do you think that we have a responsibility as parents to ensure that our children have a relationship with their extended family?

[wannaBeWhateverIWannaBe]

eg grandparents, aunties/uncles etc?

discuss ...

Yes

of course! (as long as you all get on)

yes.....absolutely....without a doubt

unless extremely compelling reasons not to.

Assuming they are not barking/violent/abusive, yes, ideally.

yes, with the usual provisos, even if you don't get on.

Hmmmm - boys know everyone on my side but on DH's side basically no one. DH's mum left when he was about 10 and contact has been minimal since then.

We recently tracked down mum and his two sisters, they have now met granny once and one of their aunties twice and two of their cousins once.

For DP too much water has gone under the bridge for him to care, we know where everyone is now and will send cards etc.. That might seem very minimal, but even that first step has taken a lot of pain and work(mostly on DH's side). You can do no more that you able and I think for DH to come this far has been a huge journey.

now see I don't get the "even if you don't get on". If I don't speak to said member of the family, why should I ensure that I make the effort for my children to see them? of course children need to know about their extended family, but it works both ways surely?

Depends. If you are doing all the running then I would say don't bother.

If they are mentally disturbed then obviously take out a restraining order.

Other than that, yes!

wannabe - in my situation, I have had disagreements with my stepmother, and my father has sided with her...but I know that he adores my children, and I want my children to know the wonderful father I had - and he is great with the boys...when he sees them, and they love to spend time with him, hence my comment.

If I'm honest, if I never see my stepmother again, it wouldn't bother me, but I won't stop my boys from spending time with her, whilst they want to. She's only toxic towards me and my brother - not our children.

My older sister for example knows I have two children and has expressed no desire to meet them. She was in telephone contact with my dad when ds1 was born, she knew how very ill we both were and that both of our lives were in danger. She didn't care. She was also told when I had ds2 and wasn't interested then either. The last time I actually saw her was in the period immediately after my wedding six years ago, when I offered her the keys to our house because she had nowhere else to go - we also agreed without hesitation to store a lot of her belongings in our garage. We've still got them, despite having been through two house moves since then. I've never received a card or a message via my dad referring to the boys or anything else - she doesn't give a toss about us. In fact during the recent fracas with my mother she called here and left a message on my answering machine asking in a very cold tone for me to ask my dad to contact her. Which I did. But as for it being my responsibility to do all the running, just to expose my children to someone like that? Bollocks.

ok senario here...

your child has an auntie/uncle who doesn't live locally to you. You don't necessarily have a close relationship with said relative and they haven't been interested in your child since birth. Visiting them isn't possible because every weekend they're doing something - are season ticket holders for a football club/husband is into racing cars and computer games so away on the weekends they don't watch the football. They visit you maybe once a year for .. maybe an hour or two. And your child does not feel anything for them.

should you care?

My elder brother told me on the phone that he didn't know the first thing about my kids and neither did he want to know.

This the brother that I supported through thick and thin. When he left his wife I drove to Manchester to see him, first time on a motorway. I disagreed with the affair that he had, but I never stopped supporting him.

Now he hates me.

wannabe, I think you should surround your children with people who love and care about them.

Drop the others. If they cannot give time to your children then they are not worth your breath.

ah gs x posts .. sort of

see this my point exactly. I don't see why I should be doing the running to try to ensure that my child potentially has a relationship with a member of his family just because they're a member of his family iyswim.

Well, my response is no. Sure, children should know about their extended family, but I don't agree that it is the parents' responsibility to ensure the children have a relationship with these people.

If the extended family is made up of adults, then they surely have a duty to maintain the relationship as much as the parents. If certain parties don't get on, I don't believe that the parents' feelings/wishes should be ignored in the pursuit of the children maintaining a relationship with the other party. We all have a right to have our feelings respected. Why, e.g., should my feelings be disregarded in order to ensure that my children maintain a relationship with the person who has hurt me?

If grandparents fall out with the parents, but still want to see the grandchildren, then they should be given the opportunity to do so, but I don't believe the parents have any duty to ensure this happens. The effort would have to come from the grandparents.

Of course it rather depends on why they've all fallen out.

This is our extended family:

DH's birth parents - live in Spain, more interested in ds than dd but still not enough to bother

DH's birth mum & her dh - nice enough, make enough good noises etc but she simply doesnt visit and although invites us to hers generally makes no effort with regard to children

Sister and BIL - pretend they adore our children but really dont bother either. Too busy being childless to realise - STILL no xmas presents despite living 20 mins away

Other sister and BIL - no children, suitably selfish. Will babysit if asked but no other involvement.

Dh has no brothers or sisters (well he has 2 half sisters he;s never met)

My children have a grandfather they've never met. Heck, I've never met him.

