Balancing travel to visit grandparents vs grandparents visiting you

[Anonymous]

*lived

[Anonymous]

We have a 2:3 that moved to 1:1 visit ratio with age for my parents and a highly skewed version with MIL. I would ask them straight up what the issues is. Is it financial? Are they having mobility issues? Are they afraid of imposing and having you resent them?

That said, if you are putting in all the work and don't feel like they actually want to spend time together, and talking doesn't resolve, then don't. Video chat or something instead if you want. If someone wants something to happen, they'll make it happen.

Some grandparents also feel like they have to visit, stay involved, or otherwise revolve their lives around their grandkids when for whatever reason they don't actually want to or don't like them (or their own child).

Some use visits as a power trip and enjoy parading them around town to show off how many they have and "accidentally" bump into people they know and are trying to impress. Not being able to do this in faraway places means they don't want to visit.
My MIL's sister does this and MIL tries to copy now that she has grandchildren. We had a chat about children not being accessories but finally, we just cut down on visits since we know she otherwise is totally uninterested in the children and is unwilling to visit us otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Before kids, my DH and I generally went to his parents’ house in the Midwest. Now we stay home for major holidays and invite them. They won’t come because they want to host for their other kids and grandkids. Completely understandable. They come here twice a year and stay for one day. We visit them for a week in the summer and they basically ignore us the whole time. FIL is out of the house hunting or fishing and his mom is out of the house shopping. They don’t invite us along. Meals consist of FIL reading the paper and MIL blaring the TV so nobody can talk. DH thinks they like the idea of us visiting more than us actually visiting, so I think with the kids getting older the trips will shorten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How “balanced” are visits to grandparents versus grandparents visiting you? I’m frustrated with my in-laws, as they seem to put the onus on us to do most of the traveling to see them. They live 100 miles from us (so a 1.5 hour drive on a good day, but can take 2-2.5 hours sometimes due to traffic on I-95). Both of them have been retired for 4-5 years and they’re in their mid-60s and are in relatively good health. I feel like because of this, they have the flexibility to visit us (namely, their only grandchildren) more than they do. But they seem to have tons of excuses as to why they can’t (they don’t like driving in the dark, they don’t like staying away from home, they’re busy, etc). I feel like we’ve done our best to make it easy on them (offered to pick them up at the train station if they want to take the train instead of driving, been really flexible with our availability for them to visit, etc), but they still only see our kids a handful of times a year. We have a 5 year old, 3 year old, and 3 month old and while I stay home, my husband works full time, so travel for us isn’t the easiest either. I guess I’m just venting some because they claim to want to see the kids more, but seem to put all the pressure on us to make it happen. Also just curious how often other families visit grandparents vs grandparents visiting them.

My guess is there is something they are not telling you. Maybe they don't like staying at your house, but don't have the $$ for a hotel?

I get it though. Our situation is a bit different, ILs live ~2hrs from SIL and her family, but have to fly to us. They visit SIL and her family all the time and host my SIL's kids at their house for school breaks/weeks during the summer. They claim to want to see us more, but rarely come to visit. We typically fly to visit them once a year although this year we also met at a neutral location for a short summer vacation. They have the time and resources to fly to visit us but are just weird about it. "Oh we don't want to intrude" or "we want to wait until you really need help" like when one of us has to travel for work, but neither of us has had much travel lately so they keep putting us off. The best excuse MIL came up with is that MY mother is too controlling with the schedule for visits, which couldn't be further from the truth! WTF. At that point DH said (again), look, you have an open invitation to visit whenever you want, and left it at that. I think he's a bit hurt sometimes but what else can you do?

[Anonymous]

If you SAH why don't you just visit them during the week while your DH is working? Leave at 9 or 10 so no traffic and leave to come home at 7 or 8 and have the kids sleep in the car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How “balanced” are visits to grandparents versus grandparents visiting you? I’m frustrated with my in-laws, as they seem to put the onus on us to do most of the traveling to see them. They live 100 miles from us (so a 1.5 hour drive on a good day, but can take 2-2.5 hours sometimes due to traffic on I-95). Both of them have been retired for 4-5 years and they’re in their mid-60s and are in relatively good health. I feel like because of this, they have the flexibility to visit us (namely, their only grandchildren) more than they do. But they seem to have tons of excuses as to why they can’t (they don’t like driving in the dark, they don’t like staying away from home, they’re busy, etc). I feel like we’ve done our best to make it easy on them (offered to pick them up at the train station if they want to take the train instead of driving, been really flexible with our availability for them to visit, etc), but they still only see our kids a handful of times a year. We have a 5 year old, 3 year old, and 3 month old and while I stay home, my husband works full time, so travel for us isn’t the easiest either. I guess I’m just venting some because they claim to want to see the kids more, but seem to put all the pressure on us to make it happen. Also just curious how often other families visit grandparents vs grandparents visiting them.

