Upset that my parents prioritise their caravan over seeing their grandson

[Toon49]

Not sure if I'm being stupid feeling this way but I've been really upset by it and feel guilty for feeling this way.

My parents live an hour away and have a static caravan an hour in the opposite direction (so 2 hours away). They spend pretty much every weekend there and we rarely saw them, whenever we invited them anywhere there was always some reason they couldn't come as were at the caravan. I get that's their social life, we had conversations about it where I was just made to feel like I was being stupid and difficult and I just came to accept it.

Now I have a baby who is now 18 months. Initially my mam would visit every couple of weeks. Unfortunately my mam had cancer and had to stay away whilst getting treatment and on chemo which obviously was no ones fault. She's now over all the treatment and seems to make excuses as to why she can't visit or do anything with him all the time. Completely understand this and was accepting she's getting over cancer it's obviously too much with a toddler.
However my parents are now at the caravan every weekend again, out at the pubs and bars with friends and going on days out/for walks etc. They own 2 houses they rent out as holiday cottages near the caravan and spent a lot of time fixing stuff there. They will maybe visit us a couple of hours on their way back from the caravan on a Sunday night once a month or so which makes us feel like a chore they're ticking off. My dad still works full time so they can't visit during the week.

I think I just feel disappointed as it feels that they would rather spend time at the caravan than with their grandson and it does upset me when I was so close to my grandparents. They have plenty of money, my dad could easily retire to spend more time with him during the week and could still use the caravan every weekend. They could comfortably afford a house closer to us to rent out/use if they wanted to and didn't want the drive, they've happily bought multiple houses near their caravan to rent out/use themselves in winter rather than buying something near us which doesn't feel great!
They claim they love spending time with us and want to help out which just annoys me more when they don't actually do it. Ironically my grandparents used to do all the childcare for us for 2 days a week when we were kids and we would see them every weekend on top of that and my parents would still complain they didn't get much support! We've never had anyone who could have our son for even an hour!
I visit my mam when I get a day off during the week if I can but my son is a terrible sleeper and it messes up his routine so we then have a terrible night after with him so it's a bit of a nightmare and there's nothing at my parents house for him so I have to drag everything he needs and toys etc with me so it's not easy but I try to do it when I can! We can't visit at weekends as they're not there as at the caravan which is to far away.
Not sure if I'm being completely unreasonable as if I try to mention anything I'm just made to feel like I'm being stupid and my feelings are never acknowledged. It just feels like the caravan is their priority and it always has been, I just thought having a child would change that. After having cancer and not seeing him months, I'd have thought they'd want to spend as much time as possible with their grandson but maybe I'm being selfish and expecting too much as my grandparents did so much for us! I keep hearing friends with all this support and going on days out with grandparents and I'll admit it does make me jealous.
Just want some perspective as I think maybe I'm making it worse in my own head!

@Toon49 I'm so sorry that your parents don't really care about ther grandson. It would infuriate me to hear them saying how much they love him. Talk is cheap. They clearly prefer their social life. And before anyone says "Are they supposed to give up their lives to babysit?" NO, Op has never asked for that. But normal loving retired GPS find time to do both while these ones ONLY want to socialise with friends.

I was a sahm so never asked for childcare- it was my Mil who asked me if she could have them (one at a time) and they still spend time at hers every week now that they are teens because they got a bond with her. Something the Ops parents will never have. So when they are too tired to go to the caravan or friends falling off they shouldn't be surprised if the OPs kids have no wish to go see them. A relationship is an investment of time and effort and they give none so will receive none.

They were good parents when we were young and do love spending time with our son playing with him when they can. When I think about it logically I think it partly they want to spend time with him but struggle to find the time as still want to live their life and work.

This is what you need to keep hold of. They are actually perfectly good grandparents. It's just that your ideal of what their life should be is different from their own.

You say that once a month or so they stop off and visit you. And at various points between those visits you visit them. This amounts to a perfectly normal level of contact, even if it is different from how you remember your own relationship with your grandparents.

You seem to feel that they 'owe' you a particular version of the grandparents' role in a child's life. That's causing you a lot of unhappiness that you don't actually need to feel at all.

When you have a small child it is natural to go into a kind of controlling overdrive because you are so instinctually driven to make everything good, right, perfect for your child. You don't actually have to optimise everything though. You don't have to optimise the relationship between your parents and your child. You just need to step back a bit and let it develop autonomously. It will be something unique, not a poor copy of your remembered childhood

Mine were at 36 hour journey away. I never saw them.

I just remember friends were always going to grandparents in weekends (with their parents) and with parents the rest of the time. Expectations were different.

