Reconciling uninvolved grandparents.

[Anonymous]

My mother is like this OP and she’s 1.5 hours away. My kids are now 19 & 16 and she’s basically shown zero interest in them this entire time. My father (when he was alive) was very interested in my kids but was in extremely poor health and relied on my mother to take him places and she controlled his schedule. So all my father was really able to do was talk on the phone with them (which my son loved, they would talk all the time). But he’s been gone for over 6 years now and my mother had claimed that since she no longer is my father’s care taker she’d be able to see my kids much more but that hasn’t happened.

She has been emeshed and very involved with my sister’s kids (providing regular after school care, babysitting, watching them when she goes on vacation, paying for their camps, activities and tuition, etc) but my mother and sister recently got in an argument over something and my sister cut off my mom. So now she suddenly acts like she wants to see my kids and can’t comprehend how I have a college student and a HS junior. She missed their entire childhoods.

Over the years it has really hurt my feelings. I couldn’t understand why she rejected my kids so much. In the end it may be her loss but my kids suffered.

[Anonymous]

6 hours away is too far for sports games/recitals/etc. RTO has been going on a long time and really isn't an excuse for feeling overwhelmed anymore. We all dealt with this. It is 100% hard. It will get easier as kids get older.

If you don't have any friends to talk with commiserate with, talk therapy may help.

[Anonymous]

Please don’t take this as trying to take away from your pain, because your pain is valid.

My in laws live five minutes down the road. They spend all of their time with their other local grandchildren and when they’re not with them, they’re flying out to be with their other grandchildren on the West coast for weeks at a time. We see them maybe an hour every few months. They didn’t even bother to come visit our DS when he was in the hospital for two weeks recently. They suck. My husband is tired of trying to speak up for us and frankly I don’t blame him.

[Anonymous]

My kids have contact with their grandparents who live in town. We moved into this town because they outright gave us 100K to put as a down payment on a house in this town. And then an additional 20K year exclusion gift. (10K from each parent, at the time)

I appreciate now how my in-laws basically put a tractor beam on all their kids. Without outing us, they did it 8x by 100K and now all their kids and grandkids live near them within a 20 mile radius.

We basically got the house and the kids' educations funded ... we didn't touch that money except for house or kids 529s.

As an elder now with 2 grandchildren, we have FaceTime we have zoom we have texts and pictures. It's not the old days of envelopes and even polaroids. My daughter has a newborn and I had to sit on my hands even thinking about holiday cards. That may have already been 10 years ago.

I'm not traveling anywhere anymore. But they can bring babies and kids to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents are like this.

I do not visit them often any more. Once a year. It's still about 5x as often as they visit me. They once went 7 years without visiting me at all (I visited at least twice a year during that time). I have no guilt and I am very rejecting when someone tries to put it on me.

I was also neglected as a child. Like real neglect, I would be forgotten about, my parents wouldn't take me to doctors or dental visits when they were supposed to, they'd forget to prepare meals for me if the family was busy with something else, I would sometimes come home from school to find everyone gone and the door locked and I didn't have a key, and just have to sit on the porch until they got home. My whole life they have been like this.

I am in therapy.

This isn’t your thread.

I think what PP meant to say is, I’m so sorry. You were just a little child and never deserved that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t take this as trying to take away from your pain, because your pain is valid.

My in laws live five minutes down the road. They spend all of their time with their other local grandchildren and when they’re not with them, they’re flying out to be with their other grandchildren on the West coast for weeks at a time. We see them maybe an hour every few months. They didn’t even bother to come visit our DS when he was in the hospital for two weeks recently. They suck. My husband is tired of trying to speak up for us and frankly I don’t blame him.

This is my mother. She lives 3 blocks away and sees my 3 daughters maybe twice a year. My oldest dd just gave birth to her 1st great granddaughter and it took my mother a month to come over to see her for 15 minutes for which she talked about my niece. My brother adopted a daughter last year and lives 1 1/2 hours away by mass transit and she sees his daughter every weekend and stays at his apartment.

I get it though me and her were never close and she raised all my siblings so she has favorites which ive accepted but it still bothers me.

[Anonymous]

My mom and stepdad have recently gotten too old to travel much, but that certainly does not explain why they have basically not visited us over the last couple of decades. We even moved to a city closer to where they live, where my mom lived briefly after grad school (with my dad, who she divorced a long time ago) and she claimed to be excited because she loves this city so much. We have been here for 7 years--zero visits. They are retired and rich. We have two teens and the relationship there is fine but very surface.

