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Original poster

Parents and or ILs not overtly interested in either their grandchildren or your good self

9 replies

AttilaTheMeerkat · 13/12/2006 16:17

Read the other similarly titled thread with great interest and thought I would start one along these lines.

Strangely enough my parents and I get on okay but my parents have never been all that interested in us as a family. Feel like I was cut loose completely at 18 and left by them to get on with it. This I have done. My parents basically have their own life (this these days involves shopping, housework, holidays and running around after my childfree brother) and we don't figure in their day to day plans. Neither go to work. If I wasn't to go to their town once a week I would not see them from week to week. Have adjusted to this over the years but when I see parents sitting in the school nativity play with their mums/dads/inlaws I inwardly sigh because I sometimes wish my parents could see DS in the play. I get, "well I've seen you in your plays a long time ago".

IL's aren't all that bothered either; again they have their own interests and besides which they're bloody hard work!.

OP posts:
fairyjay · 13/12/2006 16:22

They're the ones missing out - sad though.

crazydazy · 13/12/2006 16:27

My mother is like that too, she never phones or asks about the kids and how they are getting on and she lives about a 15 minute walk from us. I go to see her but if I didn't then she would see the kids twice a year, she sighs if I ask her to look after them but yet has my sister's child every weekend cos she works. She really isn't interested in them at all but tbh she was never that interested in us as children either.

DP's mum and dad on the other hand are the total opposite and see our kids every day without fail, they babysit when we ask and also go on holiday with us every year.

sunnysideup · 13/12/2006 16:38

my ILs never phone us, it's always us that phone them and arrange to meet (we live a 15 min drive away)....

We have spent nearly every boxing day together since DH and I got together (about 15 yrs ago) and ds is now four....this year the IL's have made arrangements to be with their daughter at HER In-laws place on boxing day which means they won't see their son and grandson till 2 days after xmas, despite living so close!

Are they trying to tell us something, possibly?

CliffRichardSucksEggsinHell · 13/12/2006 16:45

I have fallen out with my mother and half my family, although I still phone on birthdays and so on. My mother has never taken an interest in me particularly so it comes as no surprise that she isn't interested in the children either.

Rather than giving me her time and affection, which is what I had always craved from her, she just used to buy me things or give me money towards things (a mini fridge for my first flat, the odd twenty quid to help me out), but these things didn't make up for the lack of interest.

Now she is the same with my children, when I do speak to her on the phone she never asks how they are, how they are getting on. We recently moved back from France and she has never asked why or how the children have taken it. When she sees them she will buy them something and give them money and she obviously thinks that this is enough. My 2 brothers never phone, the children get presents at Christmas and on birthdays (although one brother has forgotten ds's birthday this year) but that's it, they don't even know how to spell their names properly!

Luckily my children have lovely grandparents on my dh's side who take more than an interest in them and really are the kind of grandparents every child would wish to have (live on a farm with chickens etc, grandma paints and makes sculptures and things with the children).

But it still gets to me that some of my siblings and my own mother doesn't take an interest in my children or care about their well-being.

frazzledazzle · 13/12/2006 17:21

My ils never ring us or visit we always visit them.
I should pity them really.I've known dh for 14 years and his parents have never been out socially,only to go shopping or walk the dog.
I'm pregnant with dc3 and they never mention this my mil would rather tell me what pills she's on or what she did in her school days!
She doesn't interact much with my children either.Her life is very empty but it's her loss.

ponder · 13/12/2006 23:53

My IL's live only half hr away and have only been to see dd1 three times in two years, and dd2 once!
My parents live 6hr drive away and we see them almost monthly.
IL's never send b.day cards or xmas cards as they dont agree with celebrations! wtf!?? however if we dont send them a card or phone on a significant date they go balistic! wtf!? they are mental imo!
But not seeing the 2dd's is their loss and not seeing the IL's is my gain, as i really cant be bothered to pander to their selfish mentality!

moondog · 13/12/2006 23:56

Ponder,what,yuo have to send them birthday cards but they don't to you???

ponder · 14/12/2006 00:00

Yes! it's madness! last yr they didnt send dd1 a bday card, pressie or phone, we thought they had forgotten, but no, FIL has decided that children in this 'consumerist' society dont need such frivolities!
BUT when we didnt send MIL a card, as we thought it would offend their principals, all hell broke loose!
We were cast as mean! and disrespectful of our elders!

moondog · 14/12/2006 08:34

Loons!
I hope you stand your ground.
What does your dh think?

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