Adult children and visits home to see older family

[saphiro]

How often do your adult kids come home to visit? We are having trouble getting our daughter to understand that she needs to come home every few months to see family.

All of her grandparents are 85+ and love to see her. Fortunately they are all relatively fit and healthy and still enjoying life with trips overseas etc.

Dd says she dislikes coming home because the area is a shit hole. We live in a poor ex-mining village in northumbria. Dd lives in London and is doing very well for herself.

She comes every three months or so for a night or two and then comes back for a few days at Christmas. Otherwise she uses her annual leave to go on holidays or to see friends.

How do we get her to understand that her family want to see her and won’t be around forever? She thinks that her grandparents could come and visit her for a night or two.

Ffs.

Do you really think she doesn’t “understand” that they won’t be around forever? Of course she does, it’s just not a priority for her. They’re your parents, stop trying to force her to feel things she doesn’t.

She has no obligation to visit them if she doesn’t want to, if she had strong feelings towards them then she would but she clearly doesn’t.

We are having trouble getting our daughter to understand that she needs to come home every few months to see family.

Why does she "need" to do anything? IME people who get on well with family members and want to see them do this at a frequency that suits them. People who visit out of obligation eventually resent it.

Also it's not her home; it's a place she used to live in. Her home is in London.

I think this is all about you OP- were you brought up to do things because of obligation or guilt, and you now feel you need to put this on your daughter? Or do you feel that others are judging you because of your daughter's behaviour?

She already comes back to visit a lot! And if the grandparents can travel overseas, they’re perfectly capable of going to London. You’re being unreasonable, I’m afraid.

Your daughter has her priorities and her grandparents have their priorities. Every 3 months and Christmas is plenty for your daughter. Especially as lm guessing she is working full time. Her grandparents have all the time in the world but magically can’t go to see her but can go abroad. Does you put the same pressure on your other children?

Of course it's fine for them to visit her in London. My parents are 82yo and 87yo and they live in London! Just avoid the tube at rush hour.

When she comes home every three months or so, does she get to see her grandparents then or are you meaning she needs to visit them outwith the three monthly schedule?

Why should she use her annual leave to go home? She's doing enough already.

If you keep conveying this “me me me” attitude towards her and telling her she needs to visit more, I can almost guarantee she’s going to end up not visiting at all. Leave her be, she’s an adult and has her own life to deal with.

you do understand that lots of elderly people actually live in London and manage to navigate around?
I can understand avoiding the tube at rush hour and not going to oxford circus, but walking around a nice park in london and going for a meal is no different to doing it up north, or in tenerife, or wherever they go!
If they can travel through busy airports in foreign countries they can probably handle a London pavement!

I was always the one who travelled home and that expectation didn't change even when I had DC. Baby and I were still expected to do a 4.5 hour trip by train and if we didn't my DM moaned that she wouldn't get to see her grandchild. I stopped going in the end. There was no reciprocity and no acknowledgment of the time and money I would spend getting there and back again.

Every three months is pretty regular tbh, more than a lot would do. I don't like London much but it is fine to travel around. If they are worried just avoid rush hour. You will push her away

It should be 50/50 with family also visiting her in London. If she is visiting 4 x a year she has more than done her bit.

She does 5 trips home a year?

Grandparents can teavel abroad?
They can go to London twice a year to visit your daughter. They have the time to travel. They don't work.

Don't push your luck. Your daughter can decide to spend more time in London if you are too pushy.

A visit once every three months is pretty good going. You need to remember that your daughter has her own life including a job, running her household, a social life and hobbies etc. Her life does not just revolve around you and your feelings and she is correct you could also all go and visit her.

I have three adult children in their twenties , I would say from mine and friends experience 3 times a year plus xmas is on the upper side of average. They have their own busy lives, especially the one who lives in London, their grandparents love them deeply but really want them to be building their own lives. I will say that all three call /text their grandparents regularly .

I'd say visiting every 3 months is frequent. We see our adult DD far less often than that and we visit her more often than she comes here. She lives a long way away, has her own business that requires her to work fairly anti social hours and has made a busy independent life for herself. We still have a good relationship and talk regularly but we don't physically have to be in the same place for that.
I don't know when she last spoke to her grandparents, aunts, cousins etc - it's nothing to do with me. She is an independent adult as are they and I don't see it as my role to facilitate those relationships any more.

Have her GPs complained that once every three months and at Christmas is not enough, or is it just you coming up with this ?

How very dare she use some of her annual leave to see friends and go on holiday.

You are being very odd about this, you do realise this don't you ?

The shithole comment is rude and uncalled for but apart from that YABU.

Stop pressurising and guilt tripping her.

You want her to come every few months and she comes every three months so she does?

Really confused!

That is already very frequent. Give her a break.

DS generally comes home to visit once in the summer and Christmas so every three months seem a lot

YABVU

She's an adult and can decide for herself how she spends her time.

Also we have this issue with family. We are constantly pressured to spend our free time visiting everyone and no one ever bothers to come to us.

It's a two way street. London is absolutely fine for you to visit. It's all give and take. She's come back to visit you when she's made it clear she doesn't like it overall you could do the same with 'stressful' London

Is this a reverse?

OP it's difficult when family members have a mismatch in expectations and what they consider to obligations but that's what you have here. I think you need to try and accept that she doesn't feel the obligation that you think that she should. You can't make someone feel an obligation that you don't by persuasive arguments or guilt.

What practical solutions are there? Could you accompany the elderly relatives on a trip to London?

OP is your dd the only one in the family to move away, do you not have contemporaries whose children have also reached this stage in life , how many times do their children come home ? I can see that if your dd is the only one to have made this move then it might be harder to adjust your expectations to a new normal, but really I think your dd is doing pretty well in getting 'home' as often as she does.