Sorry to hear that OP. I would feel sad too. They are choosing how to spend their time and energy, and not much is coming your way. Maybe the reality of spending time with a baby/toddler is harder work than they imagined. My parents didn't adapt well to my dc particularly - but they were older and it had been a long time since they'd been around young kids (as they kept telling me). Honestly it was hurtful - they were just normal kids - and now they are teens, they aren't that close to the GP as they have always been distant. So it has definitely had an impact. Anyway, I don't know if that is what is going on with your DP - maybe they are just enjoying their travel/socialising and caught up in their own lives.

I do not know what you can do except lower your expectations for now so you don't feel hurt.

@HouseBee
She is building a relationship with her DGC just not as often as the OP wants. If a woman who is (probably) at least in her 60s and has survived cancer can’t prioritise her own bloody life then who can?
If this upsets her daughter because her Mum doesn’t fit into what she wants, expects and needs then that’s for the daughter to deal with. Interactions with family should also never be transactional - I have to see them now otherwise they won’t visit when I’m old.
A pp mentioned entering ‘sniper alley’ in your 60s which is true and terrifying.
Enjoy your life all you Grandparents out there!

I have noticed a pattern on here of OP spending lots of time with their own DGP -and surprsied their parents dis-interest in doing the same.

I do have to wonder if that was why they were at DGP so often in first place - parents not keen on kids as much as expected.

I saw DGP one a week one side and every so often other - we were not the favoured DGC and they did little with us. My own parents practically raised neice had little to do with my kids - but IL who did drop DH literally everywhere as a child while not up for chidlcare - fair enough - have wanted to do stuff with their DGC but due to distance it's been once a month or as older every six weeks ie half term and for whole weekend when they full time worked and after and have very active social lives - unike my parents - and do have close bonds with the kids.

I think everyone wants to come up with reasons but honestly it is what it is - deosn't really matter why. You do not have power to change others behavior - if you made an effort to talk to them to make it easy and nothing changed - only action left is trying to accept it and ignore the moaning when kids are older and suddenly it's why are we not close.

Done people just don't relish spending time with children. It doesn't mean they don't care. They have a life of their own and they are living it.

I think in some ways OP the caravan is a red herring.

I have parents who have never been the type to be with us all the time or visiting their grandchildren ahead of other social priorities - I really get it.

My dad worked til his 80s - because he loved it. Ultimately - I think early retirment for the wrong people is usually bad for them - if your dad deep down wants the stimulation and enjoys fussing over the business - let him do it, honestly the worst outcome would be him leaving work too early and being miserable and bored.

I really do understand it - on mumsnet people seem to be very dismissive of adults who want to see their parents! But I get it - my parents have still - in their 80s - very busy lives and I don't see them very often.

SO - I have come to believe that I need to look on the positive side - they are happy healthy and busy - so much better than being depressed, unhealthy and living sad boring lives. At least I don't have to worry about them!

I think as your son gets older - can't you find a way to make visiting the caravan work a bit more? Surely he will love that once he is a bit older?

Can you find a way to make it more comfy there so you aren't on air beds?

I would just try to accept they are who they are - and its better this way than seeing them decline with boredom and ill health which is a reality for so many older people.

They claim they love spending time with us and want to help out which just annoys me more when they don't actually do it. Ironically my grandparents used to do all the childcare for us for 2 days a week when we were kids and we would see them every weekend on top of that and my parents would still complain they didn't get much support! We've never had anyone who could have our son for even an hour!

This is a mismatch/misunderstanding I see quite often - adults who assume that as their own grandparents did loads of childcare their own parents will do the same. But the actual dynamic here is that the parents didn't much like taking care of their own young children (hence palming them off!) so they're very unlikely to start wanting to do much for their grandchildren.

hah @TheRealMagic this is such a good point.

We have bought a motorhome and are away for 6 weeks, we will be away for 6 months next year. No grandchildren yet but DS is getting serious with his GF and they are about to move in together, next week in fact. I think those two having a child together would be wonderful but I’m slightly conflicted about if in a couple of years if they would like us to be around to do regular childcare.

DH and I never had time together just like you are in the grindstone years at the moment. We had commutes in the opposite direction to each other, he worked overseas quite a lot for a decade. parents all divorced so four lots of parents to visit, bloody inconvenient for us and the closest was 3 hours away. Sadly DD died on the cusp of adulthood so there were the utterly miserable years after that.

It really feels like it’s our time now, it’s time to remember why we got together. We will be around for chunks of time though, we never go away in school holidays so can offer loads of time over those periods including childcare.

My sister was around all the time for her grandchildren and was actually resentful but never vocalised this. People are different and this liking staying at home and not like staying at home is just the way people are.

But do they claim to love spending time with them?
And do they claim that their own parents doing much more wasn’t good enough.

