Expectations of grandparents

[Anonymous]

Have you seen a disconnect between the expectations of your parents’ generation versus what they were willing to do for their own parents? The post below about in-laws insinuating themselves into that OP’s vacation is an example. The in laws probably would never have invited their parents to join them, unless there’s a family history of traveling with the grandparents here?

[Anonymous]

Yes, no question, though I don't think they see it as a "disconnect", at least not in my parents' situation.

When I was growing up, we almost never saw my maternal grandparents, who lived on the other side of the country. I recall one trip to visit them when I was 5 or 6, seeing them at another relative's home once or twice, and then they visited us once. My entire childhood. We never travelled with them, they didn't send Christmas or birthday gifts though I think they sometimes sent a card with a bit of cash, I don't remember.

My maternal grandmother lived closer and was a bit more in our lives. I recall hosting her for Christmas several years, and we went to visit her more (but not even annually, there were years we didn't see her).

Both families got together every 5 years or so for reunions, but this would be the only time that all my parents' siblings and their families would be together with the grandparents. And not everyone would always make it. There was zero expectation that everyone get together for every holiday, or even just one holiday, every year.

Meanwhile, may parents want us to travel with them annually, spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas with them, host them 4-5x a year AND for us to visit them at least twice a year for non holiday reasons. It is insane. The only acceptable excuse (to them) for missing any of this is if we are with my DH's family, who also mysteriously has these same expectations (his grandparents lived in the town he grew up in, though, so he was raised with more extended family togetherness).

DH and I say not to a lot of this, including insisting on spending Christmas at home with our kids and taking our own vacations. But I've always just been confused as to what happened between generations to so fundamentally change these expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, no question, though I don't think they see it as a "disconnect", at least not in my parents' situation.

When I was growing up, we almost never saw my maternal grandparents, who lived on the other side of the country. I recall one trip to visit them when I was 5 or 6, seeing them at another relative's home once or twice, and then they visited us once. My entire childhood. We never travelled with them, they didn't send Christmas or birthday gifts though I think they sometimes sent a card with a bit of cash, I don't remember.

My maternal grandmother lived closer and was a bit more in our lives. I recall hosting her for Christmas several years, and we went to visit her more (but not even annually, there were years we didn't see her).

Both families got together every 5 years or so for reunions, but this would be the only time that all my parents' siblings and their families would be together with the grandparents. And not everyone would always make it. There was zero expectation that everyone get together for every holiday, or even just one holiday, every year.

Meanwhile, may parents want us to travel with them annually, spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas with them, host them 4-5x a year AND for us to visit them at least twice a year for non holiday reasons. It is insane. The only acceptable excuse (to them) for missing any of this is if we are with my DH's family, who also mysteriously has these same expectations (his grandparents lived in the town he grew up in, though, so he was raised with more extended family togetherness).

DH and I say not to a lot of this, including insisting on spending Christmas at home with our kids and taking our own vacations. But I've always just been confused as to what happened between generations to so fundamentally change these expectations.

This has also been my experience. My parents would never ever have taken the grandparents on vacations with us, it was not even considered. We visited my maternal grandfather twice per year for an afternoon, he lived 1.5 hours away. My mom whom I love, spends 6 months per year at our house, joined us on many vacations. Somehow I am still being guilted for not spending enough time and I also wonder where these disparate expectations are coming from. She was a good mother but didn’t do that much for us either (took the bus to school since 1st grade and weren’t driven to activities - didn’t have many anyway, is just an example). I do a lot but I do wonder whether it’s this generation of parents and they became that way.

[Anonymous]

I think what has changed is the "ease" of travel (and maybe finances). My parents never flew with us when we were kids. I actually don't think I've ever been on a plane with all 5 members of my family of origin. We drove umpteen hours to get anywhere and that commitment made travel more difficult, but DH and I fly with our kids all the time.

[Anonymous]

What puzzles me as a grandparent is why yours would ever want to spend so much time with you, considering how mean and selfish you all are. We didn’t raise our kids that way and I’ll tell you: they love to see us and we them. I feel sorry for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What puzzles me as a grandparent is why yours would ever want to spend so much time with you, considering how mean and selfish you all are. We didn’t raise our kids that way and I’ll tell you: they love to see us and we them. I feel sorry for you.

Did you take your parents and inlaws on trips with you when you went on vacations with your family? How much togetherness and involvement did you allow your own parents? I have no idea how much time and togetherness you’re talking about with your own adult children, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, you come across as very mean spirited so I wonder what your kids see in you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What puzzles me as a grandparent is why yours would ever want to spend so much time with you, considering how mean and selfish you all are. We didn’t raise our kids that way and I’ll tell you: they love to see us and we them. I feel sorry for you.

Where has anyone been mean or selfish? Like name one mean thing that a poster has said about their parents on this thread.

