A Worrying Trend

[Buzyizzy21]

I am of a certain age where many of my friends have become grandparents in the last few years and I’m appalled.
Several of their daughters seem to think it’s absolutely fine to attempt to emotionally blackmail their parents into behaving a certain way if the poor grandparents wish to carry on seeing their grandchildren.
I have to ask them, who on earth do they think they are? Parenting doesn’t come with a manual, and I’m sure as eggs is eggs that these same daughters will make many mistakes along the way too.
I’m genuinely horrified that these young mums and dads think they can treat their parents this way. So upsetting and totally unnecessary. There is no excuse. Ever.

The only pathetic I can see on this thread is, well, you!

The only person on this thread who seems to be strangely unable to have a civil conversation is you. Perhaps “your friends” should reflect on that. Good luck with laying down the law and expecting it all to work for you.

Fortunately you don’t represent most of your generation. My folks and my DH’s folks, and many others, get it.

@Buzyizzy21 I'm sure this'll get deleted but, you sound like an absolute twat.

And here is me thinking you were posting here because you weren’t happy with the real world.

Good for you I guess?

This isn’t a new trend by the way, I was kept away from one set of grandparents and I feel no sadness about that. Parents acting in the best interests of their child is not a new thing.
You reek of ‘it never did me any harm’ attitude when in fact plenty of things that go on do in fact cause harm to children and impact then into adulthood, I have seen it with my own mother even now in her 70’s does certain things because of the effects of her upbringing.

The average first time mother is 30 so she was born in 1994/5. Her parents know about car seats and sleeping positions.

I knew ALL about car seats in the 90s. But the advice has very definitely changed since then.

I've no idea what the current advice is on sleeping positions but wouldn't assume it hadn't changed if looking after babies.

When I was a baby/child (60s) cars didn't even need to have seatbelts, and car seats weren't a thing. My parents of course followed the then current advice for our DC , else they wouldn't have been allowed to look after them.

OP & others with the same attitude - you're not doing our generation any favours.

She might not have! I had to have a retained placenta removed with dc1 and they must have scooped everything out. I had all these massive maternity pads and didn't need to use them after a couple of days, very annoyed!

"Parents wishes? 🤣🤣 Would you listen to yourselves!
My parents were never given “rules and laws” and they had a great relationship with their grandchildren. Ditto the next generation.
I’m done, off to the real world where people just get on with the job without being pathetic."

You are so defensive and unwilling to listen and learn. You've asked why this situation is happening with your contemporaries, perhaps they are as angry and unwilling to listen as you are.

My parents are not dissimilar to you. They announced when their first grandchild was born that they would not be 'used' for childcare. They spent no time trying to get to know their grandchildren and now are sad that they aren't close. It's of their own doing. I think deep down they know this but not willing to change their behaviour and put the effort in. With kids you get out what you put in. It's not complicated.

But clearly in the real world, your friends are being so unreasonable that their own children are cutting them off.
I have known this to happen in two kinds of cases. First, in a very small minority where the parents are OTT. Very small.
Vast majority of cases where the grandparents were often not great parents themselves, and are now interfering/problematic grandparents (favouring one child over the other, gendered comments, doing absurd things they have been told not to), and where the parent just gives up and goes low contact.

My MIL claimed that DH never talked back, tantrummed and slept through and potty trained at 8 months. DH said, but I used to have accidents in school in kindergarten all the time?! And MIL looked sheepish. And then FIL said, he was a terrible sleeper, and MIL got defensive and said, that was a short while, and FIL said, 'it was for several years and we were half dead from sleep deprivation.' So yes, memories are selective.

I tell you what. I have a rose tinted view now of DS1's childhood (he's a teenager), but actually he barely slept, DH and I struggled, and I really regretted motherhood and found MN by looking for 'does anyone hate being a mother' online. Now I think, oh yeah there was that phase when I was a bit tired but it's a long time ago. Actually it was just over 10 years ago and I was semi suicidal from exhaustion. It's very easy to forget and minimise the minutiae of parenting.

Yes - when parents put their babies to sleep on their stomachs and say "the guidelines are pointless, they change every five minutes", they're just making excuses. The advice has been the same for decades.

Surely, by your own logic, your "friend" should stop sobbing and just get on with the job without being pathetic?

When I had my first two in the 70s it was lie them on their back, then it changed and my nieces were put on their front, then I had one in the 90s and it was put them on their back again. It has changed in the past but it has been sleep on their backs for 35 years to my personal knowledge. Probably longer but I can only state 35 years myself.

One day, maybe, you’ll all be grandparents and just remember that chickens come home to roost.
Like I said, I am so disappointed that you young mums think you know so much better than your own parents and your OH parents.

We are grandparents. Our daughter does know SO much better than we did. We defer to her knowledge in all things childcare.

This.

It is such an odd way of posting.
Why start a thread with a click bait opening post, but then totally refuse to explain what it is you are actually talking about ?

I have to agree, your inability to understand how a conversation works might well be related to the fact you have friends who might also struggle with communiation.

Wow well thank you because I was literally like that’s impossible mum 🤣

My bar is just fine, thanks, but you are extremely rude.

It's no odds to me what you do with your children. You don't need to take it out on me if you have rubbish parents. I didn't.

My late parents were amazing and I miss them every day. My kids are now adults and they are just fine.

I don't think they have changed that radically, and anyway it's not difficult to get your head around it.

It’s not rude to have standards higher than “won’t cause harm”.

You quoted my post- perhaps if you don’t want people to reply to you, don’t quote them. You’ve completely missed the point of the thread and are defending good grandparents. That isn’t what this thread is about.

I did not say that. I said, "they would never, ever have done anything to cause them any harm" - just on the subject of misunderstanding...!!!

Kindly please do not lecture me on how to post.

I'm happy for people to respond to me in a civil manner. I didn't invite your rude remark.

Cool, have a good night

I think we're probably a similar vintage @OMGitsnotgood!!

I'm not yet a grandmother but this 'assumption' that we're going to fuck it all up because we're older really annoys the hell out of me!

It's as though anyone 50+ can't update their knowledge? Most of us aren't going to deliberately set out to sabotage our children's wishes as to how they want to raise their child!

I know my parents read up on updated advice, and very much recognised that things were different to when they had babies. They didn't ever try to interfere. I think my mum was a little non-plussed at the start when I decided to breastfeed but she became a 'born again breastfeeder' 😁. She said she would have loved to try it with us but it was all about bottles in the 60s; she was even given tablets to dry up her milk supply!

All this business about grandparents not being allowed to see grandchildren pisses me off too, because most of them are loving, caring people - surely having awful people as parents is the exception, not the norm?!

As always this makes me feel that yet again grandparents think they have the right to parent their grandchildren. When the parents state how they want to parent their own child they get accused of being difficult and being cut off. No child cuts off their parents without a valid reason, not all parents are good.

That's not the case with most grandparents. The good ones recognise their role.

Put the wine down, op.
My in laws aren't entitled to a relationship with their GC, nor do they have one, apart from a yearly supervised visit.
I suppose you think that makes us ghastly