I'm sorry this is much longer than I thought!
I have written before about my crazy parents but things are reaching a crunch point I feel.
Backstory
Very low contact for the last 18 months, initiated by them in response to some imagined slight. In brief I think my mother is jealous of any attention my father gives to anyone other than her, including my children, and so creates imagined slights.
This has happened in the past, they did not speak to me for around a year when my oldest child was around 2. I only recently have realised what is going on. (My second child is 2 now deja vu!)
However, in order to either save face or assuage their guilt, they send money (a lot -£100) for the kids through the post on birthdays etc. I do not want this to continue. My oldest child (12) wants to call her grandparents and thank them for their gift. She has been ignored on her last birthday and Christmas as they refuse to answer the phone/texts. She has her own mobile so it's not as if they think it's me. I feel like they do this and it overshadows what should be a happy day, forcing us to think of them. She was really upset as she thought it was her fault and she'd done something wrong.
I was lucky enough to get a card this year on my birthday (a 10p one from the card factory - I know as I buy them for work!). This was also done to provoke a reaction but I couldn't be arsed to respond as I'm slowly figuring out all their shit.
I feel like now I need to try and formulate some kind of response which says thanks for the cash but just keep the fuck away from us without any kind of aggression or accusations but I'm finding it quite difficult as obviously I am angry. I don't want them to hurt my children and use them to manipulate me.
I just don't quite know how to approach this.