Is this a thing? Having children just to have grandchildren?

[Allthekingshorses92]

I’m a bit idle so just musing about our situation with in-laws and wondering if other people have experienced it or if other people feel this way.

MIL has two sons and cried and struggled a lot with the fact she didn’t have a daughter. The reason she says she so desperately wanted a daughter was to have greater access to future grandchildren. Prior to me and DH having children she talked a lot about ensuring the paternal grandparents have equal access and it was clear this was a great source of anxiety for her. Since having children this anxiety has continued and has made the relationship between all of us strained. In Covid times we’ve noticed when FaceTiming she doesn’t want to see her son (my DH) and recently when he was telling her about a new promotion he’d been pleased to get, she interrupted and asked him to just point the camera at the GC. She even bought a go pro type thing so when they talk he can just wear the camera on his head and they can see the grandchildren that way .

I get that you’d be excited to have grandchildren, but it feels as though she mainly had children for the purpose of having grandchildren. And it also feels as though she isn’t that interested in her actual son’s life or wellbeing. Can you imagine feeling this way? Just grandchildren haven’t crossed my mind, but maybe the idea of them is really important for some people?

I think I must be odd because I have one (soon to be two gc) dgs is lovely as I'm sure the next one will be but the focus of my love is always dd and will be ds no doubt. That's not to say I don't love dgs I do but it's not the fierce love I have for my children, I expect dd and ds to have that love for dgs and dgs to be.

Plenty of people have children who don't want children themselves, or cannot have them. It's not a guarantee you'll get grandchildren or be alive to see them.
Yes, I agree, but these friends wanted children so seem to be mourning the loss all over again. I'm not saying it's a sensible approach but it is how they feel.

Having grandchildren is a wonderful thing, having kids of your own is too but at the time they are young you are so busy, so tired that you don’t really appreciate it. Grandchildren are more fun, you don’t have the same responsibilities with them.

I can’t imagine having child just to have grandchildren though as anything might happen in life and children are very hard on a marriage.

I despise the expectation that grandchildren are a given.

I've experienced this from both DM and MIL. DH and I are late 30s and don't intend to have children. You'd think from DM and MIL that that was our only purpose in life - to reproduce- and that we've ruined their lives and social standing by not providing grandchildren.

@Duckberg I completely agree with you of course but people are devastated by not having grandchildren, it could be that all their friends and siblings have grandchildren and they do feel very left out. Also being older can be a lonely time your own life is winding down, your adult children are busy and more distant but young grandchildren can be a great source of happiness and affection. Talking about them can be a way to connect with others and it can redefine a long marriage. It’s lovely to have a connection to the future like that as it feels very bleak to see everyone you know and love grow old and die. Grandchildren can be an antidote to that.

Also when you spend the best years of your life raising children grandchildren can feel like the reward for all that time and effort, the seal on your life.

As I say I do agree with you and it shouldn’t ever be expected but the pain of not having grandchildren is very real for some.

[quote tigerall]@Duckberg I completely agree with you of course but people are devastated by not having grandchildren, it could be that all their friends and siblings have grandchildren and they do feel very left out. Also being older can be a lonely time your own life is winding down, your adult children are busy and more distant but young grandchildren can be a great source of happiness and affection. Talking about them can be a way to connect with others and it can redefine a long marriage. It’s lovely to have a connection to the future like that as it feels very bleak to see everyone you know and love grow old and die. Grandchildren can be an antidote to that.

Also when you spend the best years of your life raising children grandchildren can feel like the reward for all that time and effort, the seal on your life.

As I say I do agree with you and it shouldn’t ever be expected but the pain of not having grandchildren is very real for some.[/quote]
You sum it up well. Having a dgc has been wonderful for my marriage and a saving grace

My DM is like this, particularly around DC1. She’s not really interested in me any more, or at least it feels that way. She never rings me of an evening when we could actually chat uninterrupted, only ever in the day and mainly to speak to DC1 (DC2 is a baby). I ring her so she can see DC2. She doesn’t seem to have any interest in me or my life any more, which is quite hurtful really.

