AIBU to ask how to deal with this?

[DilemmaDelilah]

Over month ago we had my two grandchildren overnight. I love them to bits and we try very hard to make them comfortable and to feel at home, but I freely admit that I find it difficult sometimes. We are getting on a bit and neither of us are in very good health. I also believe in good manners, including good table manners, and I am quite strict.
To set the scene - I had the week before had to see my GP, and she had referred me to a two week wait appointment at the hospital, which was due just a few days after we had the children, so I was very stressed and more cross with the children when they misbehaved than I would normally be. The eldest (12) was being particularly obnoxious, and I did something I thought right at the time but which my daughter considers unforgivable (not physical violence and not dangerous). On dropping the children home I told her what I had done as I knew she wouldn't like it. I realise it was wrong.
The week after, I was diagnosed with cancer. I messaged my children to let them know, no response from that daughter. I had some items of school uniform for one of my grandchildren that I was sewing name tags on and dropped them over, but she wouldn't even look at me and certainly hasn't thanked me. I have tried to contact her on numerous occasions but she won't take my calls so I couldn't even tell her how sorry I am.
Last week.she sent me the most awful letter - telling me what a terrible mother I had been, listing awful things I had done and how she had made allowances for me but wasn't going to do it any more. It was so very hurtful and I cried all afternoon. I replied to tell her how sorry I was for everything - no response. I know I wasn't a very good mother when my children were growing up and I have apologised to my children for that several times, but I always tried to do my best, it just wasn't good enough. I really struggled, we were very poor, I wasn't happy in my marriage and my upbringing meant that I always felt that I wasn't good enough so I set myself, and my children, impossible standards. Despite that I thought I had managed to do quite a good job, but I obviously havent. I have also tried to support my children now they are adults, without interfering, and that has been at considerable cost (not so much financial, more mental and time) to myself.
The letter was so very hurtful, I have apologised, I still wake up crying and the pain from that and the worry about my daughter is way more than my worry about my cancer, but she still won't talk to me.
I don't know what to do now. She obviously wants something else from me but I don't know what that is. If I did know what it was I would do it if I can. I start chemotherapy next week, my mental resilience is already very low and my physical resilience will be severely depleted. I have to be strong for my husband, who isn't well himself, I need my daughter back and I don't know how I am going to manage. It's not that she does things for me, because usually it is us that is doing things for them, I just want my (previously) lovely daughter back.

Really sorry about the cancer news op, I can only imagine how stressful and upsetting this would be.

As for the post, sounds like your dd wanted to go out, so put a child in a situation she didn't want to be in, the child kicked off and you reacted. The punishment wasn't too bad and a 12 yr old would understand.

There are two sides here

Your dd knows how you 'parent' and chose to put her dc in a situation for her own gratification (she wanted to go out). She's also acted appallingly re your cancer news and chose this time to kick you whilst you're down by sending a letter and blanking you. Stop apologising, and concentrate on your health and treatment.

Your dd will have experience some sort of childhood trauma whilst growing up, childhood trauma will never go away, you simply learn to deal with it, I'm sure she was extremely triggered by what happened and it is likely the straw that broke the camels back

I agree with this and tbh think it's very odd you text them to tell them you have cancer. Would you not do that face to fa e or at least a phone call

I hope that your treatment goes well and so sorry to hear of the diagnosis

You let your daughter down as a child. She’s reconciled with this and allowed you to have a relationship with her child. Then you’ve punished her child, in a way you know she won’t condone, in complete disregard of her wishes as his parent. So essentially you’ve let her down all over again.

Your guilt is your own responsibility. Could you look at counselling to work through why you parented the way you did and why you are still so angry and domineering?

You want your daughter back but that’s never going to happen if you won’t change, and show that you are willing to accept you are in the wrong, rather than complaining that people pointing that out adds to your ‘intolerable guilt’.

I am sorry about your cancer diagnosis. I lost my dad to cancer and recently one of my closest friends has just survived breast cancer. But you can’t use that diagnosis as an emotional leaver to expect to be forgiven for your poor choices and behaviours.

I would be very angry if my mum had dumped my kids to walk home. This is obviously the last straw on a catalogue of abusive things you have done to her and her children over the years

Being poor is not an excuse for poor behaviour

This is a very nice fair post and one you could genuinely benefit from reading @DilemmaDelilah.