What tye OP is highlighting isn’t that much tge difference in behaviour between her parents and grand parents (and you think implicitly saying she expected the same) but the hypocrisy of the parents saying and expecting one thing but doing another.

I find this 'they love you just as much as parents who put in effort, they just can't be bothered to see you!' rhetoric so odd. What other relationship would you say that how much effort you put in to see and support the other person is no measure of how much you care? If my husband decided he didn't really want to spend much time with me because he preferred going out with his friends I don't think many people would conclude that this has no bearing on how much he loves me!

Some grand-parents actually ENJOY spending time with ther grand-children! My Mil loves spending time with mine every week. Doesn't stop her from doing other activities with friends as well. She's 82 btw.

I agree it's hypocritical, I just don't think it's surprising.

Lots of people say - and sincerely seem to believe - they feel one way ('I love seeing you!') while their actions show the exact opposite ('I will put no effort into seeing you'). I think you have to trust the actions there.

OP, they want to live their lives as they want.

Parents that had huge support from their parents, as yours did, are very often the most disinterested grandparents themselves.

It follows on. They had loads of support when you were young every week, and didn't even appreciate it.
The probably had little interest in you as children so thinking they will be interested grandparents is unrealistic IMO.

Accept it. Move on with your lives. Expect nothing from them and you won't be disappointed.

They won't change.

You say your own grandparents did two days childcare and saw you over the weekends.... it may be that your own parents despite having children, just dont like or enjoy the baby and early childhood phase....it absolutely is a bit of a palaver when you're arranging everything around a difficult sleeper, dragging along tons of toys and accessories etc....It may be that they are still exactly who they have always been, and this image of grandparents being close at hand and heavily involved in the day to day family life is completely unreasonable (and in fact many people would find it absolutely stifling). Maybe they just prefer their cosy pub centred retirement with their friends at this stage of their life. The noise and disruption of a small child can be really jarring when youve been out of childcare for so long. They arent necessarily lying when they say they love spending time with you, it may just be that its enough for them at the present level. You cant force your idealised vision of a cosy grandparent relationship on them. Accept them as they are, appreciate the times you have and make them good, and get on with your life.

@ViciousCurrentBun the OP doesn’t want childcare though.

Shed love her child to have a relationship with her parents.
Which isn’t happening because they ALWAYS prioritise themselves.

Like in your case, you go away fur 6 months, fine
But when you’re back home, are you planning to be away every weekend too? Or are you planning to make some effort to see your ds and potential grand children?

As I said earlier, you make a choice.
No one, and certainly not the OP, is asking you to do some childcare. But how much effort you put in your relationship with your dc and grand children will impact the relationship you have down the line.
See them little, don’t expect them to then make effort to come and see you when it’s convenient because youve got older.
It’s not transactional. It’s the factbyou can’t take your relationship with your own kids for granted. You can’t assume you can say No repeatidly, see them occasionally and then also expect they’ll make efforts to see you when you haven’t made any.
You can’t expect to have grand children happy to see you, happy to go to you if you’ve never built a relationship with them. And that takes time….

Nope I agree they won’t change

But it’s a bit rich to grumble that said grandparents didn’t do enough even though they were doing more than they are doing…..
Happy to take but not happy to give comes to mind.

It's more about them not wanting to spend time with us or make an effort I think I find difficult.

That is your spin on the situation when there may be lots of other explanations, prime amongst which is the change of attitude to life and aging that comes with a cancer diagnosis.

It is good that they are getting on with their lives and not putting pressure on your to be their source of contentment.

Welcome them when you see them, take a genuine interest in what they are doing and proceed with your life as they are.

So many posts on mumsnet where people are grumbling about the opposite problem of over-involvement - it seems it is hard for parents and ILs to get it right!

I agree with this. It's sad for you OP but it's just how it is and you will torture yourself if you keep expecting them to be different than they are. It's their loss.

Do their friends have grandchildren yet? Perhaps they don't and they will get a bit better when their friends are spending time with their grandchildren. Perhaps not. Just don't expect anything of them. If you can foster friendships with other parents that have absent grandparents and be each others' support.

From what OP posted most recently, it actually sounds like the parents do interact positively and actively when they do come and visit once a month. They are also visiting on the way back from the caravan - which adds an hour in the opposite direction from their home one way, so they are adding two extra hours driving to their day. That is making an effort. It's just not as often as OP would like.

It is sad for you, and I understand how disappointed you are. the thing is if they wanted to they would so I guess the truth is they are quite happy with how things are. And that is sad for you and your son and very hard for you to understand because he must be so cute and so adorable. It is what it is. All you can do is let go.

Sounds like my in laws. They’ll suffer when they have a superficial relationship with him. Just remember how this feels and vow to be a different grandparent. They probably don’t know how it feels given your grandparents were very helpful to them

YABU. Let them live their life.