My parents miss out on their grandchild

[Sa09aez]

My parents decided to move abroad when I was 17 years old, without me. Since they moved they have visited the UK every every 2 years. I do not visit often as it’s a 15 hour flight away and tickets are extremely expensive.

I am now 30 years old and I am expecting my first baby soon. I can’t help but feel resentful towards them as they have missed out on so much of my life and our relationship is not the best as it’s been hard to create a bond with them since they moved away 10+ years ago.

I can’t help but feel angry towards my mum as she won’t be here to help out or be around her grandchild. They probably won’t meet my baby until she is 2.

I’ve been contemplating cutting them off completely and stopping contact. But I fear doing so won’t impact them in any way, my mum wouldn’t care and my dad would probably be happy. I’d be the only person sad about it.

Am I wrong for resenting them?

Its also ok to realise that while you can cope with shittiness directed at yourself (you not having a decent, normal, caring parents), its perfectly normal to be more angry at shittiness directed at your dcs (your child not having decent, normal, caring grandparents).

Yes some people don't have grandparent relationships because grandparents have died or are too ill to spend time with them, but because you already know they won't be arsed is hard to accept.

I just came to say your feelings are 100% valid. My parents left and moved 7 hours away when I was 22, my youngest brother was 18. It is a very real feeling of abandonment.

I had my first baby last year, I was very poorly during pregnancy and my baby was born 8 weeks early, during a pandemic. It was the hardest and most isolating time of my life and even now I'm still so resentful o didn't have my mum around.

They often expect us to visit them as the live in a more picturesque place and they have more space. My mum also moans all the time that my mother in law gets to have baby for sleepovers and she doesn't.

I feel hugely resentful about that, because in my view in moving away they those to not be active in the lives of their grandchildren

Sa09aez

Your initial post made me think of lots of questions.

Your update makes me think that you should just cut them out of your life completely.

You're fully justified to resent your parents.

I also sort of expected a level of support/help when I had my children.

My parents were too old/ill health. I was born when they were in their late thirties. My husband's parents left to live abroad in their 50s.

They are now back and want us to 'pick up where they left off'. They don't know my children and they don't know their great grandchildren because of a huge wall of resentment.

They returned (they are mid/late 70s) because their health is failing and they don't want to die abroad.

They are flabbergasted that no one wants their company.

[quote Sa09aez]@Draineddraineddrained
My parents arranged for me to live with my grandmother, but she passed away weeks before my parents left. I then lived by myself in
my grandmothers empty property (until my mother sold it 2 years later).

I funded myself from the moment they left. They did not give me any financial support - I have not received any money from them.

I visited them twice, tickets are well over a thousand pounds. I can’t afford to visit them regularly.[/quote]
That’s shocking. They don’t deserve you. You must do what is best for you, don’t even consider their feelings.

If it helps my parents were both very cruel and I cut them off over 15 years ago. My children have managed fine without having them in their lives.

Hope all goes well with the baby 💐

Bloody hell, OP, that’s horrific. I cannot imagine parents abandoning a child at such a crucial point of his or her life, that’s so cruel. I don’t think I would want contact with them, tbh.

Its not just what happened when the op was 17, its the fact she feels they wont have missed her at all. So so hurtful and hard to live with.

@Sa09aez I am so very sorry to hear what your parents did. To then suffer the further loss of your grandmother too is horrific. I have a son and can't imagine any situation in which I would leave him alone like that.

I know this is Mumsnet and not the done thing, but I wanted to send you a hug.

I think you need to let them go and grieve for the relationship you and your child should have had. I doubt they'll ever see how they have treated you nor will you make them, you need to concentrate on you and your family now.

As pp say having children brings into sharp focus your own parental relationship. For me that meant for every annoyance and teenage strop and falling out I had with mine I realised they came from a place of love and whilst not always right I saw they did the best they could with the resources they had both material and emotional.

For DH had the realisation others had of "how COULD they do/say/ behave like that!?!?" And it formulated how he knew to parent his DC differently. He accepts that he had a poor upbringing, and has done so well to be the loving caring father he is today. I think it did take its toll on him though and me by proxy.

I was so angry at them for treating him and then my dc the way they did. I took it personally that they didn't love my children and benefit from their company ( I didn't want anything from them, no money or childcare etc) and my mental health suffered too, but in the end only me and DH did suffer, the DC were oblivious to the lack of contact and the grand parents missed out on a relationship with wonderful children - their loss.

