Millennials who are mean.

[Anonymous]

I’d love to hear the adult kids’ side of the story here because I strongly suspect this is a situation of “my side, their side, and the truth.”

[Anonymous]

None of us can know what is really going on here, but personally if my children were disrespectful to me, rude and called my husband a moron, I would disengage. Sadly that would mean I also disengage with the grandkids. But I simply wouldn’t put up with it. You can’t change your kids but you can change how you react to them.

[Anonymous]

Boomers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like an entitlement problem. It’s hard to hear but you are not entitled to a relationship with your grandchildren. It’s a privilege not a right.

I’m a millennial parent of three and I don’t think this is correct. My children absolutely have a right to a relationship with both sets of grandparents. It is my job to protect my children, but taking my grievances with my parents out on the relationship between my kids and their grandparents is off if it doesn’t present a safety risk to my kids.

There is definitely a balance to be struck, but a parent should in good faith try to allow the conditions for a relationship to exist between extended family and their children. Parents shouldn’t act as gatekeepers where conflict between parents and grandparents impacts the children and grandparents.

As for OP, I assume there is more to the story but I’ve seen head scratching situations myself, including where an adult child simply cutoff adult parents without explanation. Without knowing everything, it’s hard to say.

I agree with this (millennial parent here). That said, something seems off here and I agree that it feels like we're not hearing the whole story, or we're hearing a heavily interpreted version.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like an entitlement problem. It’s hard to hear but you are not entitled to a relationship with your grandchildren. It’s a privilege not a right.

I’m a millennial parent of three and I don’t think this is correct. My children absolutely have a right to a relationship with both sets of grandparents. It is my job to protect my children, but taking my grievances with my parents out on the relationship between my kids and their grandparents is off if it doesn’t present a safety risk to my kids.

There is definitely a balance to be struck, but a parent should in good faith try to allow the conditions for a relationship to exist between extended family and their children. Parents shouldn’t act as gatekeepers where conflict between parents and grandparents impacts the children and grandparents.

As for OP, I assume there is more to the story but I’ve seen head scratching situations myself, including where an adult child simply cutoff adult parents without explanation. Without knowing everything, it’s hard to say.

I agree with this (millennial parent here). That said, something seems off here and I agree that it feels like we're not hearing the whole story, or we're hearing a heavily interpreted version.

Or troll post.

[Anonymous]

So I don’t think there is anything mean about having you stay at a hotel and leave after dinner. We do have grandparents stay over occasionally but, esp when we had a baby and toddlers, it was nice to have the house to ourselves at night as the kids would wake up in the middle of the night and early in the morning and grandparents ended up sleeping poorly due to our thin walls. Even now, we usually start winding down after dinner as kids go to bed at 8 and we are beat.

I have no idea what’s going on with the insults. This is not typical and I imagine, because it comes from all 3 kids, there is more going on here. Do you ever talk to them about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of us can know what is really going on here, but personally if my children were disrespectful to me, rude and called my husband a moron, I would disengage. Sadly that would mean I also disengage with the grandkids. But I simply wouldn’t put up with it. You can’t change your kids but you can change how you react to them.

I agree with you, though I suspect OP is not being fully truthful about this because I asked her earlier to clarify that that her son just called her husband a "moron" and if there is any context that would at least explain it, and she didn't respond. My guess is that her son either didn't actually say moron but instead was, she feels, condescending, OR that her husband did or said something really awful (like used a racist epithet or spanked one of their kids or some other behavior that a Boomer might engage in, thinking it's fine, and a Millennial might find totally horrifying).

Everything OP has posted sounds like about 10% of a story she does not want to elaborate on because doing so would cause people to say "well can you see how you are contributing to this dynamic yourself?" She doesn't want to take responsibility for any of it (she literally said "I think they are all spoiled but I refuse to be held accountable for it" -- she's their mom) so she's spinning it to make it sound like they are just horrid and she's innocent. I guarantee this is not the case.

I once read a deep dive into online forums for adult kids who had gone no-contact with their parents, compared to online forums for parents who had been cut off from their adult kids. It was really interesting, but one of the take aways was that the kids cutting off their parents would be able to describe incidents in detail and explain who said what and when, and also explain exactly why this was a problem for them or led them to stop speaking to their parents. They were also more likely to admit that they had made mistakes in how they engaged with their parents, or express regret over things they said or did. But the cut-off parents would often be extremely vague, refuse to answer even supportive questions about precipitating events, and would never admit that anything they did could be considered problematic or wrong in any way.

This thread has that vibe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pick the nicest one out of all of them, move close by, and get involved in their day to day lives (childcare, etc.) That will reduce their stress and improve their relationship with you

Or it will drive your child and their spouse crazy! And may cause a divorce.