How often do they come and how often do you visit? Maybe they feel weird becoming and being with you and the kids when it’s mostly just you at home. And I think a few times a year or every other month is normal. It’s not normal to expect them to pick up and drive 2+ hours each way every 3 weeks. They are retired and in their 60s but presumably still have their own lives.

[Anonymous]

What does your husband think? They are his parents.

My MIL comes maybe once a year. That’s because she really does hate travel and being away from her house and the draw of her ONE grandchild isn’t enough to overcome that even though she is in her early 60s and retired and able bodied . I once went on a family trip with her and family (just 2 hours away from her own house!) and she was picky and annoyed the entire time. Once we got back to her house, she was completely back to normal.

[Anonymous]

I drive up with my kids from DC to a small town north of Boston, it's about 9 hours, to see my family. I'd love a 100 mile trip. My father is 80 but stopped traveling decades ago. He came to DC once. The in-laws are overseas and used to visit once a year, but now have stopped, for various reasons. We visit them once a year, the flights for 4 people are expensive, though they do give us spending money when we land.

It's hard to know what, in particular, is preventing your in-laws from visiting more frequently. If you are on really good terms with them and they really enjoy spending time with kids, then it really may be that they feel like making the trip is too onerous. As we age, these simple tasks get significantly harder, and everyone ages at their own pace. When they do visit, do they stay overnight, or would they prefer to? My father always cited not being able to sleep well when travelings, as his reason not to. Or they may need special pillows/no noise/whatever else. Or possibly they think that it's a seniority issue and that you should travel to see them. Maybe they think that since you're a SAHM, you have free time to drive up. Who knows...

[Anonymous]

My parents are in their 70's and live on the west coast. Both have been retired several years and typically take 2-3 "big trips" (overseas, 2-3 weeks) a year, plus several "small trips" (within CONUS, about a week or less) each year, so travel is not financially or physically prohibitive for them. They visit us for "major life events"--for example high school graduation. We have 4 kids so that has averaged out to about every other year.
We don't visit them; it is financially prohibitive for us (flights for 6, rental car large enough to seat 6, two hotels or very large suite, etc.)
For what it's worth, all of our family vacations have been to locations we could drive to (so no flight or rental car costs) and we typically camped for all or part of each trip.

My IL's (well, FIL and his wife. They married after MIL's death, long after all the kids had grown) live about 35 miles away from us. Both retired and also travel frequently.
They also only visit for "major life events." They never invite us over. They visit MIL's kids from her previous marriage often; major life events, every birthday, soccer games and ballet recitals, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who cares. I would love your setup. A handful of times? Try them asking to come over before they’ve even left the house from the last visit.

I care for a lot of reasons including that my first child died at the age of 2.5 years, so I’m very aware of the fragility of life and how much time we have (or don’t have with loved ones), and my children love seeing and spending time with their grandparents. I grew up less than 10 minutes from both sets of my grandparents, so I saw them frequently and we never had to worry about “travel” for visits. I know and respect that visits with family can be challenging, but it can also be really wonderful. I guess i’m just struggling with the idea that my in-laws don’t seem to want to spend time with their grandchildren (despite what they say), unless my husband and I put in all the effort to make it happen. Didn’t know if this was a normal thing among grandparents or if ours are just special!

Honestly, I think this is pretty common with that generation—just wrapped up in themselves. My ILs lived thirty minutes from us for the first ten years of my oldest’s life and maybe visited us 7 times despite us making it clear repeatedly that they were always welcome. One of those visits was on Christmas Day a few years back...my oldest woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible double ear infection, we had to take him to urgent care on Christmas morning. So, we phoned the ILs and said we should postpone Christmas until the 26th (they don’t work and had no other commitments)...but, they refused bc they wanted Christmas on Christmas Day...so they came over, complained that my kid and DH took so long at urgent care and then got downright shitty when my kid said he didn’t want to open gifts bc he was in so much pain, and took off before noon. We just put our kid to bed and did Christmas the next day. They refused to come back the next day bc they said my kid was told ungrateful and didn’t appreciate having them there.

Anyway, that’s just one anecdote—but, when I talk to my friends it seems their kids all have at least one set of selfish, disinterested grandparents. I think it’s best to just be nice and stop stressing over it—it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you SAH why don't you just visit them during the week while your DH is working? Leave at 9 or 10 so no traffic and leave to come home at 7 or 8 and have the kids sleep in the car.

Agreed. That is, if OP feels comfortable visiting without DH. Maybe that’s the real reason OP wants her in laws to visit more instead of OP herself driving down?

