Grandparents don't seem to like my DC

[BackForABit]

I know everyone thinks their children are centre of universe and grandparents shouldn't necessarily have to match that level of enthusiasm but I'm feeling a bit sore that both sets of grandparents are just so uninterested in my children.

I have two DC, mid primary age and both are severely disabled (autism, learning disabilities, ADHD etc). I really understand that they can be difficult to connect with in a typical way and they are physically very difficult to look after (no understanding of certain things so they throw stuff everywhere and make lots of noise). However, I try to mitigate this by never EVER asking family to watch them by themselves, inviting over to our (adapted) house, paying for their hotels sometimes, etc.

I asked inlaws what dates they wanted to come see us in summer (at their convenience) and they kept saying "oh we'll sort something out" then didn't. Now I've asked about next half term and they have just ignored my message. It's been over a year (it might actually be 2 years) since they saw one of my DC and they saw the other one briefly for a couple of hours when I drove 5 hours to a hotel near them (to be fair this was for selfish reasons because the DC were driving each other crazy and I had to separate them). My own parents are a bit better but it usually takes a bit of pressure.

In laws don't ask for photos (quite the opposite), updates, nothing really. Just feel a bit sad about it.

AIBU just to stop trying with inlaws? AIBU with the whole thing about this?

I think it’s this, they weren’t interested in their own kid before the DC came along either. There will be a fair few out there who sighed a breath of relief when they could just stop parenting.

Honestly though you need to stop. They aren’t interested and I honestly don’t think it’s personal. They are probably the kind of couple who if they had been born in a different time would be happily child free. Thats not anyones fault and they should step up to the plate because once you have kids you do usually love them even if you weren’t keen on the raising bit and you still feel interested but they are just on the extreme end. Nothing you do will make a difference and pursuing it will just reinforce the pain of their disinterest.

I think you need to look at this the way that you would any other relationship where the other person wasn’t interested in you.

Would you have continually chased after your DH if he didn’t want to spend time with you when you met him? Have you ever done that with female friends?

If not, then take the same approach to DH’s family and to your own.

If you are a bit of a chaser generally, and you are prepared to keep going after people who make if clear they don’t want to be around you or value you at all, then this is a good time to look at that and do some work on building your own self-esteem.

The situation is rubbish but it isn’t anything to do with you and your family, it reflects on the kind of people that your in laws are and the kind of person your mother is, and what personal values they hold and how they see family relationships, responsibilities and life in in general… there is nothing you can do about them.

But you can focus on being a good mother and wife and friend and really upholding your own values and treating people well.

The energy you are giving to these relatives, whether it’s mentally thinking about them, or practically when you make contact…call all of that energy back to you right now.

And keep it for DC and yourself and only people you choose to give it to. If you never hear from those others again, so be it. If they do contact you, give the minimum response out of courtesy. You will feel so much better once it’s done and you accept that there is no relationship there.

I dunno, I don't think it's fair to judge the GPs too harshly. They're not ignoring your kids because of disability, you say they weren't around before they were born.

Sounds like they just don't want to have to deal with kids period. You can't automatically expect them to be interested - it might be they never even wanted to have kids of their own in the first place, as a PP said.

I'm in that situation myself with 2 disabled now young adult children. My ex was a good dad to the daughter he had before our children. But she doesn't have disabilities.

So my children have aunts uncles a grandad I'm not even sure if he's still alive a sister and 8 cousins. But it's my fault apparently for taking my kids away from an alcoholic. I've sent them friend requests on Facebook and they ignored me. So yeah I say fuck em make an effort with the people who actually want to be in there.

That is very sad, Waffle78. I can't imaging 'ditching' family members who've done nothing to deserve that.

The point I was making is that 'fuck them, their loss' is a trite and meaningless saying because if the person doesn't care a hoot in the first place, they will not be feeling a loss at all. If they feel anything, it will be relief that they're no longer being needled or expected to see/participate with people they don't care about.

It's the same thing when somebody says it about a boyfriend/girlfriend who's dumped you. What do they care? So saying 'It's their loss' is just a sop and I don't think it makes anybody feel better either because they know the truth.

