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.

Interesting point - I would have thought she’d be quite offended as she has several properties she and my dad rent out and they don’t have a mortgage but it’s a fair question. Would I expect pay for looking after elderly relatives? Absolutely not!

I feel you OP. Both sets of my children's GP are rubbish. I already can't wait to have my own grandchildren (YEARS off lol)

Many villagers have thrown in the towel because parents only want their labour and their money, not their input, advice, opinions, etc. "Don't question my parenting choices!" etc etc.; just think how many Mumsnet threads there are about how grandparents or MIL or whoever is in the wrong over simple things.

It is easy to see why people just say "the hell with it, I'm going to enjoy life and let them get on with it..." instead.

(just as so many women complain their men won't be equal parents, and then admit to micro-managing, criticizing everything the co-parent attempts to do.)

If parents actually showed any respect for the "villagers" (I've seen many posts on here to the effect of "why should they get respect just because they are older?") maybe the villagers would feel differently. It's a two-way street.

No one wants to spend their golden years providing free childcare while being told to keep one's thoughts to oneself.

It’s sad that some grandparents don’t show any interest in their grandchildren, I can understand why OP finds it disappointing. It’s unreasonable though to encourage people to join in venting about “this generation of grandparents “. Firstly, not everyone in a particular generation is the same and secondly a first time grandparent could be any age from early 40s to nearly 80 , so not really of the same generation at all. It would be wrong to generalise about mothers of toddlers too, for example, as they’re a diverse group of people.

This is just you projecting @LaurieStrode. I'm sorry if you have felt badly treated but, as you say, relationships are a two way street. There have also been plenty of threads about rude, critical, over bearing grandparents. Again, this thread isn't about childcare and golden years but about cultivating and maintaining mutually beneficial, loving relationships within a family. I think it's sad that many grandparents have no interest in getting to know their own grandchildren or seeing their own children when they are able.

I think they are saying that if the grandparents reject the grandchildren, then in 20 years time it could sour their relationship with their own parents. It might naturally degrade the relationship.

Parent/child relationships are complex so it's not as binary as you suggest anyway

Sorry its taken so long to reply.

We honestly don't know. Its been like it since the day they were born.
We live a good four hours away and maternal nana has recently moved two streets away.
I am not in the slightest competitive we don't care who does what with the GC we just care they are having a good time.
My son has told me the other GPs feel intimidated by us, purely because we have the finances to offer these things. I think at the time the other GPs were not in work.
When its their birthdays we are invited up the weekend before and snatch a few hours but the main event we are not part of.

DIL feels threatened by me ( My son's words) and i honestly don't know how to navigate that.

We rely purely on my son for contact Face time etc and DIL is not forthcoming at all.

We managed a few hours Xmas eve morning with them but we had to hide the presents we bought for them and all this was opened at her mums Xmas morning.
Shit, its absolute shit but I can't and won't question it, for the sake of my son we just smile nicely and are grateful for the crumbs they throw. We literally will see them if we have organised and paid for a day out for the six of us.
My husband (son's dad) did try to open a conversation with son when they were alone but son became defensive and it's easier not to rock the boat tbh.

But back to the OP,
My granny was like a second mum and my own mum played a huge part in my children's lives.
I wouldn't have been able to work without her TBH.

I am sad for you that they are not as invested as you would like it.
I don't know the answer I'm afraid, but as your children grow they will not have the bond and the GPs are truly missing out.

they don't owe you childcare

That is really sad @poppettypop . Going back to @icelollybrolly maybe if you had acknowledged the comments from many people on this thread, that many grandparents are not as rubbish as your own parents ,it wouldn’t have become such a controversial,grumpy thread 🤷‍♀️

I’m not sure what you mean? Whose relationship might be soured with whose parents?

I agree that most human relationships are, or can be, complex.

??

i don’t need to acknowledge comments on my thread that aren’t related to the thread though. half of it was boomers getting defensive and my parents aren’t even boomers anyway 😂

With OP as example, If GP doesn't want to spend time with OP DC. Then when GP are older, OP might not feel close to them, as she might if they wanted to me involved.

You said it was bad people would punish parents. But rather than punish, it's not that OP might not feel close to them due to their actions.

Your comment was more general than the OP. But I'm just saying that someone in a similar position isn't necessarily being transactional or punishing. It's a natural consequence

It’s also about the grandkids relationship with the GP. For example my dd has not seen her grandad sine she was three. She is nine now. Do you think unless he bucks ideas up she will want her first drive up to his house will be to cry at his funeral? If you can’t make space for grandchildren in your life and you keep rebuffing your adult child’s offers to drive 300 miles to facilitate it, when your retired, you can’t expect a deep meaning relationship.