[Anonymous]

My kids’ grandparents live 500 miles away. We travel to them 2-3 times a year. They typically travel to see us 0-1 times per year. They would love it if we came more often and frequently ask us to do so. With kids in school, plus work, this isn’t feasible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who cares. I would love your setup. A handful of times? Try them asking to come over before they’ve even left the house from the last visit.

I care for a lot of reasons including that my first child died at the age of 2.5 years, so I’m very aware of the fragility of life and how much time we have (or don’t have with loved ones), and my children love seeing and spending time with their grandparents. I grew up less than 10 minutes from both sets of my grandparents, so I saw them frequently and we never had to worry about “travel” for visits. I know and respect that visits with family can be challenging, but it can also be really wonderful. I guess i’m just struggling with the idea that my in-laws don’t seem to want to spend time with their grandchildren (despite what they say), unless my husband and I put in all the effort to make it happen. Didn’t know if this was a normal thing among grandparents or if ours are just special!

Honestly, I think this is pretty common with that generation—just wrapped up in themselves. My ILs lived thirty minutes from us for the first ten years of my oldest’s life and maybe visited us 7 times despite us making it clear repeatedly that they were always welcome. One of those visits was on Christmas Day a few years back...my oldest woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible double ear infection, we had to take him to urgent care on Christmas morning. So, we phoned the ILs and said we should postpone Christmas until the 26th (they don’t work and had no other commitments)...but, they refused bc they wanted Christmas on Christmas Day...so they came over, complained that my kid and DH took so long at urgent care and then got downright shitty when my kid said he didn’t want to open gifts bc he was in so much pain, and took off before noon. We just put our kid to bed and did Christmas the next day. They refused to come back the next day bc they said my kid was told ungrateful and didn’t appreciate having them there.

Anyway, that’s just one anecdote—but, when I talk to my friends it seems their kids all have at least one set of selfish, disinterested grandparents. I think it’s best to just be nice and stop stressing over it—it is what it is.

Yep. I've been on DCUM almost a decade now (found it when I was trying to find childcare for my first kid) and I have now seen so so many of these posts. I've sort of followed them because my kids have had disappointing grandparents on both sides and because as an older parent I probably won't be able to be much of a grandparent due to age. It's amazing how often able-bodies grandparents have no interest in their grandkids. I've been streaming Parenthood lately and that show is just a family fantasy. I don't think bonded extended families are as plentiful as we would like to think.

[Anonymous]

We have two sets of long distance retired grandparents.

One is a 6 hour flight, one is a 6 hour drive. With the limits of vacation time and budget, we set aside 5 annual leave days for each side (10 days), we each take 5 days to cover various school closures where camps aren’t available, and the remaining 5 are for a family trip. Is it ideal? No. But it’s the reality of what we are working with. The 6 hour flight grandparents come to us once a year, they are very tit-for-tat. It drives my husband batty because he says his parents only took trips to see his long distance grandparents every 2-3 years, yet they are all over him for not bringing our kids pretty much on every school break. My parents come to us 4-5 times a year, but typically stay for only 2-3 nights at a time, so end up with the same amount of visit time as my ILs, it’s just more broken up as my ILs come for one long 2+ week visit. We don’t take off time when family visits, if we did we wouldn’t be able to make the yearly trips to see them.

The grandparents who visit more frequently are closer to the children even though the total visit time works out the same, mainly because they come at times where the kids have a long weekend from school or have something important going on - dance recital, play at school, etc., whereas the other set picks dates convenient to them without regard to the fact that the kids will be in school for the vast majority of the visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who cares. I would love your setup. A handful of times? Try them asking to come over before they’ve even left the house from the last visit.

I care for a lot of reasons including that my first child died at the age of 2.5 years, so I’m very aware of the fragility of life and how much time we have (or don’t have with loved ones), and my children love seeing and spending time with their grandparents. I grew up less than 10 minutes from both sets of my grandparents, so I saw them frequently and we never had to worry about “travel” for visits. I know and respect that visits with family can be challenging, but it can also be really wonderful. I guess i’m just struggling with the idea that my in-laws don’t seem to want to spend time with their grandchildren (despite what they say), unless my husband and I put in all the effort to make it happen. Didn’t know if this was a normal thing among grandparents or if ours are just special!

I'm really sorry for your loss.

Grandparents vary in how much work they are willing to put in, and it seems like your situation makes you feel even more keenly how little your ILs are willing to do. That sucks.

Find some way to accept their norm. If they're willing to come up periodically, enjoy it when they do, and roll with it.

And, what does your DH think? Does he want to see his parents more? Does he communicate with them about planning visits?