I don’t see the big drama in a mid-behaving 12 year old having to walk for a few minutes. 12 js more than old enough to listen and understand consequences, and know how to behave. It was a short walk, not a trek across the desert.

I also don’t understand the whole “grandparents should never call grandchildren obnoxious”. In my experience many kids this age are, and just because they are family and you love them doesn’t mean you can’t recognise this.

I am sorry about your diagnosis and hope treatment goes well.

But I don't think you can easily fix this.

I was the daughter like yours. My Mum was great but my Dad was not and I have some very unhappy memories of my childhood as a result. He was not a good parent, just as you have admitted that you were not...and frankly it doesn't matter what your reasons or excuses were.. the effect is the same.

Nevertheless I wanted my children to have a relationship with him, hoping he'd be a better, kinder grandad. (they never stayed with him as we lived quite a distance). He was ok..til he wasn't, and started with the same emotional /verbal shit that I had had to deal with (mostly putting me down at every opportunity)

And as an adult I said no more. I went no contact for quite a long time, and when (he, apparently bewildered and hurt at this) I decided to resume low level contact, I explained that if he EVER spoke to my children in that way again, that would be it.

His not great parenting affected my life choices, career choices, choice of partner (for the better , that one) to a degree that HE would never understand, just as it seems you don't.

Your job as grandparent is to be supportive, loving, helpful.. and just GREAT. You can agree consequences for behaviour together, but they are not your children and you don't just decide to 'discipline' your way without consent. I had boundaries with my kids, and jointly we decide boundaries for my grandchild!

I suspect your daughter, like me, saw history repeating itself and said 'no more'

If in time, she decides to resume contact..great.. be better at being her mother and grandmother to her children. But acknowedging your mistakes doesn't FIX them, and doesn't excuse them, sadly.

Give her space.

I had a good final year with my Dad, when I cared for him , travelling every weekend to look after him, but it took until I was in my 40s for us to have peace with each other.

In my Dad's will , his final sentence was that he knew he had failed my brother and me and was sorry, which was heartbreaking to read, because it showed he had finally realised .

Give her space, focus on your own health but do not make demands on her, it will not resolve anything.

@ContinuousProcrastination It sounds like your daughter has read and bought into a lot of the gentle parenting stuff and is viewing her own childhood through that lense. If she is, she's probably considering adults who imposed unpleasant consequences for bad behaviour/made her follow rules etc even when she didn't want to, as "traumatic"

I agree, but be warned I will likely be the only one. Everyone else will go on about how the child is ‘spirited’, ‘knows their own mind’ etc, and therefore their poor behaviour is to be admired. Instead of the grandmother showing consequences, she just should have put up with this lovely ‘cheekiness’, or otherwise should have had a jolly talk about ‘big feelings’ instead. The daughter will be right to believe the grandparents should put up with bad behaviour with zero consequences and should go NC with grandparents forevermore. I don’t pretend to understand it but you will get everyone telling you this.

When the op is the one looking after them so that the parents can go out and is the one suffering the consequences of their bad behavior it absolutely is her place to discipline them. At 12 years old their parents should have taught them what acceptable behaviour is.

There it is. You knew your daughter wouldn't like it but did it anyway .......

The child was clearly embarrassed about the wet bed and the statement that he thought you would be cross about the younger child proves that he isn't comfortable telling you the truth about him.

Why do you think he is always lying to you ?

I'm sorry about your diagnosis but that has nothing to do with it that's a separate issue which you are using as an emotional lever to "win" your daughter back which is toxic in itself.

For now I would just send an apology message and leave the ball in her court

Try to put this at the back of your mind and concentrate on getting well. But be prepared for your daughter to be looking after herself and the wellbeing of her children first

I agree with you

OP I'm sorry you have cancer, however you don't seem to have much empathy or ability to see things from another's point of view. "My version is the truth." How do you think your parenting mistakes continue to affect your daughter psychologically? What did she say were your failings in the letter?

What I see in your first post is that you struggle to regulate your emotions/stress around the grandchildren, you didn't communicate to your daughter at the time that you had tests coming up and were worried, you could write a letter or text her now if she doesn't want to answer your calls but you are making excuses. I would imagine what she wants is for you to acknowledge and validate her feelings that she expressed. You say you have apologised but did you do it in a way that showed you understood the impact on her?

