AIBU to feel hurt my son will not visit while my dad lives here?

[Triniette]

So I have been up tossing and turning all night and I have no idea what to do about this.
My dad is 85, he doesn’t have any official diagnosis but he is certainly struggling with memory, controlling what he says and mood swings. He lives with DH and I, he has done since my mum passed away 9 years ago. Other than his state pension he has no income, and very little in the way of savings, my parents never owned a property.
Last week my son who is 27 and his relatively new girlfriend came to visit us.
My son’s new girlfriend has a French mother and an Italian father, her skin tone is notably tan though, perhaps what you would associate with south Italy more than anything.
My dad made a very stupid comment, something along the lines of “gosh aren’t you very dark, you wouldn’t think there was any French in you! You’re darker than some of the Italians I know, are you sure your French-Italian”
Now I don’t think my dad meant this maliciously, however I appreciate that it comes across awfully and his intentions don’t matter all that much if hurt is caused.
My son pulled us aside before they left and said it had upset his girlfriend and could my dad apologise. My dad apologised but it was clearly not all that sincere, I don’t think he believed he did anything wrong.

Today we are having a family get together, my son messaged me yesterday saying he and his girlfriend won’t be attending. There was no reason attached so I replied saying that’s okay, I hope all is well. He replied saying that his granddads comment made his girlfriend feel really uncomfortable and neither of them will be back in the house so long as my dad is still there. I replied saying I was really sorry that she had been made to feel uncomfortable and that I would talk to his granddad again as the last thing I would want is for anyone to feel uncomfortable in our home. My son replied saying it is irrelevant, as the damage is already done.

This is quite out of character for my son but I understand he just wants his girlfriend to feel comfortable.

My husband thinks they are being over dramatic and it’s not a massive deal, my dad apologised etc.

My daughter thinks their reaction is valid.

I feel totally stuck, I don’t know what to do with this, I really don’t want to have a bad relationship with my son or his partner.

AIBU to be really hurt he said they won’t come to our home again? We love hosting and all our family events are hosted at home, so he would be really missed.
What do I do?

My grandson and dad were and are both asked this constantly

If you read all the OP's posts it wasn't just one comment, ot was incessant.

The most important thing is that nobody did anything to distract or prevent the ongoing comments except the son, and as the OP writes, the son asked his grandfather to stop saying things like that once, and "the grandfather stopped the comments for a moment then started up again*.

Really , they’re constantly asked “Are you sure you’re English?”.

whoa hang on, I am in my 70's myself. where did i say that old people are all senile and where did I say that people with dementia are racist? If you look on my posts on here and other threads, you will see that i am constantly telling people that not all older people are ill/senile/picky eaters/demanding/ racist.

This update makes a difference. It sounds like he had plenty of comments to make to a guest in your home. None of which would have been pleasant for her. I wouldnt want to return and spend time with him either.

Obviously your father was insensitive to make such personal comments about a stranger’s appearance. (My elderly mother is the same and pretty much always has been. In our family, we don’t take offence and warn partners who are meeting her for the first time that she has ‘form’ in this regard. We deal with it with humour and understanding and it is water off a duck’s back. No prospective partners have been put off , to my knowledge.)
Your son’s girlfriend is, in my view, overly sensitive and reactive. The fact that she might have been bullied about her appearance and/or heritage when a child is not something she can expect others to know about and tread carefully around. Quite unreasonable.
If neither your son , nor this newish girlfriend, are willing to make allowances for an elderly man who has cognitive problems (which are only likely to get worse) then I think they are being unreasonable. Ask your son what he plans to do when you and his father grow old and maybe lose some mental faculties?

"She was on the receiving end of quite a few of my dad's comments"

not just on her skin colour but her weight and how she spoke - and not questioning but outright ridiculing/ needling/ mocking. Nobody tried to redirect him or suggest separate activities part of the time, like a walk or time in separate rooms excused by "helping" prepare food or anything.

