To think that my parents are utterly abhorrent?

[Mysteriousgirl2]

They are racist, homophobic and sexist. Just generally horrible people who have no empathy or idea about the world around them. They hate all refugees and think that they ‘deserve it’

They are incredibly selfish and wealthy. They have never helped me with my three young DC even though they have never worked and have loads of time.

One of them is an alcoholic and they both drink drive all the time and have two big powerful SUVs. I don’t know how they haven’t had any bad crashes yet.

I think I hate them. AIBU?

Lots of people would balk at providing childcare for three (I’m one of them…)it’s a lot of responsibility, more crowd control than grand parenting if they’re young.

I wouldn’t work either if I didn’t have to, lucky them!

And lots of people don’t agree with their parents over many topics, but up to you if you can’t stand their views on things. I think many people become critical of their own parents parenting style once they become parents themselves, but I think most of us are doing our best with the circumstances we’re given.

I’m sad that they don’t help out, but also glad that I can protect my children from them. That probably doesn’t make much sense

@Mysteriousgirl2 It makes perfect sense. You're grieving the grandparents your children could have had. Obviously you wouldn't want them looking after your children in their current drunken, bigoted state, but you still miss the support lots of other parents have. Sorry they are not the parents and grandparents you need and deserve. Therapy might help as PP suggested x 💐

I would take your parents over the ones I had.

If you know when they drive drunk then not reporting them is just complicit in any damage they cause.

One of them is an alcoholic and they both drink drive all the time
Do you repeatedly report them to the police for this? If not then you are as bad them.

They sound awful and I'd have as little to do with them as possible tbh

@Mysteriousgirl2 assuming your grandparents, nannies, boarding school staff were kind to you, that might have been the better option than being raised solely by your parents. What do you think? Limited exposure to them..

Your parents could help with the children, and I can see why you would want that, it would seem like a sort of paying it forward, as they had so much help. But they are not safe people to leave your children with. The children would almost certainly be emotionally harmed or neglected. They would be exposed to extreme right wing views. Alcoholics do not make for good carers of their children or grandchildren sadly. And heaven help your children if your parents chose to drive with them in one of their SUVs. Your priority must be to protect the children from such harm.

Personally I think low contact at the very least would be a good option for you. And your children. People like your parents rarely change unfortunately. I hope you are able to create a loving family of your own, made up of any emotionally healthy relatives you have, and a few well chosen friends.

I am very sympathetic OP. You don't sound grasping or jealous of your parents to me. And why shouldn't you wish or hope for your parents to show real interest in helping you with childcare and getting to know their children at the same time? You are clearly a very different person from your parents. Many adults have a journey to travel with parents they don't feel comfortable with.

I am in my 60s and I am a grandmother. I help a lot with my grandchildren and love them dearly. This is partly because I resolved to do things differently from my own mother who I never could get on with. My father was a warm kind almost entirely absent father. I never trusted my mother with my own children fully but I will admit she was more interested and helpful than your parents sound.

What do you do? Get some therapy. Mourn. Try to understand your parents. Were they dumped at boarding school aged 4 and have no emotional understanding of family life? Decide whether you wish to/can have some contact with them, or low contact, and what just about works for you.

I decided to have contact with my parents and I also decided, alongside my brother to look after them in their old age until their deaths. I did this as a form of community service because in honesty I'd emotionally disengaged from my mother in so many ways. I realised that she had serious mental health problems that prevented her from being much of a mother.

I think other posters might be a bit jealous of your parents having money that at some point presumably you will inherit.

Re the cars etc, leave them to it. If they are functioning alcoholics then maybe they somehow manage their driving, you said they've had no bad crashes. If you have enough of a relationship you could suggest they get taxis but I doubt if they will listen to you.

It's hard to realise you have parents who aren't really parents. You make this better by being a better parent yourself.

Do you think its possible that part of what you hate about them is all of the ways that they are stopping you and your children from having an ideal relationship with them?
That if they weren't such monumentally shit people that in theory, if you needed help, you could rely on them, happy times you could spend with them, but you can't really because they're a pair of nasty drunks who hold abhorrent ideas in their heads that make it put of their mouths freely?

If they were nicer, not drunk, your children would potentially have a close relationship with their grand parents, that they're now missing?

TBH if its this, I completely get it.
I'm NC with both my parents. Neither were rich, but were both incredibly harmful to both myself and my children. I often find myself angry at both of them because I spent a childhood neglected that means I've got what will be lifelong mental and emotional issues, and I've never had the type of support with my children that many of my friends have had.. my kids have no bond with anyone related to me, which makes me feel guilty, then I think, how emotionally damaging would a relationship be with them?

Would going completely NC help you?

I wouldnt..i wouldnt want either.

I reported my stepfather for drink driving. He was a bus driver, i had a lot soul searching to do as he would lose his job/license but, my father killed someone whilst drunk so i reported him. Innocent families are destroyed by people who drink drive

They sound disgusting OP. I’m sure you won’t want to inherit any of their awful money or property would you? Hopefully your making plans to make sure that vile possibility can’t happen.

Yes, quite.

Why would anyone want sexist, racist, homophobic drunk drivers looking after their children?

@Mysteriousgirl2 adding to the chorus of why haven't you reported their drink driving?

You are very scathing of the parents that raised you. I wonder what your childhood was like? Sounds like they paid for the best care and schooling - bit this wasn’t enough.

