a teen too. She is over 40 with no kids. She wanted to get her tubes tied before 30 but no doctor would do it because she may change her mind. There are countless stories of men and women who never wanted children and more people are being open about it as well as people regretting having children to begin with.

I wouldn’t be surprised or doubt that there are parents who wouldn’t want grandchildren due to issues that their own children have so no don’t think it’s weird if some parents don’t want to be grandparents,

esterwin · 11/06/2021 00:40

I do not actively want them.

Musication · 11/06/2021 00:48

My mum always said she wasn't fussed or excited about grandchildren. Then my sister had her little boy and my mum was besotted and has been the same with the 7 who arrived after that (between 3 children!). Your DS is 16, he is pretty young to be thinking about whether he wants children or not! You don't get to control it unfortunately.

Nat6999 · 11/06/2021 01:31

My dad always said he didn't want grandchildren but when ds was born he was the best hands on grandad any child could wish for. He is no longer with us but ds misses his grandad desperately, he was in tears on GCSE results day last year because his grandad wasn't there to see his results.

mustlovegin · 11/06/2021 06:35

@BoofyBoo Flowers

Believe your parents when they tell you they love you

Doris86 · 11/06/2021 07:04

Again people continue to completely miss the point, saying ‘fine by me if my children don’t have children. Fine, that is called indifference.

What the OP is doing is actively making the choice for her children that she doesn’t want them to have children. That is just bizarre.

Doris86 · 11/06/2021 07:06

@esterwin

I do not actively want them.
But you do not actively not want them either. As you said in your previous post you are indifferent. Which is fine.