If you know you have a family member like this you have to be ready to mitigate and distract and redirect, not just expect a guest to be the fall guy and smile and take it and come back for more.

If you know you have a family member like this you have to be ready to mitigate and distract and redirect, not just expect a guest to be the fall guy and smile and take it and come back for more.

This is what I cannot understand at all- why wouldnt the OP have said "dad- thats enough" and redirected the conversation to something else? at least it would have shown the girlfriend that you had her back. It sounds like noone said anything - they just stayed silent and watched the poor girl squirm. It was left to the son to say something.

Thats appalling for a family. If someone was a guest in my house and being spoken to like that I would say something, I wouldnt just sit there like an idiot watching her feeling more and more uncomfortable

The amount of people who ask if my grandson is mixed race is constant. He's known as the only brown boy in his class

I think most respondents who think the girlfriend is unreasonable are missing:

he did stop for a moment and then started up again

The comments were constant, varied, personal and insulting and nobody intervened.

For me this is the crux of the issue. Someone new to the family, who is obviously keen to make a good impression, gets picked apart relentlessly all day for her accent, her skin colour, her height, her weight, and it's her fault for being "immature" and "having a rough day" where everyone else ignores the behaviour and she's expected to suck it up? Especially on a topic where she was constantly bullied in school (her skin colour). You just know that she went home in tears from the stress of it.

OP comes off like she thinks she's an amazing host who throws fabulous get-togethers and her son is going to be tragically missing out. But what kind of amazingly welcoming host is totally ok with guests being treated like that?

OP, did you really not say anything at all? Even to support her, if you didn't want to interrupt your dad?

We always hear that "silence is agreement" and if you're not speaking up or calling it out, it's because you also think that and don't see anything wrong with that behaviour. (See also: men who stand by and smirk while their mates cat-call women on the street, men who look the other way while you get harassed on the train, and a crowd of bystanders who will laugh along at a rape joke being told to the group, but would tell you privately that "of course I know it's not really ok to say that".)

Goodness, if I was hit with a barrage of rude comments about how I spoke, my weight, my physical appearance and skin colour the first time I met DHs family I wouldn't want to spend much time with them going forward.

Okay, granddad is old. But no-one corrected him! It was left to the grandson. The lack of admonishment comes across as implicit agreement to an outsider. You fly with the crows, you get shot with the crows.

It might seem unfair, but first impressions count. And with an introduction like that I would be thinking, blimey! If this was best behaviour for a first meeting, what on earth will they be like going forward? I'd be best to keep them at arms length.

Well done your son. His priority will be his immediate family if/when kids come along. I'd be eating humble pie and ensure that YOU make it clear the YOU found granddad rude if you don't want to also be

Finally, perhaps reflect on your hosting skills. You are not a very good host if you allow someone to be repeatedly hit with rude and personal comments. What happened to ensuring guests feels comfortable?

I bet that if OP had stepped in, this wouldn’t have become the issue it has.

Completely different comment though. Is he asked specifically if he ‘s sure he’s English ? And told that he is too dark to be English.

Yes, I totally agree! If the OP had stepped in and told her dad to stop it and then apologised to the GF afterwards I suspect this would have had a very different outcome.

As someone said earlier in the thread, rude comments are easier to bear if you know people are standing up for you and not tolerating it. If the entire family is simply ignoring it and allowing it to continue no matter how hurtful it feels then it feels like noone gives a shit about your feelings which is not exactly a good first impression and OP is a bloody terrible host!

I agree, If the son doesn't live there and isn't experienced in "managing" his grandfather then I wouldn't expect him to know how to mitigate, distract and redirect...but saying "Dad that's enough" is not going to work, because its not a distraction or a redirection and in my experience is more likely to make matters worse.

