Not to be expected to travel 150 miles to see grandchildren

[changinghairstyle]

My son and his wife moved 3 and half hours away and then had children, the move wasn't for work or house prices it was simply to live by the sea.

Both son and his wife drive but I've had to stop driving due to age related health conditions.

My son and his wife are not prepared to come and visit because they say it's too far and they work and have children but they have said if I wanted to see them and the children I can come and see them even though they know I can't drive, they also don't have a room at their house so I will have to stay in alternative accommodation.
I have 3 empty bedrooms.
I have declined an invitation and instead invited them to come and stay but now my son is saying I obviously don't want to visit so don't bother then and declined my invitation.
I miss my son terribly and the grandchildren.

Aibu to think they shouldn't expect me to travel all that way with no car and book myself into a hotel when they could just drive down and visit me and I have the room?

The key question here is how old are the children.

IMHO if you live 3 hours away from Granny then, unless there's a disability kids of pretty much any age should be expected to make that journey. If they're under Junior School age you'll need stops. A bit older get them listening to CD's or digital music audiobooks etc.

We took our daughter from the South Midlands to the Western Isles aged 6 months. Regular stops obviously and a couple of overnights down route. She was fine. Later journeys in France, some all day to eat up the miles, were smoothed by Harry Potter audio books.

Her son, our grandson, has done similar distances.

You sound really entrenched in your view that they should be the ones travelling . I share their view. They have three young children including a baby. That is an exhausting part of life.
We were 4 hours now 6 hours from my mum. We both work full time and my mum is retired and 14 years older than you at the same stage. Over the years we have rarely visited her . She comes to us usually on the train and sometimes we meet somewhere else. My inlaws do the same as we were 2.5 hours now 4 hours from them.

She understands that life is mega busy at the moment for us and we love seeing her. We have good relationships with all the grandparents.

I don’t think you should see their lack of visiting as personal. You need to go to them.

You’re 62, why cant you get on a train?

Sounda like you blame the DIL for stealing your precious son away.

Yes she has. She has said ‘I’ve never got to see my grandchildren’
That’s fairly clear?

Come on, OP. Tell your husband you want to see your son. Arrange a weekend when your son's free. Book a B&B or a Premier Inn or something in that area. When you get there, only say nice things. See your grandchildren and have a lovely time. You're only 62. You've got plenty of life in you yet!

62? You made it sound in your earlier posts that you were old!!!

What is all of this pain that they have put you through, exactly?

You're starting to sound a bit petulant and self pitying tbh, so unless there is some massive back story that you're about to drip feed which completely changes everything, I think I'm starting to feel like I understand why your son and DIL can't really be arsed.

I would have more sympathy if you were telling us that your illness/disability made it impossible for you to travel. Or if you simply didn't have the financial resources to pay for a visit. But it's very clear from your posts that you're just being pigheaded about it. They won't visit you, so you and your DH have both decided that you're not going to bother visiting them.

That's your prerogative, of course. There is no law against being petty and self righteous. But if that's the approach that you choose, then you need to accept that the consequences of that may be that you won't have much of a relationship with your grandchildren.

No point in coming on here and moaning about how much you miss the dgc if you're too busy making a point to DS and DIL about how unreasonable they're being. If you really miss them, just get on a train and go and see them.

YABU.

Travelling with small children and their stuff for 3.5 to 5 with breaks is stressful, if you want to see your grandkids then make it work. They might relax their views when the children are smaller, but my guess is they probably don't get much sleep at the moment, probably don't get any down time without kids and then doing a long trips is very stressful. Packing, unpacking, sorting dinner out, illnesses (kids seem to be I'll every time they need to go away it seems!!) They I'm sure want to spend time with you, but at the moment they are in that survival haze of small children.

You sound like you have time, there are many alternative ways to travel. Don't be bitter because they moved away, they don't need to compromise to make you happy. Why don't you move to near them?

Can you not get public transport to see them, book a B&B for the weekend? Can be a coastal mini break while seeing the grandchildren too.

Have you ever asked yourself why they prefer to spend time with your daughter-in-law's parents?

You sound like my mother. She is massively resentful that we spend more time with my husband's parents than her, but it's for a good reason.

Like your son and his family, we moved a long way from both our families for a better life. We still live in the UK, but about 300 miles from family. The reactions of our parents were very different.

My husband's parents were supportive of our decision and shared in our happiness, even though they would have preferred us to remain closer.

They visit us several times a year and we make the return journey several times a year. They are always pleased to see us, wanting to hear our news and what our daughter is doing. When we visit them, they bend over backwards to make our visit enjoyable.

My mother was determined to do everything she could to stop us moving. She used threats - "I'll never visit", warnings - "You'll regret moving away from family", "You won't be able to make friends" "You won't be able to afford to move back when you realise what a terrible mistake you have made".

When she realised we were going anyway, despite everything she said, she turned nasty. "You're a bad mother ruining your child's life by taking her away from her family and friends".

When we are staying with my in-laws we usually pay a duty visit to my mother (she lives 10 miles from my in-laws). She is never pleased to see us, but still berates us for preferring to spend time with my in-laws.

She makes unreasonable demands and calls me a bitch or an ungrateful cow when I don't concede to those demands.