They have put effort into my half-siblings (mom and stepdad's kids), and it is pretty clear that stepdad controls the money and that is the priority. When we were young, we thought we were all one big happy family, but in adulthood, their full children and grandchildren have gotten all of the time, attention and money and we have gotten basically nothing (we are not asking for money, just mentioning for context).

When I visit with my children, things are usually pleasant/fun, but stepdad often acts like we are there to grift off of them. Again, they are rich and I have zero reason to grift (unsure how flying there with two kids and staying in the guest room would even be a boon).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to ask a stupid question but have you ever said to your mother, in those words, that you don’t feel like a priority and you need her help in this season of life with shouldering the travel burden?

If you have, and this is what has come of it, I’m so so sorry. If you haven’t maybe try that first. I think people make assumptions (which make their lives easier) like “oh Larla is too BUSY for us to visit or Larla LOVES the road trip every year” but if confronted directly will make a change.

This is OP again. Not a stupid question - yes, I have on more than one occasio. There is a pretty predictable pattern... she will quickly say that I am trying to make her feel bad or that I am getting on her case. I will then cry, and she will yell at me for being "emotional" and then I will get really upset and get off the phone as quickly as possible. The next time we talk, she will act as if it didn't happen. Real healthy stuff.

This happened a few months ago right after Easter. This was the first year we did not spend spring break visiting them because we had to work.

Wow. This is my Mom to a tee.

[Anonymous]

OP, have you ever talked with your dad? How do you think he would respond to some practical, factual communication? "Gosh our work schedules are so tight. The kids talk about you and wish you could come to some of their games. Do you think you could travel here sometimes?" Might he be a bit less difficult than your mom?

I'm sorry and have been through a similar dynamic with local in law grandparents who just couldn't be bothered but wanted all the honor. It hurts and sometimes we just have to face that some grandparents really do suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to ask a stupid question but have you ever said to your mother, in those words, that you don’t feel like a priority and you need her help in this season of life with shouldering the travel burden?

If you have, and this is what has come of it, I’m so so sorry. If you haven’t maybe try that first. I think people make assumptions (which make their lives easier) like “oh Larla is too BUSY for us to visit or Larla LOVES the road trip every year” but if confronted directly will make a change.

This is OP again. Not a stupid question - yes, I have on more than one occasio. There is a pretty predictable pattern... she will quickly say that I am trying to make her feel bad or that I am getting on her case. I will then cry, and she will yell at me for being "emotional" and then I will get really upset and get off the phone as quickly as possible. The next time we talk, she will act as if it didn't happen. Real healthy stuff.

This happened a few months ago right after Easter. This was the first year we did not spend spring break visiting them because we had to work.

I’m sorry. This is selfish manipulation.

Op here - thank you, I appreciate that! I know it is intellectually but somehow still want it to be different. Feels pretty pathetic that I am still bothered by this as a 40 year old adult.

Stop it, sweetie. This is not pathetic. It’s pathetic how they treated you your whole life and how they continue to treat you.
I have my own issues with my mom and elder care, but I just want you to know I feel for you and you don’t deserve that abuse from your mom. You and the kids just deserve love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:6 hours away is too far for sports games/recitals/etc. RTO has been going on a long time and really isn't an excuse for feeling overwhelmed anymore. We all dealt with this. It is 100% hard. It will get easier as kids get older.

If you don't have any friends to talk with commiserate with, talk therapy may help.

This is pretty cold..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There must be something. Maybe it's bathroom related, something they find embarrassing to talk about. Sleep problems. Something.

Op, do not blow it up into them not wanting to be in your lives. Assuming the best, I guess, means, assume this is about their age and what they are actually capable of. Not what you think they are capable of.

At some point elders stop traveling. This is just coming much sooner than you ever expected. But it happens to everyone, eventually. Make peace with that.

What? OP parents are capable and travel, just don't travel by plane or car to OP. That is the cycle that needs to be broken. OP wrote the parents do 10 round trip drives to the brothers, maybe 14 plus hours to Maine, fly to Florida! These silly drivers can get a short flight to OP's area. Selfish parents expect OP family to do a 12 hour round trip drive with 2 kids and a dog multiple times per year.

Ongoing if we were OP the dog would have 2 3 day kennel stays and the OP family would have 2 short flight 3 day visits.