Do you think it is my duty to ensure they have a relationship with this man, despite the fact that he walked out on his own children when they were teenagers and have had no contact with them since? Whilst I admit to being curious about him, I wouldn't dream of trying to establish a relationship between him and my children if dh doesn't want it.

I think it dangerous to close the door on relatives, effectively banning your children from seeing them.

I'm all for the kids making up their own minds. If my damaging mother rang up tomorrow and asked to see my kids I wouldn't stop her (supervised access only however).

I would like to think that if there comes a day when the kids ask "how come I never got to see nana when I was a child?" I can look them in the eye and say that I never stopped any member of the family from seeing them and never would do. I think that alone would give your children a fair idea of what kind of people they are.

In the scenario you paint wannabe, no. I agree with Freckle I think.

But it does all depend. When I had a period of not getting on with my mother (and we're absolutely not talking horrible or abusive, we just fall out sometimes) and we weren't speaking she wrote me a snotty email saying "I would like to see the children and I think I should be allowed to" or something like that and I replied that no, she didn't have any right, her relationship with them depended on mine with her and her husband (who was cause of the big row) and that we needed to sort it out before she had any 'entitlement' to see them.

It's a bit like ex husbands being extremely unkind/stingy towards ex wives and not realising that by hurting the women they are hurting their children: when you have a relationship with a child that relationship to some extent also depends on your relationship with that child's parents too. Prob a bad example but anyway, no I don't tihnk that we as parents have a responsibility to ensure these relationships.

Having said that my children have a fine if distant relationship with my mum now and an even closer one with my ex dh's mother (so my ex mil), who is lovely. Ds also has close relationships with most of ex dh's extremely large family and I like it, it's healthy. And entirely normal in their community, they're Indian.

My sister and i were my dads 2nd family and we never really got to know my dads side of the family (despite dad being divorced before he ever met our mum) we were not really accepted.

I have always made sure that my children have got to know all their family on both sides.
They know their aunt, their great aunts and uncles, their cousins and even there great great aunts and uncles on my side of the family.
On DH1s side its a bit harder as i have now stopped them having any contact with their aunts, uncle and grandmother, although they still see DH1s cousins and their children (who are so much nicer then DHs sisters and brother). After what happened with my own fathers family it was not something i did lightly stopping contact with DH1s family, but DH1 was in agreement with me and has cut contact with all but his mother (29p christmas card).

They get on well with my new partners parents and sister too, his mother emails every week to see how they are doing in school etc.
They also keep contact with their godparents.
It takes a village to raise a child.

Hmmm. I would have agreed with that up until last year, Rhubarb. Now, I think I have a responsility to prevent my children's childhood from being blighted and punctuated by someone else's groundless, rage-filled, abusive, fantastical, protracted tantrums (they go on for months and are triggered by very, very little - think "giant overgrown two-year-old").

When they ask why we stopped seeing her when they were little, I will tell them the truth (as gently as possible and without any of the poisonous embellishments some people might add - I am not spiteful, I just want to live without the sword of Damocles over my head). I don't stop them from seeing other relatives, despite the fact that I'm not keen on some of them personally and don't much enjoy seeing them. They're family, so we make the effort. But some relatives - like my mother - fall into a whole new category. In fact I am the last in a long line of people to decide that her behaviour isn't actually tolerable any longer. Moreover, she knows perfectly well that her behaviour harms herself and those closest to her - and she knows how to get help, if she could be bothered to. It's easier to just go on living in a little bubble in which nothing ever happens unless she wants it to, and then erupt and start spraying lava everywhere if she doesn't get her way.

I get tired of people coming out with these blanket statements about maintaining family relationships being completely vital, regardless of circumstances. It's very easy for people to be holier-than-thou when they haven't got someone like that to contend with.

I would like to add that DS1 decided he did not want anything more to do with DH1s ex sister after she said that DH1 and i should have had our kids put down at birth.

I think it's very much dependent on the circumstances - if, for example, you have a sexual predator somewhere in the family you'd be justified in cutting off contact not only with that person but with anyone who sided with them. Also if someone is violent/habitually criminal and unrepentently so - and anyone who has substance abuse or mental health issues you might want to keep at arms' length just because of the potential risk to your children.
I do think that it's selfish and childish to keep DCs apart from an ex MIL/FIL just because your partner left you for someone else - especially if ILS and DCS had been fond of each other and in regular contact prior to your relationship break-up: why should they suffer for your XP's choice to separate from you?

Mind you, I'm still dithering about how much responsibility/choice etc goes into deciding whether or not to trace my birth parents now I'm a parent....

Obv if they are very damaging Greeny then I do think avoidance is best.

But if it's just a case of not speaking, etc, then leave the door open.

My brother knows my door will always be open.

I guess I'm lucky though that I know my mother wouldn't make the effort to see my kids, she isn't interested, so there's no chance she can damage them like she has damaged us.