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 ...

NO. its the responsability of the extended family - if they want to be part of my childrens lives to make an effort. when one is made i will reciprocate ten fold.

as it happens now they are not cute.

and we live 300 miles away ( and obv in the stone age)

my kids got fuck all off grandparents this xmas.

they never get phone calls
letters
e-mails

so no, if grandparents dont give a shit them fuck em - up the arse with sommat big and pointy

In theory yes, in practice no.

My PILs (well MIL really) only wants to know her dgd not dgs. To the point that dh and dd have been invited to go on holiday with them, but not myself or ds. She has only met dd twice and ds once (must say that distance is a major factor tbh).

It's both dgcs or nothing. I don't want her to have unsupervised time with either of them tbh (or me tbh ).

I am answering the OP without reading other posts. We have a responsibility to allow our extended family to have a relationship with our children and encourage it and indeed assist in it being possible, provided it is in the best interests of our children.

I didn't know any of my extended family as I grew up and for me it is just the way things were. I saw maternal gps occasionally but they weren't really interested in us. DH is the same with his gps, never really had a relationship with them and it didn't bother him.

On the other hand I like that my DS's have a relationship with DH's family. But that is because DH has a nice family! My DS's will have my two best friends too as aunties. I say, if you get on with them fine, encourage it. But if you don't don't beat yourself up over it.

I am sad that my mum hasn't seen my DS2 since he was 7 months old but sad for her because she is missing out on how gorgeous and cute he is, not for him. He has lots of people in his life who adore him.

PS Custardo said it much better than me!

No.

We have a responsibility to facilitate a relationship if it's realistic and beneficial to the children.

But no responsibility to ensure one. (How can anyone ensure a relationship anyway?) The extended family are just as responsible for maintaining the relationship as parents are.

we run ourselves ragged trying to keep in touch with my/dp's aunties uncles etc but none of them seem all that interested..we were always a close family all lived in same road etc and as dd is only child and doesnt see dp's mother or my brother and his children, i find myself trying to find other people for her to be around..very i know!

Why should I make an effort for my DD to see people who treat me like crap? Just because they've got a blood link to them, it doesn't give them any rights. Hell, they've got a blood link with me and they don't see that they have a responsibility to be nice to me. As far as I'm concerned, DD and DH and I come as a package or not at all.

I say bollocks to them - plenty of friends without a blood link who see it as their privilege to love all three of us...

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

My answer to that question is no, especially if they are toxic or indifference to DS (as in the case of my relations).

No. For situations without abusive behaviour I agree with Caligula and Custardo,. It's good to meet people halfway, but if someone isn't actually all that interested in your kids, I don't see that the kids are really benefitted by contact being pushed.

ComeoVeneer and Caligula have summed up what I think - I take it on a case by case basis, depending on whether contact with that person at that time is in my child's interests.

I was brought up in a big extended family and always thought of it as a good thing. With hindsight I've realised there was a lot of myth-making or, not to put too fine a point on it, lying going on. The interests of the adults were always paramount.

Dd is an only child and we work hard to ensure she has frequent close contact with her cousins so long as that's enjoyable for them all. But we've minimised contact with dh's toxic mother and any contact she has is always rigorously supervised. And we make no effort for his brothers just as they make no effort for themselves.

I put effort into this because dd is an only child, with only one living grandparent. Consequently we try to stay in contact with cousins/aunties as much as possible given that we live on the other side of the world from them. We go back regularly for extended periods (Christmas, Easter, summers), and that seems to help.