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.

Both mil and fil ( divorced) really didn't want to involved in our kids lives. One moved to other end of the UK, one abroad. Fil hundreds of miles away doesn't want us to visit with the little too. Last Christmas he suggested Easter, then went on a cruise. I haven't seen them for 7 years now and have no interest in chasing to get a relationship with them and the youngest too. They can tolerate the teems to a degree, at arms length, over SM.

I do feel that everyone has missed out but once they grow up that opportunity has gone forever and it wasn't my choice or lack of effort. Horrible to say I know but fil and step mil mean nothing to me now. It's like they was in a past life?

Mil often regails us of her wonderful childhood surrounded by family when she flies back and sees us for a few days ( travels all over the UK, it's coming back to see GC) and I just think to myself wtf? How can advocate something you have no desire to part of?

I'm upset but at the same time it doesn't really matter does it? You can make anyone love anyone and I can't see my kids flying to see mil when infirm or driving 400 mils to fil in a care home either. I certainly won't be as they strangers to me.

I don't want childcare, just a relationship but that was too much and certainly the gp have the biggest loss. But that's all good in their eyes as the give the kids money so can buy their surface level love. There will be no fond takes to tell their own kids.

When the oldest two hit terns they see them as they are. They know they have major flaws as GP. It's not a normal or healthy relationship. All very weird honestly. And sad. But not my job to facilitate or force.

i’m not sure you know what goady means. ranting about parents not caring about their grandkids isn’t goady.

actually if you can reread the thread i didn’t mention childcare as something they could be doing, the first thing i mentioned was them going on a 20 minute dog walk 😂

If they look after them it’s because I just about had to beg them for childcare once every few months

It's there in your OP.

And generalisations are goady, inviting blanket responses when "I'm annoyed by my parents' attitude towards their GCs" is less click-worthy.

I think your naive if you think your own children (and their generation) won't have their own complaints about yours.

I know she will. And I won't blame her for it. I have not been the best mother.

@SpudleyLass all the best. Reflecting on your posts and apologising for overreacting makes you a Mumsnet unicorn. It's vanishingly rare for anyone to do that.

You deserve a better life. And I hope that you can eventually get some support with your burden.

It's impossible to be a perfect parent for 18+ years. We're not mind readers for our kids to perfectly know how the think and feel about everything, and we're human and make mistakes.

Sounds like your parents didn't care about looking after you if you were palmed off on their parents frequently, and they don't care about looking after your children either. Doesn't sound that surprising.

@echt yeah? so reread it. it says IF they look after them it’s because i BEGGED. as in i nearly had to have my csection alone because they wouldn’t have them, for example. i had to turn down an emergency scan for a pulmonary embolism because they wouldn’t have them. i don’t mean childcare as in here have them 3 days a week while i go off gallivanting.

Exactly the same situation OP and it makes me so mad when my mum acts like Grandmother of the year with her gushing over my child whom she never sees.

You're going to get a lot of stick from the mumsnetters who believe that people should never get any help with their kids but I totally understand, we have zero help, i don't expect it but it does make it hard.

I do not have GC yet, we had zero assistance because we lived hundreds of miles from all grandparents.

We are of an age where early retirement is beckoning, we will both be under 60. I will happily help look after GC if we have any but we plan to travel extensively for a few years, who knows if those plans will match up if we get GC.

No one is obliged to help though I think that’s pretty obvious. There are good and bad relationships across every generation from time immemorial and it will continue until the world ends if it indeed does.

Bless you, @SpudleyLass. I'm sorry that your suffered so much during your childhood and hope you can get the support you need.

I’m glad you’re feeling better for the time being and thank you for being a decent person and apologising. Take care of yourself and please do try again to get the professional help you deserve.

That's appalling behaviour. Honestly, this thread would have gone much better for you if you had put examples like this in your OP and not suggested that a whole generation of grandparents is at fault. For starters, current grandparents vary from late 30s-90s, which clearly spans several generations. Secondly, it is nothing to do with one generation anyway. You are clearly angry but are taking it out on the wrong people.

it is utter shit isn’t it. and it’s the bragging that makes it so much worse… ‘oh everyone at work says xx is so clever, i told them i’ve been teaching her xyz’ like when did you do that? she hasn’t seen you in ages hun and when she does you sit on your phone and ignore her 😂

yeah everyone seems to be focusing on the generation wording and totally missing the entire point of my thread anyway lol

How charming and balanced you sound.

Do you think elders are entitled to care? Because I don't. People go on and on about 'respect for the elderly' blah blah blah. A lot of 'elderly' ie 60-80 year olds are entirely selfish and entitled and expect their kids to prop them up and even seem to think their kids should help fund their old age!

She kinda has a point, though. There is a LOT of 'not all boomers' ing going on on this thread and it is kind of boring.

I'm sorry that your mum didn't get to be a gran. That sucks. Mine did, but only for 9 years. Which makes me even more glad that we did include our parents in everything we could.

Mum said she wanted to breastfeed but the midwives persuaded her not to, and gave her meds to dry up her milk!! She was I think a little doubtful to begin with when I did it, but she became a born-against breastfeeding advocate!

She doesn't. Do you know what is really really fucking boring is having unfounded judgements, aspersions and criticisms thrown at you because of when you were bloody well born!!!

I guess it's down to a lack of intelligence, and an inability to see beyond the ignorant stereotypes.

In my experience, it is totally the other way round,

I still provide varying degrees of support, physical, practical and emotional to my adult children, for very sound reasons, and always will, while I can and while they need it.

To be told by someone like you that I am "selfish and entitled", "expect my kids to prop [me] up" and "think [my] kids should help fund [my] old age"?!!! I have funded my own old age, thank you very much.

You have a lot to learn.

No, I can't actually, unless the relationship is difficult.

My mother in law was genuinely horrific surrounding breastfeeding. Still is actually as flet it was selfish and also she's a bit protestant waspy and felt it was indecent and was horrible about it and we had a hard time. So for that reason alone and the problems it caused j can see why many women would rather rgo it alone the first couple fo weeks. We're grand now in most ways but there is a little bit of me will never recover from how she was early on.

Ah my mum did get to be a granny thanks to my brothers step daughter and eldest son who both got to meet her. And I got to chat about being pregnant with her and saw her pride albeit about a pregnancy I lost before she died. It's funny how blessings hide in tragedy.

But honestly I do think communication and particularly the older generation, the going to be granny's, could do with lessons in communication, I do think there's a whole societal issue where women were expect to put up and shut up and theb it's hard to shift that mindset. Intergenerational relationships in gamili s are very complex

Your username is hilarious. Boomer bingo is absolutely rife tonight.

I sat for days topless with my naked newborn against my chest to bring my milk in. Everytime I had to cover up for visitors and my mil demanded the baby my milk production stopped. My son almost died as a consequence of this due to undiagnosed blood sugar issues. Had I been able to stay topless constantly as I was with my daughter a few years later when I poo ut a boundary in place he wouldn't have ended up in NICU and in a coma. An extreme case but there are physiological reasons why a woman may want a few days to sort out her bodily processes before visitors