As for the ‘They hate all refugees and think that they ‘deserve it’’

What are you doing to counter balance this?

let me clarify… do you hate them for their views or for their wealth OP? Do you think that you too deserve that wealth but you’d be a much nicer person? What does it change. They are your parents, the views and life is theirs not yours. Learn from their mistakes.

Having immense wealth that allows you to pay for the best care and schooling does not make good parenting. Didn't you read the rest of the post?! Alcoholic, work-shy, narcissists who sound like narrow-minded arseholes.

Sounds like you’re still in the magical thinking phase.

The parents you want to have don’t exist, and the sooner you can come to terms with that the better all round.
At one level, how could you have the maturity to accept it when you were brought up by selfish immature people.

You really need to stop getting wrapped up in their drama by staying away as much as possible, and then start therapy.

It's a difficult post op.

DH and I are early 60s and still working full-time. Our DC are mid to late 20s. We chose to work without the need to. Our mothers are mid/late 80s, my step is 80ish. For context some of their views:

Anti-refugee (how mother puts up with that I shall never know as her father and first husband were refugees).

Homophobic

Think foreignors are scroungers/the bane of this country.

Pretty sexist re: pink, blue, jobs, hobbies, what women are capable of.

Neuro-diversity is largely made up and excuse for being thick, ditto those with depression need to pull themselves together.

I try to temper it contextually in that (except mother) they are small town, small minded folk whose views were shaped in a different era. I treat them with a pinch of salt because despite what comes out of their mouths, mostly steps, in reality, if he saw someone vulnerable being beaten up, he'd wade in regardless of colour, creed, etc. Similarly if someone at the supermarket had to put stuff back, particularly a mother, he'd sort out their bill.

Their formative normal was a world of "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish", alongside Rachman, Love Thy Neighbour and an entirely different "normal" world view. They aren't bad people, but their mouths haven't caught up with the 21st Century.

My DC, however, cannot excuse them having been brought up in a different world from me even.

Regarding the drinking, they open a bottle of wine at 4pm and step breaks into the 2nd by about 6pm. They are heavy drinkers but not functional alcoholics. They don't drink and drive.

Regarding childcare, I got none when DC were small although my side was good, having them in the holidays for a week when I went back to.work. The DC decided they didn't want to go from about 12 because they couldn't stick them. DS has a good relationship with them. DD avoids.

As a 60 plus woman with plenty of money, who is likely to have gc in the next few years, I will not be committing to childcare on a regular basis. I will help in emergencies and we may fund a day of nursery. You are not entitled to free childcare from grandparents and Whilst I am fit and work full-time still, I don't think I could cope with the physicalities of tiniest on a regular basis.

Are you perhaps conflating your resentment over childcare and their wealth with your perception of their behaviour? You post was sad and bitter in equal measure.

I get you OP.
You're sad at the grandparents your children will never have, because they have these shit ones instead (maybe sad isn't quite the right word).

I get this same feeling when I see grandparents at the school gate or my coworker gets a call from her mum asking her what time one of her kids needs to be picked up from an after school club while I'm having to drop everything the minute it's the end of my contracted day and race back to the childcare to get my child on time due to the length of my commute.

Life is so much easier for people with engaged, caring grandparents in so many different ways, and it's not even about getting free childcare, it's about knowing if you went into hospital at 2am you could ring someone to have the kids, or if your child was really ill you could ring your mum for advice before escalating to 111 whose response to everything is to make you drag your poor ill child to A and E for hours.

It's also really normal to have very mixed feelings about your parents when they raised you but simultaneously were fairly shit at it and self-absorbed.

Have you seen the Stately Homes thread on here? I think you'd fit right in.

That’s what you tend to get with people who are handed money but did not earn it, ignorance.
My parents were racist once, but they have changed since meeting my sister in law. It was ignorance more than anything else.

We cut out the racist, homophobes with pathetic daily mail views from our and our children's lives. We see FIL once a year for about an hour. Even in that time he manages to bring up Brexit/small boats/ uses the n and p word freely/ is openly homophobic. We then tell the kids to ignore his rants. He is now dying and the kids barely care.

Why are you giving mind space to people you hate? You become what you think about. Distract yourself. And fgs don't inflict them on randoms on the internet!

I think in the UK it’s only a small minority of grandparents who have an active weekly presence in their grandkids lives (beyond, perhaps popping in once a week or fortnight for a cup of tea). So while it’s sad they won’t have much of a relationship (and particularly sad that they have no interest whatsoever) it’s far from abnormal.

Cut them off. Best thing I ever did with toxic relatives.

Forgot to say, my children have no real grandparents either which makes me extremely sad as I had amazing grandparents as a child. But after years of trying I just had to accept that I can't force people to love me or my children - or even want to be in their lives.

Lots of MNers report having parents and wider families with abhorrent views - which would seem to be reassuring that we can be exposed to horrible prejudices and not inherit them ourselves.

One of my grandparents used to warn me in graphic terms about the horrors and dangers of marrying people from a particular racial background....guess what! And none of my siblings picked up the racist / homophobic / xenophobic stuff from that whole side of the family - as my parent had not done.

If children are brought up to recognise decent values I would not necessarily ban contact. Just be clear about your own values.

But obviously the drinking per se and drink/driving , and general lack of family values and care and affection....not really fulfilling the JD for parenting or grandparenting, are they?