She is always making little digs suggesting we are not really happy in our present home, which is ridiculous given that we are very happy and enjoy a high quality of life. Unfortunately, she makes no attempt to conceal her resentment of our happiness.

Who would you prefer to spend time with?

If they couldn't be bothered to bring the first child to see you even once in the 3 years when that was the only child, then this is clearly nothing to do with the number of children they have. It seems like your son just has no interest in having you in his life.

It doesn't make any difference who's reasonable or unreasonable, which logical arguments stack up best. Your choices are visit him, or don't see your grandchildren.

I guess you need to choose whether you care enough about seeing them to let him "win" on the location. You can choose to hold out for them to visit you, in the hope you'll win the battle of wills, but all that will do is alienate them further and let more time pass before you see your grandchildren.

Parents of young children get so little annual leave to use as they please - my husband and I scrimped and saved to get one week off a year together. The rest mainly went on looking after sick kids, hospital and therapy appts etc. But I'm getting sucked into the logical arguments when really it comes down to whether you want to see them .

I think you should be taking turns to visit each other. I don't agree that a 3.5 hour journey is too difficult with young children - certainly no more difficult than expecting you to get the train/coach plus the journey at either end to get to the station, any changes etc. I think an earlier suggestion in this thread that you should downsize because you no longer need three bedrooms is ridiculous. Your house is your home thst you've presumably lived in for many years and I think it's so unreasonable when people tell people they should leave their family homes just because they don't need as much space when they're older.

You have 4 DC - how often do you see the other DC - how far away do they live?
You're the same age as me and there's nothing on earth that would stop me getting on a train or coach/book a taxi/airbnb 2 or 3 times a year for a long weekend to go see them (if driving there is becoming tricky) whilst I'm able to.

Three DC and working ft is hard work for parents, especially as the DC grow up and have weekend sports/parties.

You could suggest meeting them halfway for the day?

You sound like you want the relationship all on your own terms. Your DS priority is his wife and 3DC now and you both have to fit in with this. You backing yourself into a corner and guilt tripping them to visit won't help, it'll just make them spend time with "easier" (her) family. You're making it difficult for yourself to reframe your relationship with DS and their DC. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face by not visiting them.

It is a long way to travel with three young children but it does make logical sense. They can stay at OP's house and they can visit other family members.

By the same token, they couldn't be bothered to go meet their grandchild, who is now 6?

We have the same but in reverse where my parents retired a 5 hour drive away. We have a young child and both work full time, we just don't have the time or inclination to use precious annual leave to sit in a car for 5 hours with a screaming toddler. As PP's have said, you are the one who is time rich and therefore can make more of the effort whilst they're in the young child stage.

If you're only 62 now you were only mid-50s when your son moved away, and has since had three children whom you've never seen - gosh you really are stubborn aren't you!

Your son sounds weak, like he's put all responsibility for "the diary" on to his wife.

But we can wait for ever for what we want to happen, doesn't mean it will.

What do YOU think you should do here OP?

@FrangipaniBlue - yes, OP says 'I've never got to see my grandchildren yet I have seen on Facebook her family with the children.'

OP - My mum is 84 and we live about three hours drive away from her. We can no longer visit her with our children because of my older son's special needs, so she catches a bus and two trains to stay with us regularly.

I do, of course, visit her myself (without the kids), but she misses her grandchildren, so she makes sure she visits regularly.

If you want to have a relationship with your grandchildren, you need to make it happen.

My son lives 3 hours away (via public transport) but we make the effort to visit about 4 times a year (no grandchildren yet). He does visit us too but I wouldn’t expect that once he has small children.

There are younger people in my family who stopped driving to visit anyone once they had children, saying it was too difficult to drive with children.

I don't really understand that, when my kids were small and it was just me and them I drove them as far as Southern France for holidays. We had stops on the way and they had entertainment in the car.

Now in my late 50's and not as healthy and energetic as I used to be, I find driving a lot more fatiguing than back then - more than 3 hours in one day, even broken up, and I will be tired for a couple of days.

So I don't agree that it is automatically harder for young people to drive with kids, than it is for older people without kids. It depends on health and other factors.

OP, if you have energy to drive and can afford to make a holiday of it, I would do that and show willing.

After a couple of times DGC will be older and maybe your son will be more amenable to making the effort themselves.

But also, could they be worried about DGC damaging your house if they visit, and not being able to relax? I never knew how un-child friendly my house had become until DGC came to stay and started throwing around things that I never imagined they would be able to access....

And at 62 you're far too young to be saying 'I'm not getting any younger'.

I really must get on with my chores and not get involved in these family dramas! They're so unbelievable.

My nan and grandad are 84 and 76, they're driving 250 miles to visit me this year as I haven't been able to get down to them due to work commitments and illness. I started out being sympathetic towards OP but the OP is 62? if they really haven't met their 6 year old grandchild because her DH can't be bothered to take time off and drive up there, and the OP won't get on a train or coach then something is really wrong here and it's no wonder that the son doesn't go and visit them.

I don't think you've answered this, OP – can you get public transport? Would you be able to/want to get an Airbnb or a hotel?

Right. Especially because the OP was only in her mid-50s when the first child was born. It sounds like she doesn't think she should have to make an effort, and her son doesn't particularly care if she does or not.