This generation of grandparents - vent with me please

[icelollybrolly]

Not sure why I’m surprised considering most of my childhood memories are of my own grandma looking after us more than my parents but, still. I have 2 small children and can’t believe how much my parents just don’t care to actually make an effort to support me/see them/spend meaningful time with them. If they look after them it’s because I just about had to beg them for childcare once every few months, and all they do is sit in the house with them or take them for a happy meal. They never ask to have them or even pop over to see them, but funnily enough my mum will spam her facebook with pictures I’ve sent them of the kids as if she’s taken them, and her friends all gush about how lovely it must be being a grandma etc and she goes on as if they’re her world. Or if they see them and toddler says/does something clever they’ll take credit and say oh we showed her how to do that (not me who’s shown her 100 times no?) It’s a load of shit. How hard is it to spend proper time with your grandkids? They work but have every weekend free, my own grandma was much older when we were kids and she used to take us to farms, cinemas, swimming, all sorts. Just feel let down and sad for my children that their grandparents don’t seem very invested in them.

Let's hope they remember that when it is time for them to be old and infirm. What odds they will expect OP to care for them? Give and take is necessary in this life.

It’s not all of us! I will be 80 next year and my youngest dgc will be 15 but until he was in Year 6 and Covid struck. I did regular days or after school or babysitting as often as possible and all of us gained so much from the relationships 🙂

I wouldn’t expect my children to care for me in old age, I didn’t have them for that reason. What a ridiculous thing to say.

@VanityDiesHard perhaps it is entitled but it does take the p when I look back on my Grandparents having us 3 nights a week, taking us to swimming and dance classes every week, and on a yearly holiday- that my parents won’t watch my child for 1 hour

night night and Happy New Year @Cmonluv . This boomer is off to bed because weirdly we still have to work until 67 and I need to be up at 7am ! Grandchild in bed and Grandad will sort out breakfast whilst Mum has a very well deserved lie in .😊

Oh, I don't think you're entitled at all! Perhaps you replied to the wrong person? I'm fully team 'shouldn't have kids if you aren't willing to look after their kids' (within reason, of course, and barring exceptional circumstances) These GP who are swanning around while their kids are struggling are really fucking selfish and I hope their kids shove them in the cheapest possible carehome and bugger off.

I think that perhaps your generation has made such a song and dance about being a 'little family', with week long exclusion zones following births, making rigid plans before visiting etc etc, to an extent you reap what you sow.

I think you'll find this time we are talking Gen X. What are they like, eh?

LaurieStrode I didn’t say I wanted her to revolve her life around them! An occasional visit when she was passing through 20 mins away would have been nice. I don’t think I said anything mysogenistic or that suggests I wanted her life to revolve around my DC!!!

Bless another devotee of statistics, what on earth this post actually means is beyond me, maybe being a boomer it's too hard for me.

You'd almost think people were individual people, and not stereotyped examples of marketing divisions.

Happy new year Boomers!

You haven't got a clue, have you?

It must be the company you keep.

Happy New Year!

I'm surprised we are still up and haven't gone to bed with our Horlicks.

Oh well if you don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel that” boomers” were rubbish parents and make awful grandparents then it must be true. Not possible that there’s a single decent , caring grandparent from that generation in the whole of the U.K. What an incredibly narrow minded and ignorant view to hold .

This ☝️

This is an incredibly narrow minded and ignorant view!

Happy new year! x

i am a boomer so I asked my family if they thought we were shitty parents/grandparents. These are some of the responses

Son: Remembers when he was about 7 and had an argument with his sister so grabbed his pillow and sleeping bag, went next door to neighbour/friend and announced that he was going to live there. However after 30 mins decided to return and was furious that I hadn’t even noticed he had gone. Verdict: Shitty

Daughter: Constantly embarrassed by the clothes I wore. Once horrified when I turned the collar of my jacket up because I was cold. Verdict : Shitty

Granddaughter1: Remembers grandad tried to drown her at the beach. She fell off the boogie board he was pulling therefore deliberate attempt at drowning.
(Incidentally she and her mother lived with us until she was 9) Verdict:Shitty

Granddaughter 2: When grandad was teaching her to drive he made her “go round a corner” when she didn’t want to. BTW her parents refused to teach her as she was so bloody stroppy. Verdict: Shitty

Granddaughter 3: Now it’s her turn to be taught to drive so she’s waiting until she has passed her test before she delivers her verdict.

Oh we boomers are dreadful………….

Good Lord, imagine wanting a week to recover and readjust to your new family potentially following surgery. How selfish and shit when it's YOUR grandchild and you're the important person here, don't they know that? Bloody millennials...

My boomer DM is an excellent, doting grandmother. FIL, also a boomer, couldn’t care less. My own grandparents, born 1910s, weren’t remotely interested in us in the 80s - we had to sit on the floor in their house during rare visits, silently, until it was time to go.

I don’t think this is generational. Maybe cultural/class - if your parents and your friends’ parents had those 80s yuppy values of having it all and pleasing yourself (or pre-war “children should be seen and not heard” values), maybe parenting and grandparenting isn’t something they are interested in.

A week is nothing in Mumsnet terms. People on here talk about several weeks (I remember one who planned a 2-3 month exclusion zone!)

Believe it or not, when daughters go into labour, their mums are usually anxious and worried. They just don't let it show. I remember pacing up and down, and convincing myself that something would go wrong for either my daughter or the baby. Obviously I never told her that.

So yes, I desperately wanted to see my daughter and know she was okay. More than wanting to see the baby if I'm honest. I knew and loved my DD. The baby was, so far, a stranger. If I'd not been able to see either of them for two or three weeks, I'd have found it genuinely painful.

But I wouldn't have said so. Because we start on that journey of eggshells from the moment we become grandparents