@BackForABit
I 'm just going to put this out there, but ignore if you feel it isn't relevant.

If your children, multiple, are both on the spectrum and ADHD, then maybe you should also consider where these difficulties arose?
Whether from your side of the family, your husband's, or both?

I have experience in my own family, multiple cases of ASD, adhd, spanning minimum of 3 generations. Could either of your in-laws be ND, but in such a way that neither they nor you have recognised it a such?
If your MIL is unknowingly autistic say, or ADHD, or both, possibly she just cannot cope with things?
It depends on the person but sometimes people on the spectrum are less able to deal with and be around others on the spectrum, than NT people. Because they require even more adaptability and the person is already using up what energy they have to get by day to day. This doesn't mean they love you any less though.

@plasticmack I think multiple family members are ND in various different ways. Thing is, and I'm hesitant to say this because I've seen people get a lot of flack for similar, my DC are really seriously disabled: non/minimally verbal, doubly incontinent, quite extreme behaviours etc. We've been in situations where family members (fully grown adults with capacity to get married, live in a normal home, have a job) have expected me us to put their needs before my DC's. We've had some really tricky situations in the past and that may be part of the reason why they're reluctant to see us.

However, I'm starting to come round to maybe (for inlaws) this is less disability related than I assumed. I still think it's a component but other posters are right that they were like this before.

Not unreasonable no. People who don’t bother with us don’t get anything in return (including my own dad).

My in laws are like this, although they have all of the time in the world for my children’s cousins. The day my youngest was born they actually drove past the hospital he was born in to go to their other grandchildren’s house and give them school uniform they had bought for them before coming to meet him. I was shocked at that. I used to get so upset about it and tried so hard as you are doing. I’ve got to a point now where I have gave up, not worth the upset and it is their loss at the end of the day. I know it’s rubbish and I’m lucky as my parents adore my kids as much as me. Sending love x

Do you want to adopt me as a grandparent? I'd love to be involved with mine but aren't x

Would you volunteer for HomeStart? We had a HomeStart volunteer (children have to be under 5 to be eligible) and she was like a Grandparent to my DC, we went to park and swimming together. They were a lot younger then though. X

I’ve accepted that it’s all on me and there is no (unpaid) help coming from anywhere. My parents are interested in my daughter, but she is easy and fun to be around. They love photos of her in lovely clothes doing interesting things, on holiday or playing sports. She’s also very smart and you can have good conversations with her. Ie. To spend time with her is a pleasure and not hard work.

When her grandparents visit they expect to be waited on by me and entertained by her.There is no help and I’d never leave her alone with them. My mother won’t even make herself a cup of tea, let alone anything for my daughter.

I expect if I had a child or children with disabilities that they would be exactly the same as yours are. Please don’t take it to heart. I think a lot of grandparents aren’t up for anything difficult or challenging when it comes to their grandchildren (and of course there are some that are just wonderful too). So long as they feel special and loved by us they will be fine.

How hurtful. Yes the best thing to do is stop trying and accept that they're not interested. I agree with a PP that it's best to do this while the children are still too young to notice the rejection. Better to essentially have no paternal GPs than have GPs who are visibly uninterested.

The parents and in laws sound horrible. I would stop bothering.

Oh that’s difficult 😞 the youngest of my children is autistic with a mild to moderate learning disability.
Grandparents on both sides liked to visit on occasion but had no idea what was involved on a day to day basis .
If I started to tell them they cut the conversation off .

I was often desperate for a break even though my youngest would be a lot easier to look after than your children .
I never did get a break so I feel for you I really do .

My IL started treating mine differently once SIL had kids. Maybe because it was their own daughter but their attitude to those kids made mine realise they would never be treated the same.