I agree with this. A child of that age who wets the bed does not 'lie' to get one over on you. They're not sitting at school thinking 'can't wait till grandma discovers what i left her in the bed' The shame of bed wetting can stop you telling the truth. Being present when another person discovers your 'accident' is deeply humiliating, especially if you don't trust that person. My niece was a bedwetter and her mother treated her appalingly with nothing buy contempt and blame. She still wets the bed now and she's a mother of two herself. I'll take gentle parenting over authoritarian any day. I sometimes think people get confused between gentle parenting and lazy parenting.

I agree

And if the OP was that awful then the daughter absolutely shouldn't have been using her for childcare or anything else.

@DilemmaDelilah What do your other children have to say about this?

Good God, I've just read all the OPs subsequent posts, it's all passive aggressive, me me me, flouncing and manipulation. I think the mysterious thing her daughter wants is not that.

What on earth is wrong with making badly behaving children walk a short distance home when they're perfectly used to doing it?

It's not like we're talking 5 year olds on a 5 mile route march!

With my mother she said just one thing to my 2 year old DD and I realised that was it, she would end up being as angry and nasty with her as she had been with me throughout my childhood. So I stopped contact. What she said is almost irrelevant, it's the fact that I realised that she hadn't changed and would treat my DD as badly as she had treated me. And I couldn't allow that, my job is to protect my DD.

Do you think that it is the same for your DD, Op?

Maybe the daughter wouldn't have minded the behaviour but she wasn't there!

If the children were doing something they were told not to do then the person in charge at the time has to deal with it.

Whilst I don't forbid my DGC doing what their parents allow them to do - screen time, what programmes they can watch, what apps/games they can use etc, the rest of the time it's my house, my rules. And if that isn't acceptable to my DC then they wouldn't leave their children in my care.

Most grandparents love their DGC. However, today I think we do far more babysitting and general childcare than before (I rarely stayed with my DGP) due to parent's working and generally busy lives.
And when the children are in the GP's care it's up to them as to what behaviour is and isn't acceptable.

And if the parents aren't happy then they can talk to the grandparents or choose not to let them have the children.

I am a fully grown woman and I will not be told what to do in my own home. The OP may be 'strict' or she may think her DGC are rude and she isn't willing to tolerate it.

Why should she? I love my DGC to bits, but if they're rude to me (and some are teenagers so they try!), even if it's just thoughtlessness rather than deliberate, I will pull them up on it.

She said he was being obnoxious. That was referring to his behaviour.

And 12 year olds absolutely can be obnoxious. Doesn't mean they're awful people. It means their behaviour needs improvement.

Indeed we are only hearing one side of this story and I feel that if the daughter had posted here on MN then her version may be quite different. You can believe your version wholeheartedly OP, but that doesn’t cancel out your DDs feelings. I feel there must be more to it for her to ignore your cancer diagnosis, surely nobody would ignore that without v. good reason.
I wish you well OP with your treatment.

You can’t have been that bad a mother if your daughter has been trusting you to look after her children for all these years.
If I had a child persistently being naughty in my car I would do exactly what you did too. It was the only sensible course of action, in my opinion.
I gather that you also walked the children home?

I would distance myself from the situation for a while. Concentrate on recovering your own health.

Your daughter has a lot to lose in terms of child care if she continues with this attitude.

Although being a little cynical maybe, now she recognises that you will have little to offer her whilst you are recovering your health, and it’s not a bad time to let out any simmering resentment she has been harbouring.

Its difficult to offer advice when not being in full possession of the facts but if everything is as you have described it, then you have been treated very shoddily it seems.

Grandmas do need to look after themselves too!
Best of luck.

My mother was awful to me.

difference is I would not even think of leaving my dc under her care. I don’t trust her.

it wasn’t an emergency and this dd leaves her dc with her evil mother regularly. That doesn’t make sense to me. if indeed op was as bad a mother as she’s being made out to be.

IF (and it is an if) you were an emotionally abusive parent you daughter doesn’t have to give a free pass now because you are ill.
She feels how she feels and perhaps you can both repair the relationship but what you did to her son has obviously triggered something for her