AIBU to think paternal grandparents are treated as the spare option?

[Itsabingthin]

If you’re the paternal grandparent, are you the spare? I’ve noticed this pattern.
You have to earn your place by providing childcare, and then you can be more involved. Whereas the maternal grandparents are the default, and it makes no difference to their standing whether they provide regular childcare or not.

If mums take the lead im everything in the home, their sons are likely to see that as the norm

Well maybe if they bothered to show some interest in their grandchildren then it would help. My IL haven't ever bothered to make an effort, and as we are the ones who normally go see them we have just not bothered so much as they are always to busy. Probably doesn't help that their hobby is mainly something that happens at weekends, so once the kids started school they didn't have the time to come visit and didn't seem to be bothered to during the school holidays either. 😕

My Dad lives 4 hours away and has a better relationship with his grandchildren then they do.

I think it depends on the specific relationships, but it does seem that some men don’t make as much of an effort to stay close to their families and then naturally that impacts how much the grandchildren see the grandparents. I tried to foster a good relationship with my MIL, she does provide childcare for us one day a week aswell but honestly she makes it so obvious that she sees it as a chore. Forever making excuses as to why she “needs a week off”. Not ideal as we work full time and need childcare to be reliable so my go to is of course my own mum. I would however be the worst in the world if I told MIL not to worry about her day anymore, so I continue every few weeks to scramble for childcare when she lets us down.

We live in a different country to my son and DIL, but they make every effort to include us. They stay with us for at least five weeks every year, and we have an open invitation to stay with them (I go probably 4 times a year). They also FaceTime almost daily.

Spare grandparents? What a strange idea.
It’s not a competition. I couldn’t imagine constantly comparing what other grandparents did or didn’t do, or get or didn’t get.
Get a life.

YABVU to generalise when there are SO many factors that make a difference to the relationship between Grandparents and Grandchildren.

Plus the notion of 'spare grandparents' is quite bizarre.

I’m definitely the ‘spare’ grandparent. I’ve only ever seen my DS children when I’ve been involved in childcare, either when parents are at work or when they want an evening out or weekend away. I’ve never been invited to join in any social events, birthday parties, Christmas etc and any invitations from me are declined. Every event is celebrated with just DIL’s family.

Fortunately (?) the childcare and babysitting has been regular and frequent so I have a good relationship with my GC but it would be nice to be included in family events too.

I mean that thread they saw the paternal parents every weekend and in the week, they were hardly spare 🙄

Tbh I think this is actually just confirmation bias. I think some mothers of sons get very competitive with the other set of parents and see it as a I have a son/DIL issue, but I expect in relationships where the sons parents are more involved this isn't ever seen as a SIL issue.

In the majority of families the mother is the default carer for the children. Many of the mothers I know work part time, organise everything for their DC. As a result its logical that her parents will likely be more involved. She's more likely to look to her parents for support or advice. If there is a favouritism towards the womans parents it will be because she is the default parent

I think it depends on the relationship dynamics. I wanted to be close to my MIL but she made it very clear she was interested in my children and her son only. She steamrolled me (or tried to). If you treat someone that way, of course they are going to back away. If you treat the person who is the family social organiser that way, you're asking for seeing them less if you are hard work. At least if my mother tried that, I could put my foot down about it and it would change.

In my group of friends, the majority are significantly closer with the father’s parents.

However, I have a hunch that this might be because the father’s parents try much harder whereas maternal grandparents feel entitled to be involved by right.

I think this is right. It isn’t possible to have a close relationship with a child without investing time in the relationship - and typically, although not always, that time will take the form of childcare in a grandparent/grandchild relationship.

I was far closer - emotionally and geographically - to my late paternal DGM growing up and in to adulthood than to my late maternal DGM.

That’s so so sad @Mydoglovescheese I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine treating my MIL like that.

You need to have a quiet word with your son about that. How very dare they?

Or build a relationship with the DIL of her own? I'd have loved it if my MIL wanted to come over, take the children to the park together, go to the zoo, just visit. She could have invited me and the children to her home too. Never did, so there was no real relationship and she was definitely less involved than my mother as a result.

DD and I are very close - communicate every day and see each other 3-4 times a week, currently pregnant and hopefully this won’t change that
Her DH is also close to his DM but doesn’t meet up as often so assume that will stay the same - if she want to be super gran that’s fine - more love to go around - she’s also retired and lives closer to them so may see more of baby than me

Not the case for us. Neither set of grandparents is local though so they aren't involved in doing regular childcare. We make a real effort to see both sets of grandparents the same amount and try to split/alternate holiday times equally.

Despite all that, MIL constantly asks me how often DC see my family and makes passive aggressive comments any time we say we are busy on a weekend that we must be seeing my family. It has literally no basis in reality and really winds me up tbh.

Honestly, I think a lot comes down to how they've raised their sons.

If their sons are taking an equal share of raising the children and organising how the family runs including how free time is spent, then all other things being equal in terms of relationships with their own parents you'd expect both sets of grandparents to get a fairly equal look-in.

Where the child-rearing and mental load fall more on the mother, I think it's natural (not necessarily desirable but natural) for it to default more to the maternal grandparents.

It’s because your son is rubbish.

I’m sorry, that’s very harsh but it’s true.

If you aren’t seeing your Grandchildren it’s because your DS isn’t prioritising it.

My DC have always had a very close relationship with their parental grandparents even though they lived much further away from us than my parents did.

My DH made sure that we saw them very regularly and they were included in all our family events and celebrations, just as mine were.

He made sure he called them with updates and sent photos etc etc. He made sure that they felt equally involved.

Your issue is with your DS.

MIL is the only grandparent we see. I am NC with my mum. Our dads are dead.

That said, it is an obligatory sort of relationship rather than a warm one. Dh sees her when it’s necessary to be polite because he doesn’t really enjoy being around her and struggles to talk to her. He often invites her over and then suddenly remembers he absolutely must spend the next 5 hours trimming the hedges. It’s now a race for one of us to abandon ship first, so the other has to entertain her.

She’s his mum though. It’s his job to nurture that relationship and talk to her and make her feel welcome. Not mine. So I put that back on him every time. I don’t go out of my way, because he needs to be the one who is there for her, not outsource it to me.

It depends on so many different factors: relationship before meeting partner, relationship with partner, location, effort/interest on both sides, working hours.

We don’t see in-laws but that is because DH and MIL have a very polite relationship (not much interest from either side but get on well when they see each other).

Loads of friends see in-laws regularly even when they aren’t keen on each other as they can both see the love the other has for the DC/DGC.

Disagree - growing up in the 50’s / 60’s we spent far more time with paternal grandparents- though more time with maternal auntie’s family than paternal uncles. My own DC have grown up with an extremely close relationship with their paternal GPs, rather than my parents - their paternal GM was wonderful - as was mine as a child - so I fully understand why they were closer to her than to my DM.

Whatever answer you get here is a generalisation and doesn’t help change anything in your particular circumstances.

What do you have influence over in your particular circumstances that could change things for the better? If you look at things from your son and DIL perspective why might this be happening?

Usually if a woman's parents get priority it's because she actively fosters a relationship with them and sees them regularly, while many men do not.

My PIL love my DD and would happily look after her while we work if we lived closer - however we live an hour away and they very rarely come to us, so it has never even been an option as we can't get her to them and back again on a work day. We visit them regularly though so they have a good relationship with her.