Are you envious of your friends and neighbors who have local and super-involved grandparents?

[Anonymous]

Very jealous. My in laws are an hour away but they can’t be involved very much due to health issues. My parents live 800 miles away and we see them 4x a year. When we are w my parents they play w the kids and are engaged (go to kids activities, walk kids to school, etc) but they just cannot be that involved in Most aspects of our lives since they’re so far away.

A lot of our friends and our kids’ friends have local and involved grandparents and I can’t help but be jealous of that—mostly from the kids’ perspectives. I know my kids would love to have closer relationships w grandparents. It makes me feel sad for my parents and in-laws, especially my mom and MIL, bc I know they’d love to be closer and more involved too.

[Anonymous]

Yes! My kids are tweens now, and I wish we didn’t cost $700 in plane tickets to bake Christmas cookies with my mom. I also think my dad would prefer shorter, more frequent visits than all staying in a house together for a week a couple of times a year.

[Anonymous]

Envious provided that the grandparents are same and normal. My MIL would drop everything to come help with our kids, but she’s unmedicated bipolar, so no thank you.

[Anonymous]

Please don’t envy me. What you may see as super involved is
intrusive and annoying. For extra fun, we’re all local and my widowed mom who is a full decade older than my ILs has become hyper competitive with them. If one GC sees the local grandparents for x amount of time, then my mom insists upon equal time. We have to sneak visits.

[Anonymous]

Yes. We haven’t been on vacation anywhere other than to visit my parents or in-laws in ten years. I wish they lived near us, and we could travel where we wanted to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or is it not something that you really care about?

Having free grandparent daycare at your disposal often means you've never lived outside the city you grew up in, which comes with a lot of negatives.

[Anonymous]

Sort of. If the "super-involved" part seems functional.

But I'm also envious of friends who have kind and loving parents, even if they aren't local and super-involved. I'm envious of anyone who comes from a functional family and has a healthy and loving relationship with their parents.

I live far from my parents in part because if I were closer, they would be super-involved but in a self-involved, sometimes abusive way. I've seen it with my siblings. My parents don't know how to love and care for others while respecting them at the same time. They don't know how to help without controlling. They don't know how to ask for what they want, only how to guilt or shame people into doing it. I don't want that kind of involvement in my life.

[Anonymous]

Totally envious. Especially of the ones who receive both time and money. Let’s be honest - it is absolutely life-changing for a lot of people.

[Anonymous]

Nope, not jealous at all. My in laws are a short flight away. My parents live in NY and we see them pretty frequently. Both sets of grandparents are very opinionated and overbearing so I would not want them in my everyday life.

I stay home and Dh earns plenty of money. I can get a sitter anytime I want and we have a housekeeper.

[Anonymous]

Yes, assuming they have good boundaries. I’d rather have loving, healthy, supportive parents who lived far away than ones who were local and not stable (ask me how I know).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents are involved but there are plenty of strings attached! They feel free to comment on absolutely every aspect of our lives and criticize endlessly. Still I appreciate that they are helping and the kids love them. I am jealous of people who have siblings around with cousins for their kids...a big family Christmas with kids everywhere would be my dream. Instead it's our little family and four old people.

Yes! I am jealous of people with awesome siblings who also have kids and are able to get together with you/family regularly and for holidays. Grandparents…if they are great it can be awesome. But if they aren’t, they can be a real problem.

[Anonymous]

Filial piety. Learn live it embrace it says Confucius

[Anonymous]

I don’t notice because we have a lot of family friends. I’m busy and happy with my own three children.

My parents are loving. They used to help watch my kids when we lived near them. We still see them every other month or so.

Everyone is envious about something.

Dh and I both come from small families and have no extended family in the US. My kids don’t go to those big family gatherings or family reunions. At the same time, we never had that so we don’t miss it.

I grew up at church. I never had parties. My kids have big birthday celebrations. We go on a lot of vacations, more than most other people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Filial piety. Learn live it embrace it says Confucius

Chinese grandparents live together in same house

[Anonymous]

It's good when your parents live near enough to be free daycare AND your other siblings do not live nearby. But I know of situations where two or more siblings and their parents live in the same city, but the parents provide much more childcare and chauffeuring for one sibling than the other(s).

I don't have my parents around to pick up the slack, but I'm not sure how I would feel if mom picked up my Larla from school two days a week while picking up my sibling's kid five days a week. I'd love the help but the blatant favoritism would constantly wear on me.

The grass is always greener.