I think many of us are just confused, because while we'd like to make our parents happy and have meaningful family visits, the expectations for what they envision are just so different than what we actually experienced as kids. And it's not like we were estranged from my grandparents, at all. I feel like our family was pretty close. But unless you lived in the same general area as a an extended family member, the expectation was that you'd see them maybe once a year, if that. You'd talk on the phone and send letters too. People with young kids mostly had holidays at home because of the logistics of school breaks and traveling with little kids. When we did visit family, it would usually be for a full week and it would be spent just relaxing and spending time together.

I am confused as to why my parents seem to envision something so fundamentally different than this. I think that was pretty good!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What puzzles me as a grandparent is why yours would ever want to spend so much time with you, considering how mean and selfish you all are. We didn’t raise our kids that way and I’ll tell you: they love to see us and we them. I feel sorry for you.

Did you take your parents and inlaws on trips with you when you went on vacations with your family? How much togetherness and involvement did you allow your own parents? I have no idea how much time and togetherness you’re talking about with your own adult children, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, you come across as very mean spirited so I wonder what your kids see in you.

The quickness with which PP jumped into the thread (4th post) and immediately told everyone how terrible they were being indicates either (1) troll, or (2) their kids hate them and they are incredibly defensive about it and project that misery onto any conversation about family relationships.

[Anonymous]

Similar experience. By way of example, my in-laws live an hour away, come to our house twice a week to hang out with my youngest (their request), come in at least one vacation with us a year, spend a number of holidays with us, and still give us so much grief for not staying at their home for a weekend every couple of months. I’m so grateful for their relationship with our kids and generally happy to have them in our lives, but the expectations and resulting guilt for both me and DH are difficult.

[Anonymous]

We don’t take family trips with our kids and grandkids as it gets incredibly complicated in terms of schedules, logistics and making everyone happy. We have a winter home near the beach in Florida and they all visit once a year when they have a break. As a child we never traveled with my grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Each generation is less formal than the last. There are good points but also people take more liberties.

[Anonymous]

Boomers got lucky, they had an awesome economy and retired early, had lots of time on their hands. Wish they would help out more with reliable childcare for working parents but they want to cruise and post photos of their grandkids on Facebook. To be fair many of them are working in passion fields (president, congress) but only when they can wield substantial power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, no question, though I don't think they see it as a "disconnect", at least not in my parents' situation.

When I was growing up, we almost never saw my maternal grandparents, who lived on the other side of the country. I recall one trip to visit them when I was 5 or 6, seeing them at another relative's home once or twice, and then they visited us once. My entire childhood. We never travelled with them, they didn't send Christmas or birthday gifts though I think they sometimes sent a card with a bit of cash, I don't remember.

My maternal grandmother lived closer and was a bit more in our lives. I recall hosting her for Christmas several years, and we went to visit her more (but not even annually, there were years we didn't see her).

Both families got together every 5 years or so for reunions, but this would be the only time that all my parents' siblings and their families would be together with the grandparents. And not everyone would always make it. There was zero expectation that everyone get together for every holiday, or even just one holiday, every year.

Meanwhile, may parents want us to travel with them annually, spend every Thanksgiving and Christmas with them, host them 4-5x a year AND for us to visit them at least twice a year for non holiday reasons. It is insane. The only acceptable excuse (to them) for missing any of this is if we are with my DH's family, who also mysteriously has these same expectations (his grandparents lived in the town he grew up in, though, so he was raised with more extended family togetherness).

DH and I say not to a lot of this, including insisting on spending Christmas at home with our kids and taking our own vacations. But I've always just been confused as to what happened between generations to so fundamentally change these expectations.

Not my experience at all. My grandparents were basisally ingrained in our lives and provided a lot of help and support to my parents. We saw the ones in our town at least 3-4 times a week and all holidays (and sometimes more if we were staying with them while my parents vacationed). The other grandparents were 30 min. away and we went there every single sunday after Church and stayed for dinner. And saw them every holiday and stayed with them in the summer so my parents didn't need babysitters.

My and DH's parents are the exact opposite. Never visit. Never help. Never want to vacation together. They have "raised their kids" and now just moving on.

I'd like a bit of a happy medium and parents that actually like to be around their kids and grandkids but, alas, we lucked out with the self-centered types and so here we are.

[Anonymous]

My expectations are that they love our children. That's it. I do not expect gifts or money or babysitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What puzzles me as a grandparent is why yours would ever want to spend so much time with you, considering how mean and selfish you all are. We didn’t raise our kids that way and I’ll tell you: they love to see us and we them. I feel sorry for you.

Did you take your parents and inlaws on trips with you when you went on vacations with your family? How much togetherness and involvement did you allow your own parents? I have no idea how much time and togetherness you’re talking about with your own adult children, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, you come across as very mean spirited so I wonder what your kids see in you.

Lol, yea, I’M the one who comes off as very mean spirited. OK.