I think we daydream about what we want future relationships.to be with DC and as countless posts on here show that it doesn't always work how we might want it when the children arrive, even in loving, secure "good" parent relationships.

OP in this situation I'd cut them off.
They may not care, it will help you move on instead of facing the dreaded visits that bring all this trauma into your mind again.

I'd never leave my DC like that.
Your parents didn't deserve you. 😔

I hope you've lots of love in your self made family.

I am unable to get my head around how bills were paid on grandmother’s property while OP aged 17 was living there alone with no income.

Is there anything we are missing here? Did they want you to join them? Did they have a connection with the place they went to live?

Is there a cultural aspect impacting their decision? Eg I know someone who's parents did something vaguely similar but from a culture where its standard to leave kids to be raised by grandparents.

@Lonelylooloo that's a lovely post. I'm so envious.

@CurlyWurlyTwos that's bloody awful for you. Not sure how they turned the relationship around for your happy ending.

@RossIsTheBestFriend your mum is appalling and I can't believe she's ten minutes away yet so absent. I also pine for a normal mother relationship but it's not to be. It's very hard seeing friends get parental support when I have nothing so I totally sympathise with you.

[quote pompomsgalore]@Lonelylooloo that's a lovely post. I'm so envious.

@CurlyWurlyTwos that's bloody awful for you. Not sure how they turned the relationship around for your happy ending.

@RossIsTheBestFriend your mum is appalling and I can't believe she's ten minutes away yet so absent. I also pine for a normal mother relationship but it's not to be. It's very hard seeing friends get parental support when I have nothing so I totally sympathise with you. [/quote]
@pompomsgalore I’m sorry you don’t have the relationship you want either. I did find it really hard - especially when pregnant and for the first few months after giving birth but I’m just really trying to not let it get to me anymore 😊 the hardest part is actually meeting other people out and about that day things like “your mum must be delighted” or “it’s so nice having your mum live close by to help too” 🙄🙄

That’s terrible. Honestly I understand why you feel like you do. Maybe it will be less painful to cut them off now, once your baby has arrived it will amaze you how they are your main and only concern.

@bevelino

I am unable to get my head around how bills were paid on grandmother’s property while OP aged 17 was living there alone with no income.

There was a girl in my sixth form who was living independently from 16 (care leaver I believe).

She was entitled to various benefits which covered her bills/utilities. She worked a few hours a week in Sainsburys. She had housing benefit to cover her shared flat (OP’s grandmother’s house was presumably mortgage free). My friend was not flush with cash, but could certainly afford to eat and pay her bills.

It was a bit earlier than OP (mid-90s), but the swingeing cuts to benefits were all post 2010. You could survive on benefits back then.

And then obviously when she went to university, she will have had a student loan and presumably worked, possibly close to full time hours, as many of us without access to parental funding had to.

It is less the money that gets me (because plenty of parents can’t afford to finance their kids through uni), and more the complete lack of love and support from them. Just horrible people.

@BumblebeeBum your story is dreadful. Are you close to your aunt?

@Esspee what a star she comment as that's the same for every thread on MN.

@EvenRosesHaveThorns are you a parent?

I am NC with my parents and have had three children since that happened who they have never and will never meet.

It's not as bad as you think, honestly when you are busy with your child you might find you have less headspace to worry about your parents. Also, it wasn't a motivating factor for having them and never should be, but having my children has healed some of the hurt from my childhood and actually made me understand it (for better or worse) a lot more. I have built my own family and my parents aren't really important in my mind any more.

Lots of people don't have parents who help with childcare so I wouldn't even bother about that. My children do have wonderful grandparents on my husbands side but they don't do childcare for us or anything.

In your shoes I would probably cut them off, it doesn't sound like they would really care and it doesn't sound like you are benefitting from the contact, so what's the point?

That’s awful. Really awful. I hope you can find peace with it. I can relate to some of what you say in terms of my dad and when I’m feeling sad at not having the same relationship as others i know, I remind myself that I have zero responsibility for care in old age. He wasn’t bothered as a dad - neglected his duties which gives me the freedom to not feel any responsibility later in life.