I agree with this (sorry OP) and also wonder if more was said that you are unaware of - comments while you were out of the room, perhaps. Much unpleasantness has come my way in the past (non-racist, but unpleasant) and was brushed off as "oh, that's just XYZ, you know what he's like!!" "you have to make allowances for him, he's old, that was perfectly OK in HIS day!!" Your DS has done the right thing, I feel. I wish someone had been there to speak up for me.

And, I'm sorry, but it DOES sound racist. He has pulled her up on:
Her skin tone
Her accent
Her inability to say DS's name "properly"
F "stopped for a moment then started up again".

Your DD agrees with your DS.

I'm sorry this has happened, and I'm sorry you are hurt. But your DS has the right to name it for what it is and not be a participant or an enabler. He can still love his grandfather, but he doesn't have to endure what makes him uncomfortable and distresses other people he loves and chooses to be with.

Now you’ve provided the extra info - grandad is always commenting on her appearance - then I can see why that’s upsetting her. If it was a one-off, she might be able to get past it but it sounds like it’s a regular occurrence and that’s exhausting and annoying.

If you want to fix things then be straight with your dad. Tell him she’s upset and it’s wrong to make comments about a person’s appearance. If it were me, I’d ask him to write an apology letter to her and then promise that from this point on, there will be no more comments. Obviously if he’s possibly got cognitive decline, this will be difficult but it’s worth a try. If she does agree to come back and he says something, you shut it down immediately.

My dad was diagnosed with Dementia in his later years but even previously to that he didn’t lose his verbal filter and spoke out sometimes. DS and GF could cut him some slack though surely?

Bloody hell, some of you want to spend some time in a dementia care home - you’d be apoplectic with the number of inappropriate comments and language some residents use!
Either this man has always been a bit of an obnoxious sod, or his dementia is affecting his frontal and temporal lobes which leads to an inability to censor thoughts and a loss of impulse control. In which case, his actions are as a direct result of his disability. Maybe the grandson is just being ableist. Something to consider eh?

I only read the OP's post. Unfortunately it can be a generational thing and lacking an off-switch as get older, that's what we witnessed anyway. We had a few comments that made us shrink with embarrassment that came from my FIL, then us telling him off and that it was unacceptable. Unfortunately though the words were already out there, they'd been said and damage done.

I think, while your son's girlfriend is right to feel unhappy, I do think there should be some, well, not forgiveness but some understanding regarding your dads age and mental state. Far better to explain to your dad, stand up to what is right from wrong, explain to your dad why the comment was so hurtful rather than punish you all by staying away. If your dad carried on making these kinds of comments, then fair play, keep away.

I rather suspect that the problem is that the OP and her husband did absolutely nothing to show they weren't completely in agreement with the grandfather, or at least thought his incessant barrage of insults and personal comments were absolutely fine and the girlfriend should smile and take them.

The issue is the OP and her husband not doing anything to mitigate the situation, whichstopped for a moment then started up again when their son made one attempt to stop it.

Making allowances for an elderly man making a comment is one thing, but there's no excuse for the elderly man's daughter (the OP) and son in law here.

The OP and her husband have not only a lot to apologise for, but also need a concrete plan for handling the grandfather's behaviour if they expect their son to attend future family gatherings.

Claiming to enjoy hosting but subjecting your guest to constant personal insults and comments without even attempting to help her is really astonishingly lacking in self awareness.

In your position I would ask your son if you could speak directly to his girlfriend. Fall on your sword, big apology, much empathy, but your dad is very elderly and suffering cognitive decline. Tell her it would mean an awful lot if she could try to look past it.

it is 100% going to be the case that "most" elderly people will end up saying inappropriate things.
I do not accept this and I am over 70 myself. He was being racist.

Tell her it would mean an awful lot if she could try to look past it.

The only way this is going to work is if OP also shows she's on board by telling her dad off publicly when it happens.

If she just expects the girlfriend to stand there whilst she gets repeatedly insulted and the OP expects to do nothing about it then no, the girlfriend doesnt have to "look past it".

The OP needs to have her back, not just ignore it.