OP sounds a bit clueless. Many posters mentioned that we are only getting one perspective and probably being gas lighted. My guess is OP raised her kids in a similar way and now wonders why they want distance (from someone who hurt and confused them). OP get yourself sorted. Get to counseling and figure out what YOU did wrong. Tell your kids that you are trying to work this out and that your sorry if you didn't see things from their perspective, which caused them harm in some way. At the very least they will respect this and may even help you to understand. At the best they will help you yo understand and support you on your improvement journey.

[Anonymous]

This is weird all around. Im a millennial (40) and most of my friends have good relationships with their parents. None of us would ever call them morons even if we disagree with something. We would stand up to any bigoted or mysogynistic commentary but that hasn't happened in my fam. Dh and i are both close with our parents, spend a lot of time with them with and without the kids (post bedtime). We invite them to all bday parties, go to their houses for their birthdays and they babysit kids when they want to and including overnights on weekends. Grandkids adore their grandparents and fully enjoy being doted on and spoiled a little. Its a you and your kids relationship issue not a generation issue. There are certainly things that annoy me about my parents and in-laws but we let it go as everyone is different snd there are things that annoy my parents about me and how i live my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We raised 3 humans who are now millennials. They are the parents of our beautiful grandkids. They are fabulous parents.

But the treat us like crap! We are VERY respectful of their busy lives. We cherish the time they let us interact with the kids. We get to FaceTime but they NEVER invite us. The few times we have said that we want to see the kids we stay in a hotel, rent a car and leave after the kids are in bed. That’s when they have their personal time where they eat dinner.
What the heck happened!

They are millennials. Society has told them they are entitled to be selfish and rude especially to their parents. If it were me, I'd keep it simple and stop trying so hard. I'd only offer to babysit to see the grandkids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the grandkids? I know when our kids were tiny (and very close together in age, plus two full time jobs) we were incredibly worn out and not as attentive to extended family as usual (in terms of asking about their lives etc). We were just trying to keep our heads above water. However, we certainly weren’t critical etc.

Will they let you babysit? That could be a win-win.

I don’t know what to say about the rudeness/criticism- is this new or have they always been this way?! Can you provide a specific example of the things said?

A specific example would be we are noisy when we stir our coffee, my husband still works (high functioning) and our son calls him a moron. I don’t know how to hold a baby. The grandkids are still young. They are ages one, two, four and seven. The last time we visited one of them for their child’s first birthday, they gave us chores to do at their house. Pressure wash the outside, put together things. When they came home, they complained about the work.

One of our kids went to school on a full scholarship. He is hyper independent, and we are extremely proud of him and tell him all the time. Now he throws it back in our face. Really didn’t see this coming.

Honestly, we just want to see our grandkids

I think they were definitely spoiled, but I refuse to blame myself for their behavior.

I mean, you allow them to speak to you that way. And I doubt that began as adults. So, feel not to blame yourself. But, you do bear some of the blame, whether you acknowledge that or not.

Your options at this point is to speak with them about it or not. So . . . that's it.

[Anonymous]

They have been millenials their entire lives. Just fyi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We raised 3 humans who are now millennials. They are the parents of our beautiful grandkids. They are fabulous parents.

But the treat us like crap! We are VERY respectful of their busy lives. We cherish the time they let us interact with the kids. We get to FaceTime but they NEVER invite us. The few times we have said that we want to see the kids we stay in a hotel, rent a car and leave after the kids are in bed. That’s when they have their personal time where they eat dinner.

We are made to feel like a burden. They criticize everything from our lifestyle to how we dress. They are rude, nasty and hurtful. They never ask how we are doing. We definitely bring value with our relationship with their children.

As far as saying, anything to them, we fear that they could cut us off from the grandkids. So…. We put up with this garbage.

It seems like if we disappeared tomorrow they would not be phased
They were not this way growing up.

What the heck happened!

It is said that millennials want an apology from their parents and their parents want a thank you.

In this case, you are the common denominator. Must be something about the way you raised them for them to all behave like this. Or something in the way you are behaving now…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We raised 3 humans who are now millennials. They are the parents of our beautiful grandkids. They are fabulous parents.

But the treat us like crap! We are VERY respectful of their busy lives. We cherish the time they let us interact with the kids. We get to FaceTime but they NEVER invite us. The few times we have said that we want to see the kids we stay in a hotel, rent a car and leave after the kids are in bed. That’s when they have their personal time where they eat dinner.
What the heck happened!

They are millennials. Society has told them they are entitled to be selfish and rude especially to their parents. If it were me, I'd keep it simple and stop trying so hard. I'd only offer to babysit to see the grandkids.

I am a millennial and speak to my parents kindly, I don’t have any friends or siblings in my age group that would routinely insult their parents or call them names. I’m really questioning the overall family dynamic if family members are casually speaking to each other this way

[Anonymous]

I have no words.