How do you feel about this article in Daily Mail?

[sunshinesupermum]

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4449464/The-shameful-reason-grandparents-lonely.html

[PossumInAPearTree]

Yes I think a generation ago it wasn't as common for so many women to work, or at least not full time. So maybe weekends could be spent visiting whereas now it may be the only opportunity for housework or shopping.

Plus kids seem to do more activities these days so weekends may be busy with classes or competitions.

[Copper1122]

My parents are separated and remarried. My dh's parents are as well. We also each have a surviving grandparent. So that is six sets. Four live too far away for a day visit. It is impossible to see them more than 2/3 times a year each without devoting every single weekend and holiday to older people.
That would not be fair on my children. So I know (some) would like more contact but it is beyond my control.

[Mysteriouscurle]

The author doesnt cut any slack to families with 2 full time working parents who by the time they have commuted, done a days work and done all the other essentials of looking after their children on a daily basis, are probably doing 14 hour days or thereabouts and then spend half the weekend shopping and cleaning. Selfish?

[kaitlinktm]

At the bit about the "polished" women who had been to finishing school sitting aghast at their grandchildren's table manners.

I would object to being given demands though - the phone works both ways (I speak as a 61 year old with parents aged 84 and 88). I speak to them most days on the phone but don't visit as often as I should I know.

[Offred]

Adora - what if your parents didn't love, care, feed or house you though?

That's what ellisandra means. People who have been toxic and abusive to everyone who has ever cared for them can expect to be alone in old age.

I do not hold my parents in high esteem because they are both really quite toxic. I would care for them out of duty in whatever capacity I was able because I don't believe other people should suffer, but I have actually actively hated them since I was a child and that is not likely to change.

[CigarsofthePharoahs]

My dad didn't spend a great deal of time with his mum in her final years.
She lived to far away for a start. She was also an unpleasant person to be around.
She wouldn't accept any sort of regular help, even though it was needed, instead just put the guilt onto my parents.
She was emotionally abusive to him during his childhood, and it carried on until he married my mum who called her on it.
She was probably someone who would tell stories of loneliness. Never mind picking that a lot of it was totally self inflicted.
Why should my dad, who worked very long hours, feel guilt tripped into spending lots of time with someone who told him he was a very much unwanted accident.
You reap what you sow.
My other grandma - she also lived a reasonable distance from us, but she was a lovely kind women who made a bit of an effort to actually get to know us properly!
Visiting her as she got too old to cope didn't feel like a chore. I only lessened my visits when it was clear she no longer remembered who I was and she was finding it a little distressing.
The writer of the article sounds terribly smug. Lucky for her that her dil clearly doesn't have to work long hours and need the weekend to rest.
😒

[Adora10]

Each to their own Ellisandra, it's my personal opinion that nowadays the elderly are not treated with as much respect; it's what I have witnessed.

I hold my parents in high esteem, even if at times my dad can be difficult because I realise one day I will be in my eighties, hopefully and will probably be a pain the arse too.

We're not talking about young people though, I do know that.

[Ellisandra]

Adora why should we hold them in high esteem just for not being dead yet?

I save me high esteem for those that have earned it, whatever their age.

There are plenty of lonely young people too.

[KatyBerry]

my mother farmed me out to boarding school at 9 so I can at least not feel guilty about the small amount i choose to see her now- she chose the same when i was a small child.
If she was less actively horrible to and about me and my family, we'd see more of her but she is unable to hold back with spiteful comments (and this is a pattern with her former friends too) so she gets the bare minimum. I don't think old age or being a parent in itself earns respect.

[Adora10]

It's definitely not the same anymore with regards to the family unit; families have been put down the priority list which is really sad.

My dad can be awful at times; rude, demanding, argumentative BUT he is my dad and he raised me, clothes me, fed me, loved me and for that I am forever grateful so I grin and bear it and do what I can, in fact, I don't do enough for him; I could do so much more.

I think we have become more selfish, more about what we want and what we should have; we have forgotten who put us here and what they did for us.

In the UK we do not hold our elderly in high esteem and we should; so many lonely old people it's heart breaking, they were us once.

[hungrywalrus]

Maybe there is some truth but they need to acknowledge a few things.

• A lot of people have grandkids as well as their own parents.
  
• Childcare costs are prohibitive and so grandparents often step in. There are only so many hours in a day for that person to then visit their own parents.
  
• People work until their late 60s now, whereas previously they would have stopped earlier and /or one of the partners might not have worked. Again question of time.
  
• People often move far away from their families to make a living. It means visits can only happen during holidays or extended weekends which are limited.
  
• House prices are so high that there often just isn't room for granny to live in without everyone going mad. In many cases there isn't even room for an overnight stay.
  
• People are living longer and longer and are surviving increasingly complex conditions. If someone doesn't take in their elderly relative it could be because they cannot physically provide them with this level of care.
  

That's all without even considering the relationships between parents, grandparents and grandchildren. So yes things are complicated. That being said, phone calls are still possible.

[Offred]

I think even if you take everything as it has been written on face value I think it is an example of how people of my parents' generation and older do not understand the current world.

The work being described is the free domestic labour that women used to be expected to provide. Now, even if you want to provide this kind of social care to the older generations, if you are fit enough to work, you are required to work as much as and for as long as you are able. ALL the rest of your time is then taken up by your own other responsibilities.

