Am I as a grandmother being unreasonable?

[TheOpenBee]

Please excuse this wall of text...

I'm looking for some advice on what to do with our current situation.
I have a daughter 27 who has a 3 year old son. My daughter works 3 days a week and up until December last year we looked after our grandson while she was at work on those 3 days.

Last December she split up with my grandsons father and he moved away. My daughter started bringing our grandson to us every single day, on days she wasn't working she'd be dropping him off and going home to bed saying she was tired because my grandson wasn't sleeping well without his father's presence and she'd been having a hard time at work. We accepted this for a few weeks but then it started to get silly.

My daughter works a 15 minute drive from our home. She'd finish work at 5 and instead of coming to pick her son up at 5.30 ish like normal she'd start turning up at 7 with no explanation as to where she had been.

He'd be served his evening meal at 5.30 and start getting excited that mummy would be back soon then he'd wait and wait for her as she gets later and later arriving. It breaks my heart when he keeps asking for reassurance that mummy is coming back.

When she is at our home with her son she sits on her phone ignoring him. He has to ask her for affection or to be involved in something he is doing. One example was last weekend my daughter and grandson were at my home, my grandson got a sandpit for his birthday and was stupidly excited when we said he could play in it. He went around everyone in the room asking them to put their shoes on and come and see his new toy. His mum for a change actually did what he asked and came outside, you could see his eyes light up when he saw her coming outside. She stayed maybe 5 minutes then decided whoever she was texting on the phone was more interesting and went back inside. My grandson looked at his grandad and said "she's not coming back is she" got really sad, asked for a hug then decided he didn't want to play with sand anymore and asked to go back inside himself.

My grandson is without doubt missing his mummy, he sees her for less than an hour in the morning and as his bedtime is technically 7 a lot of nights she takes him straight home to bed.

On the rare occasion she's paying him enough attention and actually praises him he gets emotional and immediately starts to cry. He craves her attention so much that when he gets it he doesn't know what to do.

Now we move on to a few weeks later and grandson has still been at our house all-day 6 days a week (his daddy has him on a Sunday) the only difference is my daughter on the 3 days she's not been working has been coming up to our house with him. She will sit on her phone texting her new boyfriend all day while we look after the child.

We talked to my daughter mentioning that we were unhappy with the current situation and our grandson can't be with us all the time and needed some 'just mummy' time. She got really defensive saying we just didn't want her to have a life and stormed out.
The next week she actually spent a whole day with him taking him to a local activity centre and baking cupcakes with him which he loves to do. My grandson came to us the next day happy and super chatty telling us all the things he'd done with mummy. We hoped that things were getting a tiny bit better and the next week she spent a whole day with him too.

Now to today my daughter turned up at our house saying my grandson was obviously too much of a problem for us to keep looking after so she'd enrolled him in a local nursery from 8am to 6pm all 5 days a week.
This is not what we wanted at all. While we agree nursery would be a good thing for him 50 hours a week seems like torture for a child who is already worried that he's been left when his parents are out of sight for only a short while. We were and still are always happy to have him while my daughter works. He's going from missing his daddy, to missing his mummy (even when she is physically with him) to having his grandparents taken away too and it's breaking my heart. All we wanted was for her to spend some time with him and instead she's decided to send him away from all of us.

What can I do? Am I being unreasonable asking her to actually participate in her child's life more?

How did this go OP? Did your daughter follow through or was your DGS at your door to he cared for as usual?

OP is rightly concerned for the welfare of her GS, her DD has a new bf which she prioritise over her child, she's an adult if she is depressed she can get help, her little boy can't.

I’m always horrified at how quickly women will jump on other women when they’re down.
Where’s the support and understanding?!

Ah yes, the sheer irony of this post above top. To be agreeing with a post on how quickly women will allegedly 'jump on other women when they're down' and questions ' where is the support & understanding!?'

And to stupidly compound this with ' 'Definitely. And really sad that her own mum is so critical.'

Firstly The GM is a woman, and here you are jumping on her when she is really down & worried. Where exactly is the support & understanding in that?

The GM is reaching out here out of real concern for her GS ( & her DD). She is likely at the end of her tether, most worried about her poor neglected GS, her daughter's behaviour, and simply because she raised these concerns with her petulant DD, now whether herself & the GF will get the chance to see & look after their GS again, when he most needs them..... after previously caring for him 3-5 days per week....

Yet you weigh in here remarking how sad it is she is so critical, agreeing with a post questioning support & understanding!? Like, seriously!?

Her support is obvious firstly. Not every set of GPs look after their GS 3-5 days per week free gratis. Not every GM goes out on a limb to protect their GS's welfare in a very sad situation. Not every GM seeks support & understanding when her own DD petulantly lashes out , & threatens to take the GS away from her & the GF I.e. the boy's loving GPs.

Her 'criticism' was purely based on this. Meanwhile her concern, support & understanding are so very obvious....

Kindly consider this fully before posting like that again.