Pair of selfish shits. Sorry OP, I'm pleased you have your own family now x

My parents kicked me out at 16 (just for answering them back ) and I went to live in a homeless hostel - yep, alone. Crappy, horrible, dank little bedsit. They didn't even bring me food! What did they do? Buggered off to Canada on holiday, when I was penniless and going days without food. I've never ever forgiven them for it.

However it's nowhere near as bad as what happened to my parent's friend....

(This is back in the 1940s) He was 7 years old one day when he came home from school to find his parents had moved! Gone. Left him. SEVEN years old......

Some people are just evil. My parents were uncaring but these were evil.

My parents left when I was 21, I had the choice to go with them but I didn't want to live in the country they chose. My younger sibling went with them and they did believe I would change my mind, but I didn't - nothing to do with them, and everything to do with where they live. They now live over 30 hours away from me. They met my baby, their first grandchild when they were 4 months old. We had plans to meet last March, mid- way , but covid put paid to that. It kills me that they've missed out on so much and that they won't see my child again realistically before they're 4.

I was so desperate for my mum to be here when I had a newborn, but she works full time and couldn't come over. I miss them desperately, and would consider living in their country now, especially as my sibling now has a cold, but I couldn't bear to pull my little one away from the family they have in the UK and see often.

Nothing constructive to say apart from, you have my sympathy. It's rubbish.

@Wannago

Sorry how does not wanting to move away make what the OPs parents did ok? 🤔

I agree with this.

Look I left my 17 year old for four months by himself in our house while we went abroad ... but:
a) I offered for him to defer starting A Levels and come with us and start A levels the following year, but he prefered to start with his friends;
b) we offered to find somewhere for him to stay, and sounded out some friends, but he took the view that he was old enough to look after himself and preferred to stay in the house;
c) I packed the freezer full of food;
d) I arranged for a friend who lives around the corner to pick up shopping for him while she did hers (and paid her some money into a bank account that we set up so she had enough to draw on);
e) we arranged for the neighbour across the road (who has always been a bit like a surrogate grandparent, as my husband's parents are both dead, and mine were the reason we were going, as they live overseas in the country I was born in and are now frail) to keep an eye on him, and she made sure he knew he was welcome to drop round for meals or a chat whenever;
f) we arranged for three other friends, plus his uncle and aunt, plus his married cousins to invite him for meals, so he ate out at least twice a week;
g) I made sure school knew, in case there were any issues;
h) we flew him out over the Xmas holidays to be with us, and then met him half way on our way back (February half term) and all came home together.

I am so glad we did this, as we came back just before Covid hit, the borders are now closed, and both my parents are now in hospital overseas, and there is a reasonable chance I won't see either of them again. Sometimes it does make sense to leave a 17 year old to finish off their schooling. And he was probably right to go on with his A levels and to avoid the disruption of staying with somebody else when he could manage fine on his own. But not the way the OP's parents did it. There was just so much wrong with the way the OP's parents did it that it is gobsmacking.

That's absolutely disgusting parenting. Wow

I think it's also illegal now for under 18s to be left alone extended periods. The law on the age you become an adult changed a few years ago from 16 to 18.

Poor kid

*My parents arranged for me to live with my grandmother, but she passed away weeks before my parents left. I then lived by myself in
my grandmothers empty property (until my mother sold it 2 years later).

I funded myself from the moment they left. They did not give me any financial support - I have not received any money from them*

That’s absolutely shocking OP. Sorry to hear you went through that.

I think it's also illegal now for under 18s to be left alone extended periods. The law on the age you become an adult changed a few years ago from 16 to 18.

Sorry but that's absolute codswallop. Feel free to quote the law change to support that

None of that stops what happened to the OP being any less dreadful - but what the parent did in that particular case that you quote and find "disgusting" is an example of good parenting.

Young people can go off to Uni living on their own before they are 18 (especially those educated in Scotland, where, in theory at least, they could legitimately start Uni as young as 16.5, but even they did a 6th year/equivalent of Y13, could still only be 17.5), get married, have sex and even have children themselves not that I'd recommend it

In Scotland, young people can sign their own permission slips from 16 drove me mad only because I didn't necessarily know that ds had a sports trip away from the school and would be home late They had to sign their own medical treatment consent from age 12.

https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/your-rights/your-rights/

https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/home-alone/