It also pisses me off that her comment about her own son is how he has married a woman who shares her values. What about expecting her son to do all this social care work? Or is it just women she is finding fault with.

[FerrisMewler]

I can imagine my mother reading this and feeling sorry for herself.

The irony is that she's the one who only allows visits if an invitation has been issued. (My 11yr-old had barely started primary school when we were last invited round).

She also cuts off phone calls very quickly with one word answers in a tone that makes it clear that she's annoyed at the disturbance.

She will however tell her friends and relatives that I'm keeping her grandchildren from her. You can probably imagine their surprise when we were invited to the same party and my mother left less than 10 minutes after her grandchildren arrived.

When another well-meaning friend decided to arrange another chance for her to see her grandchildren, she cancelled to go clothes shopping instead.

Sometimes you have to look beyond the "I'm so lonely" stories to see what's really going on in people's lives.

[GoatLePew]

How do you feel about it OP?

[Joysmum]

Anyone who complains about their kids needs to remember, they are the ones who raised them with those values.

[Laniakea]

I spend loads of time with my mum, because I like her! If she was anything like the author of this piece it would be limited to strictly duty visits. She sounds completely obnoxious, manipulative, martyrish, passive aggressive.

I didn't 'present' my parents or PIL with a grandchild - what a horrible expression. She actually sounds an awful lot like my mum's MIL & we grandchildren like her about as little as mum does. Dreadful woman.

[scaryclown]

Whilst we still have an economy that denies stability and living incomes, I'm afraid, we'll continue to have people we are too stressed and depressed themselves to be nice to everyone around them. If the daily mail wasn't so continually obsessed with making people poor, and then condemning them for it, people might feel better and more generous to others.

I often don't visit my mum, because i feel permanently humiliated by my own poverty, and seeing her reminds me of it. It turns the whole meet up into a discussion about my poverty and humiliation of being poor and reminds me that i cant help her financially, yet should be one of the wealthier end of the country given my quals. Health, experience and achievements. It's utterly damaging, this horrible economy and it's the economy the daily mail wants. It can hardly be complaining about an individualised isolated selfish society that hates itself. That's it's whole essence.

[unicornsIlovethem]

2.5 hours minimum per call. That's why. When he did phone more often (before he got his new job and was home before 8), it was still 2.5 hours.

[NotALottaPot]

I would love to have the kind of relationship with my mum especially but also my dad, where we can just randomly text or call each other and do things together, where they would visit us often and we would visit them often. We live in different countries but are in weekly phone/video call contact.

I do keep them up to date via social media. but I find that if I call them too often they argue over which one has to talk to me. 'I talked to her last time, I have nothing to say, it's your turn now. 'I don't have anything to say.' etc etc. So I guess they're happy with the level of contact we have at the moment. I don't know.

[Ellisandra]

But why doesn't your husband phone her more frequently then?

[unicornsIlovethem]

I have this problem with MIL. She is a lovely woman but doesn't want to be a bother so doesn't call us. When DH phones her, the conversation is not less than 2.5 hours by the time she as caught him up on everything - so he only phoned when he has that time free.

If we visit, we have to stay 3 nights or she gets upset - which means school holidays only... if she could have a 10 minute check in every day that would be great, but not these marathons, which then have long gaps because we both work full time with school age children.

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

Ah in that case it is also badly written. Although to be fair the adverts obscured a large part of the article about a third of the way down. I hate the DM.

[Ellisandra]

Ah, but her perfect family don't avoid her.
It's the woman the taxi driver told her about.
aka total made up DM bullshit

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

I feel very guilty reading that. My own grandmother lives in the next street to me after I made a conscious decision to move nearby when I had DS, as my nan brought me up for most of my childhood. I rarely find the time to visit her, and then I feel guilty so I don't phone, which makes it much worse. I must go and see her tomorrow.

The tone of this article though is awful. The author sounds very judgemental and if she voices one fifth of what she says in the article it's no wonder her family avoid her.

[Ellisandra]

All around me are families I know with lots of grandparent contact.

Are people in their 20s-40s with kids less likely to see grandparents now?
Maybe...

I think compared to 30 years ago, more of us live in families where both parents work - often both FT. So there simply aren't as many hours to spend with other family members.

Also we're more likely to have moved away - changing economics, rising numbers at uni, house prices forcing distance. So it's more of a time effort to get to grandparents.

For many, there's more disposable income and I think FAR more out of school activities (so much franchised stuff that didn't exist when I was a kid) so many children to have more activities to go to. And re my point about working parents - that means we're already cramming them in on weekends.

So I think we probably do have less time for grandparents now - but still the deciding factor is the quality of the grandparent and changing attitudes to "duty".

Last year, my friends and I took our children and their grandmothers to a London show for a treat.

3 grandmothers were massively engaged with the kids. I brought MIL. Who sat there like she was chewing on a wasp, and didn't talk to my daughter at all. She hasn't got a maternal bone in her body. And she's not particularly nice. I still invite her... to be nice... but my sense of kindness (and it's kindness not duty, really) only extends to high days and holidays. I am not duty-bound to provide a social life for a woman who isn't very nice and just makes the occasion less good for me.

There will be selfish children, yes. But bottom line - you reap what you sew and I expect a good number of isolated grandparents simply weren't good parents and grandparents.