The posts telling the OP and her husband to take the child on as their own are a bit concerning because they've done their childrearing and I can imagine that when you've reach an older age you may not want to start raising a small child from scratch! The grandparents wellbeing matters too and they may even still work if the daughter is
Is 24.

i don’t view myself as jumping on OP. I was referring to some of the unnecessary comments about the OP’s daughter. I’m sure it is unpleasant for the OP to be reading some of the vitriolic comments about her daughter on here. Expressing concern for her grandson does not negate any concern for her daughter.

Indeed, I posted a very personal reply a few messages back empathising with the OP and sharing my own story.

But that requires you to read the full thread to realise that.

Sweet Lord...

I was clearly commenting on @cleverbutscatty's post which was made in a reply to your post.

'Definitely. And really sad that her own mum is so critical.'
That's why my post is a fairly scathing reply to her comment, and why she is quoted in the body of my reply on top of this!!

Then ironically you try to finish with
"But that requires you to read the full thread to realise that."

Perhaps if you had just read my post correctly, you know the one that you are commenting on, you may have realised that!?....

You referenced my post as part of your reply, using my post as the catalyst.

I’m aware of the thread I’m reading, thank you.

You have a great evening.

If the OPs DD was an involved and active parent before her relationship breakdown she will get back to that.
Mums are human. She is the parent who is still there caring for her son.

I very much doubt such a such a young child said 'she's not coming back is she?' it's just linguistically and developmentally unlikely. 'where is mummy?' Or 'when is mummy coming?' is more likely than a phrase dealing with degrees of probability.

The fact that the OP is embellishing details makes me think the DD is under par whilst coming to terms with her family breaking down and the child's dad buggering off and leaving her to it, whilst the OP shines her halo and compares her DD to her perfect mothering standard.

I also noticed that the OP has avoided the question of how/why the relationship broke down. For example of he unexpectedly left her for another woman. Most of us would be in pieces and just going through the motions for a while.

Wow, how vindictive & judgemental can you get!?

Firstly, you write "The fact that the OP is embellishing details..."

This isn't a fact, this is just your judgemental opinion. And an opinion based on what exactly? Oh yes, very subjective, uninformed & biased linguistic analysis, by what expert exactly, oh yes , just you is it!?

Then you write: " and the child's dad buggering off and leaving her to it, ..."

Again this is simply your assumption. There is no account of this from the OP whatsoever. Yet you brazenly assume this - truly bizarre....
(However we do know he pays her full rent, whille (maybe forced into) renting a room elsewhere to live, takes the child 1 day a week, plus when the oh so precious DD wants to go out with her (new??) Bf, all the while working a full time job, & then doing extra shifts in a bar at night to pay for this whole escapade)

Then you follow up with: "I also noticed that the OP has avoided the question of how/why the relationship broke down...."

She didn't avoid the question, she simply didn't give details in her OP, or subsequently, for whatever reason or perhaps none!

And then you throw in :"whilst the OP shines her halo and compares her DD to her perfect mothering standard."

Now that in the circumstances is just plainly nasty. Kindly cut it out !

so @CleverbutScatty you may well be scatty, but you're clearly not clever, and also frankly, quite mean.

Good luck!! Gawd damn!!!!

The dad hasn't necessarily "buggared off", maybe the child's mum was difficult to be in a relationship with given what the OP has said about her!! And what can you expect from him when he'll no doubt be in a full time job? What more is it the dad can do? Stay in a destructive relationship which wouldn't benefit the kid or work part time and live in a tent so he can afford to be around more?
It's weird how you are so desperate to demonise anyone but the mother?

To me this is why nobody should ever have a kid unless they truly want one with a passion and they need to have the thoughts and discussions about what happens if the relationship breaks down because it's like this mother now sees the child as baggage because she is starting a new life with a new fella. It's obvious that the OP is cut up about the impact this is having on her grandson!

My husband and I are meeting my daughter on Friday to talk. I guess we’ll find out then when we go from here. Grandson was at my door on Monday morning as expected and was here today as well. The talk of full time nursery from September is very much still active.

When the initial break up happened and she started leaving her son here I did believe she was depressed. This is the reason we tried to do everything we could to help her at the time. She’s never been someone to open up to me about her emotions. Now I really don’t know if she is or not some of her actions say yes some suggest otherwise.

I really have no idea what the final break up was over. I have in the past had a policy of staying out of my daughters love life unless she asked for advice. If she didn’t have my grandson now I wouldn’t be worrying about this new partner either.

'She's not coming back is she?' is exactly what he said his language skills have always been advanced and are often commented on. But that's really not relevant to this topic.

*I’d like to say an especially big thank you to those of you who have been in the situation of my daughter or been a child of a parent that did something similar. Looking at it from your perspectives has been invaluable.

Well done sorting out a meeting, that’s a positive start.
All of you will have your grandsons best interests at heart.

Well done OP, hope your DD come to realise that, that little boy needs her and that she's very lucky to have your help.

Best of luck for today xx

Well said. She's in the minority with that spiteful post.

Just wow. 🙄

Take zero notice of this gaslighting crap, OP.

Yeah, Best of luck today OP!! 👊