to think DM is unfair to ban the twins from visiting?

[timetoban]

My sister has four children: an 6-year-old, a 5-year-old and 2-year-old twins.
The older two are easy visitors. They tend to sit quietly, chat a bit and spend a lot of time on their screens. The twins, however, are typical two-year-olds. They run around, make noise, have the occasional tantrum and create a bit of mess.
DM is very house-proud and likes everything neat, tidy and pristine.

She has become increasingly irritated by the twins whenever they visit. She complains that they don't sit nicely, don't behave properly and are too noisy. Personally, I think her expectations of two-year-olds are unrealistic.

The latest development is that she has told DSis that the twins are no longer welcome at her house. She says DSis can bring the older two, but not the younger ones.

The problem is that DSis's husband works long hours and isn't always available to stay home with the twins. So in practice, this means DSis often can't visit at all, or has to choose between seeing DM and staying with her younger children.

DM says it's her house and she's entitled to decide who comes into it. DSis feels hurt that two of her children have effectively been singled out and excluded.

As OP's mum obviously hates small children and both her adult children have small children, unless her daughters put their children into some sort of childcare, and there is no reason why they should do this, her mum will need to accept that her adult children can't visit her.

She can't cope with noise and mess so she is better being on her own.

There is also a happy medium between grandparents that 'take endless delight' in their small grandchildren and those who actively hate their toddler grandchildren. OP's mum is at the extreme end of grandparents who dislike their grandchildren.

If I was your sister then I would just not see her very often. I would just speak to her on the phone regularly. It is her house of course so she can have whoever she wants over but she cant dictate how your sister spends her time. If you wish to help your sister perhaps have the younger 2 for an hour a fortnight so she can pop over to your mums without them. If you aren't able to offer that support then leave it to your sister to work out.

I think someone who struggled in a sensory way with the toddlers but genuinely cared about their DC would be compromising by meeting at the park or something.

That said I think if your parent did a bad job of parenting then it's not realistic to expect them to do a complete 180 for grandchildren.

I agree that it is a bit silly to expect her to have changed her attitude towards children.

And even if it were a sensory thing (which it presumably isn’t) then going to the park is not a solution. Believe me if the sensory issue is set off by the pitch and volume of young children, going to an (albeit outdoor) area where there are many more of them would not help!

I don't know, I find the noise my kids make hard inside but the same noise is fine for me outside. If this was the case of a nice person with some sensory struggles then they'd at least be experimenting to see if something worked. This grandma just sounds like a rotten person to me.

If they are your own kids I imagine that could work. I couldn’t cope with it inside or out.

I think ‘rotten’ is a bit strong, she has just chosen not to want to spend time with twin toddlers

The rotten is because she's not willing to even try. I personally think that her DC are wasting their time here because you can give and give to someone else but if they aren't a nice person any giving won't change that.

She had tried and had realised she can’t handle it. Why put yourself through something time and again when it’s not working?

When you love someone and care about someone you try different things. She won't consider meeting elsewhere. Even with the older ones she expects them to go on screens and be quiet. She doesn't give a toss about these people.

I'm not usually a promoter of screens but it's probably better for them to spend time on YouTube kids than around a person like that.

She doesn’t like the noise and mess that children create. Plenty of people don’t. Even removing the issue of how she apparently treated her own kids, it’s okay not to want to be around a situation like this.

She wants to spend time with her adult daughters and it’s a shame that, as they clearly want to see their mother, this isn’t possible,

Sometimes there is no compromise.

In some ways, yes you’re right.

But then what if people were only doing what they can(easily?) handle?
Like I have 2 kids but I can’t handle the noise they make so …. I give up? I I get away from their life? Give them up for adoption?

What is this woman going to say in 20 or 30 years time when she needs support herself? That her two daughters should help regardless even if they struggle to handle it? (Let’s be honest here. The mum isn’t an easy woman and it’s not Gou going to get better as she gets older). That her grand children should visit so she isn’t as lonely? Or no she’ll just do with carers and/or a care home. Never mind that at that age, with no one to oversee what’s going on, she is likely to get crap support. And that’s without talking about the fact that support will at least be partially state funded. Another one of those support imposed on us even when we can’t handle it easily .

It’s back to a reality many people don’t want to acknowledge. We’re dependent on each other. We’re all interconnected. It is not possible to live your life, esp not living it well, wo being in contact with other people.
And that means you can’t only acceotable things you ‘can handle’ wo a secong thought. Sometimes it means making an effort, compromising, finding solutions. That’s part of living in society.

That would be a reasonable approach if we were talking about learning Mandarin or scuba diving. Not so much when the activity is “having a relationship with your daughter and two of your grandchildren”.

We do all have to do things we can’t handle, I agree. However she has found a solution. Compromise doesn’t work in general because at least one party gets a crap deal.

She had made an effort by having the children round, despite it being problematic. However the situation has clearly spiralled and she doesn’t feel able to continue to do that.

She wants to spend time with her daughters so she compromised by spending time with their children too.

She is entitled to make her choices, just as the OP and her sister are entitled to make theirs

I mean she might think she's found a solution but will she be ok with her grandchildren having no relationship with her as she gets older or will she feel hard done by?

Why would she feel hard done by? She has clearly come to the decision that she doesn’t want to see the toddlers, not sure why people think she won’t have considered the consequences

People don't always. Some people believe in the power of familial relationships regardless of whether there's a real relationship between the people. The toddlers won't be toddlers forever, these kids will grow up and it could be that this woman will expect a family relationship with them because of the shared genetics but these people will see her as a stranger.

There is no reason to assume that to be the case though. And shared genetics don’t mean a thing. She has no bond and struggles to spend time with them so why would she suddenly want to bother when they get older?

For it to have come to an actual ban, it must have been pretty bad. She has taken the nuclear option and that isn’t something people do lightly.

I don't know I'm not there. The fact that the older ones are expected to sit quietly on screens makes me think it's her threshold that's low rather than the toddlers being particularly bad but who knows.

Is that the choice of the mother or grandmother though? And who provides those screens?

She wants a relationship with her adult daughters but as they won’t meet with her without the children then she has had to make the choice not to meet at all. It must have been pretty bad to get to this point

Or she is just a deeply unpleasant person. We have no way of knowing which of those is true. But OP says that her nieces just make a normal level of noise and mess for their age, and that her DM was a terrible mother so it seems, on the balance of probabilities, that the.DM has an unusually low tolerance cor young children.

Of course she can make that choice, but it appears that a natural consequence is going to be seeing her own DCs much less and to have no relationship with any of her grandchildren. I don't think I'm alone in finding this sad, and quite unusual.

I've got some sympathy for childless friends not liking your kids or wanting to spend time socialising with you without them. I don't think it unreasonable to have higher expectations for your own parents. I didn't get a lot of time to see friends without my DC as toddlers so I wouldn't be impressed if my parents expected me to use this precious little time to see them too.