OP do you express dissatisfaction with how your parents spend time with the kids? Do your parents hear others complaining about their parents and how they interact with their GC? Do they read too many online stories about horrible GP?

If your parents spending more time with your kids is a goal you need to put effort into making that happen. Right now it feels like you want them to just want to do things your way and will be hurt if they don’t - but it is possible that they are convinced that anything they do will be wrong (even if that comes from other people not you - anything out does sound like you aren’t happy when they do spend time together!).

Invite them to the park with you. Video call and say DC wants to show you a new song they’ve learnt. See if you can pop in for half an hour. Of you want them to be friends organise play dates 😉

You may find your parents have no interest in your kids, or you may find they just aren’t comfortable initiating things, or being responsible for them. Or are stupidly holding back so they don’t look like they are controlling/taking over/telling you how to raise your kids.

But this is exactly what I am saying. If someone doesn't care, they simply don't care. Why do you think you can or should change them? I had a lovely grandmother, a standoffish grandfather (maternal and paternal respectively, the other two were long since deceased before I was born) and I have been a loving mother and will be a loving grandmother. If I were not though, how could anyone persuade me to be?

It doesn't sound as though your father wishes to 'buck his ideas up' does it? He has free will presumably so it's up to him how he acts. He sounds cold and univested but what can you do about that? Insist he goes into therapy? I doubt if he cares whether your daughter attends his funeral to be honest. My STBEX husband had no relationship with his father either and didn't mourn him when he passed away from Covid. I was more upset than he was and I'd barely met the man.

I don't think it's a restriction of 20 mins it's that they dont even want to spend 20 mins with their child and grandchildren

YANBU, I relate to this so hard and my kids grandparents are retired!

Couldn’t resonate more with me! My mother in law loves to take my sons to show them off to her friends for an afternoon every few months and seemingly take credit for all the work my husband and I have done, without ever offering any support. However actually I feel quite sorry for her as my sons are growing up now and it’s the people in the family who have invested the time with them when they were very little who have the close bond with them that she likes to project she has.

I have fantastic memories of spending time with my grandparents who lived round the corner from us.

The dynamic is different with my own children as we live further away. I'm now caring for my mum who is in ill health (also 2 hours away) Before that she loved spending time with the grandkids and I would take them to stay often, particularly if my husband was away for the weekend.

It's harder with my in laws. They are quieter, different people. They like to see the kids - on their own terms. The main issue is ( and I suspect this might happen quite a lot) is that my husband just wouldn't think to take them to visit for the day, or stay the weekend, whereas I would to my mums. I have to nudge him to ring them.

So those criticising their DILS- What part are your sons playing in contact with your grandkids?

I gave up on him 16 years ago when he let his drunk wife slap my toddler around the face as he went up to dance with them at a wedding. He doesn't give a shit and never has.

I guess my point is, that socially, we are still expected to try ( well dh it's not my dad). Because the expectation is that grand parents care. But in reality he was a shit and absent father to dh.

I have no feelings for him. I silently said to myself I could declare him missing assumed dead after 5 years. It's the expectation that everyone has a happy close family but that's not really the norm. If someone is disinterested they aren't really a loss if they aren't part of your life.

I think we are actually in complete agreement that your DH’s father is a scumbag. My ex husband’s father was too. He was a workshy alcoholic and handy with his fists.

I don’t think that anyone is under any obligation to get along, or pretend to, socially though. I may be out of step with the rest of the world but I rarely feel any societal pressure to conform to ‘rules’. I’m diagnosed with ADHd so maybe that makes me immune because most of the time I’m not even aware there are any rules 😳

You could have pulled back from tarring everyone with the same brush. Your comments are very insulting to those of us grandparents who spend a lot of time with their grandchildren. Also, to those who want to spend time with grandchildren, but are put off by over entitled restrictive parents who have to micromanage their own parents because they do not trust them.

Im a grandparent to a 5 year old and a 1 month old baby, im 47 and I work, I also have other children at home, come the weekends im shattered and I want to spend time with my own dc. They come first. Having said that I do babysit and I do have dgd overnight every other week but there’s no way in hell I’m having them all weekend every weekend, I’d tell you to piss off if that’s what was demanded of me.

Maybe you should have clarified that before you slagged off a whole generation of people due to the inadequacies of your parents. Not sure what's funny either!