She has always been passionate about children and desperate to be a grandmother, especially as most of her friends were grandparents before her. I was under much pressure to produce grandchildren from my early twenties and reminded that she had a right to grandchildren. This was not actually a joke. She was very worried I would move overseas and that this would impact on grandchildren.

To be fair, she is an excellent grandmother and, Covid permitting, has put in huge amounts of time and effort with DC1, as well as being very generous both financially and with time for babysitting/childcare despite us living some distance away.

DMIL lost interest in DH some time before the DCs came along. She was a very good grandmother to the extent that circumstances (including health) and distance allowed but died before DC1 was 3.

A lot of these replies are so sad. It does seem a rejection from a parent to become so focused on the GC that they neglect their actual child. I can honestly say that grandchildren haven’t crossed my mind. I’m more thinking about the child-free holidays we’ll go on when they’ve grown up.

I also don’t buy into this idea that GC are owed or a right. You don’t have children to provide you with young children to entertain you in your retirement. The same as you don’t have children to care for you when you’re elderly. But then - maybe some people do? It’s terribly sad to think you could exist and either know that’s what your parents want from you or strongly suspect it.

I'd love to be someones Grandma. I have never ever mentioned this to the DS's (4 of them aged 39-33)
3 of them are with long term partners too!
I will be 70 this year and have resigned myself to the fact that I will probably be pushing up daisies if any ever come along.
Its sad, but its a sadness that I keep to myself which is the way it should be.

As I say I do agree with you and it shouldn’t ever be expected but the pain of not having grandchildren is very real for some.

Gees, what if your kids or their partners are infertile, or die before you without issue, or sustain a life-changing injury. Talk about first world problems.

@rawalpindithelabrador
Wow, you must be an empathetic mate to have around!

I don't think parents should have to bottle it up and keep it to themselves that they want grandchildren. There's a difference between pressurizing your children to provide grandchildren and letting them know you'd be delighted if any came along. Ultimately, most adults know that their lives are their own to lead how they wish. Does anyone have children with the primary goal of providing their parents with grandchildren?

I am 44 this year and now unlikely to ever have children. I have gentic issues which would have made it very difficult to have children without help as well as a hugh risk of a severely disabled child or passing my genetic issues on to my child as a carrier. I also had complex health issues myself as does my sister. My sister is single at 40 and plans to stay that way.

I have been with my husband for 25 years now. I knew about the genetic issues when I was in my mid 20's, before I seriously thought of children and that knowledge coloured my thinking about children and being a mother and I knew quite early on I'd rather choose not to have children than have open what seemed like a real can of worms.

I am persoanlly at peace with my choice but I regret not being able to give my parents grandchildren, I can see that it would have made them so happy. I think my mum would so love to be a granny and I think she feels a bit lost as she gets older and sometimes buys my sister and I things that as really for children in a sort of missplaced grandmotherly affection. My dad is still working at 70 and I think he's be a lot happier to retire if he had grandchildren. It makes me really sad and I do feel like I have let them down. The totally understand my choices but I do feel like they are missing out :(

[quote lifestooshort123]@rawalpindithelabrador
Wow, you must be an empathetic mate to have around![/quote]
About as empathetic as a parent who expects their children to procreate for their benefit or it's 'painful'. I have a child who died before me and another who is disabled. Having had them was enough of a blessing in life without being dramatic about grandchildren. Plenty of people who so wanted children don't get that at all. I didn't have them for grandchildren or to look after me when I'm old, which is good because it won't happen, but for them to have what would hopefully be/have been a good life.

My h's and my marriage is to each other, it doesn't need grandchildren to revive it.

@MessAllOver

I don't think parents should have to bottle it up and keep it to themselves that they want grandchildren. There's a difference between pressurizing your children to provide grandchildren and letting them know you'd be delighted if any came along. Ultimately, most adults know that their lives are their own to lead how they wish. Does anyone have children with the primary goal of providing their parents with grandchildren?

You see it all the time on here and also if you read the childfree thread in active now, it's a real eye opener.