They don't bother seeing them now at all.

unfortunately, you just learn to live with it.
my grandad was always on about how I'd never have a boyfriend (because I dyed my hair unnatural colours. I dyed my blonde hair black) and he had very limited ideas of what was attractive. this was to the extent that when I got engaged, he sent a cheque to my more conventionally attractive cousin. because, obviously, I would never convince someone to marry me, because I was a goth, despite the fact I'd been in a solid relationship for nearly ten years.

my nan, every time I reached a good landmark, would change the subject to how well one of my younger cousins was doing, because she was either a manager or a supervisor of the shop she worked for. I never got that far, despite working in retail and being great at my job, because I'm my husbands care needs, and that always came first. eventually I had to stop working, and that made me a failure.

none of the grandparents ever really seemed proud of me anymore once I wasn't the only one. and once it was clear I was autistic and "weird"
it always felt like they were releived they got other, more normal grandchildren, and didn't have to pretend to like me anymore.

Really sorry to hear some of these sad stories. Most of my own grandparents were pretty disinterested to be honest, with the exception of one of my grandmas. She was great, I still miss her. I wish I had that for my DC. Who knows, maybe behind the scenes she had to be begged to visit.

OP, you mentioned this:

"my DC are really seriously disabled: non/minimally verbal, doubly incontinent, quite extreme behaviours "

Is it possible that the GPs aren't able to connect with your DCs at all.
And possibly don't enjoy being in their company?

In which case isn't it better than there's no meetings?

To be honest both sets of grandparents sound fairly disinterested period. You say your own grandparents were disinterested. There you go.
Sounds like parenting and grand parenting was just a side effect of having sex ( sorry to be blunt). It absolutely was expected for women to get married and have children, there is still an element of pressure today. Add your children’s disabilities in to the mix, plus the distance and there you go.
I agree in scaling back.
It isn’t uncommon. My ex in-laws only visited for their own benefit. They expected to be waited on hand and foot. Total nightmare looking back.
Their loss op.

Yes, no one knows how to connect with them except DH and me. That's not necessarily a criticism of them, if I didn't have disabled kids there is absolutely no way I'd know how to play or connect with a child who was shrieking, flailing their limbs around and repeatedly trying to flush their toys down the toilet.

I expect both sides are as bad as each other but, for better or worse, I love my parents and don't love my inlaws so I'm probably harder on my inlaws.

yes that's definitely true - no one understands unless it happens to them but It has happened to the GPs, they do have severely disabled grandchildren who are hard work not an endless source of sweet photographs but they will have to face up to it eventually

I don’t really speak to MIL anymore, and my life is much better.
Early-on, with my NDS who was 18 mos at the time, and not really challenging in daytime, she babysat (with FIL) him for 2-3 hours and said child had a seizure. (And that she wouldn’t be able to look after him again). He had no previous seizures, it was serious for us, she seemed not too bothered. Neither of us believed he really had a seizure, he at that time rolled back & forth which a typical would prob not do, but not a seizure! Never had one since but it was her excuse. (FIL treated him like any other kid which was great, but couldn’t alone babysit as had some mobility issues. ). MIL would visit, it was like the Queen coming for a state visit, so demanding and bossy. I think she resented the disability because it meant she wasn’t center of attention, “Look at me, Nanna visiting! “. Rather than offer any help, she would give me a lengthy list of things she required and available before arrival from cotton buds to “Martini” for 4pm. Daily errands for her whims, bring her “frock” shopping. Then outings to see Jazz & I would happily stay home.
When ND child was about 13, and siblings 10,8&6. . MIL told DP, that I should not have gone to have 3 more kids because “can’t handle it”. We wanted 4 kids!! And it’s been hard, but now 2 at Uni and other going well. Oldest, now living independent with care. (And MIL ooozing with pride over the one at elite Uni … what silly “can’t handle it” mum has child at elite Uni???)
DP resented her negative comments and many others and told me (he prob should not have), I just cannot tolerate her now. Luckily she lives long haul flight away and no longer doing big trips, but I just don’t need her in my life saying crap like that …
Honestly, there is certainly loss of connections & loneliness that comes with “special” parenting but for me, the silver lining, is dumping people that aren’t supportive & not feeling bad about it.

Why do you keep trying to 'force' people to come and visit you? They're not interested. It's their loss, and as other posters have said, it works both ways if they ever want anything from you in the future!! You will be happier and more at peace without them. And better off, too!!

@Proudofmynane I have no idea why I do it, it's obviously something deep within me because I feel humiliated and just so low every time it happens and haven't learnt!