I think grandparents are out of touch now because a lot of us waited so long to have kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well all 4 of mine were 60 and newly retired/soon to be retired when we had our kids. And ours will be the only grandchildren on both sides. We're suffocated and constant demands really strain us. They aren't helpful because they want to enjoy their retirement, but on the same time, they want grandchildren to put on a command performance. They want crazy travel with us and the grandchildren. They have time to host massive christmases when DH and I are burnt out and want small christmases. It's just hard. It's like they all have way too much time on their hands.

You are truly awful.

I’m not the Pp but you just don’t get what it’s like when grandparents literally have no life outside of the grandkids and are sad/hurt and guilt you that they can’t just drop by daily whenever they are bored, your schedule be damned.

Give them a key to your house, ask them to text first, and be happy you have them.

[Anonymous]

But with your attitude, I can see why your mother moved away.

Wow, you are really showing the merits of the Boomer generation. What a lovely comment. Thanks so much.

Trust me, my attitude did not show up until after years of struggling to try to form a relationship between my kids and their grandparents. And I am venting it here, anonymously, in a thread about grandparents being disconnected. My kids are terrific--high achieving, nationally ranked athletes, smart and funny--and deserve much better than the crumbs of attention they get. They are so upset about not having a relationship about their grandparents that, before COVID hit, we talked about whether they could "adopt" a grandparent at a local nursing home. It makes me extremely sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry, I am just going to say it: the Boomers are selfish, narcissistic, terrible grandparents. My kids have four grandparents and two step-grandparents, all Boomers, and all are far too involved in their own lives to establish relationships with my kids. And it is not a "disconnected from little kids" thing. My kids are now tweens/teens and this has been a constant throughout their lives. It's not age related, either. My mom was 57 when my first kid was born and decided to move to a foreign country because "that's where her soul needs to be."

My grandmother was a raging alcoholic who died at 59, and she was a more loving, involved grandparent than either my parents or in laws.

My mom is a classic Boomer born in 1952 and she's amazing as a grandmother. However, she was an ES teacher so she really gets kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But with your attitude, I can see why your mother moved away.

Wow, you are really showing the merits of the Boomer generation. What a lovely comment. Thanks so much.

Trust me, my attitude did not show up until after years of struggling to try to form a relationship between my kids and their grandparents. And I am venting it here, anonymously, in a thread about grandparents being disconnected. My kids are terrific--high achieving, nationally ranked athletes, smart and funny--and deserve much better than the crumbs of attention they get. They are so upset about not having a relationship about their grandparents that, before COVID hit, we talked about whether they could "adopt" a grandparent at a local nursing home. It makes me extremely sad.

Still doesn't give you license to insult a whole generation.

[Anonymous]

I think some of this also has to do with the changing expectations of caring for children. When we were growing up, what you had to do to be considered a good parent is VASTLY different than what you need to do these days. When we were growing up our parents were a lot less involved in our lives, didn't necessarily provide tons of emotional support, etc. So it's reasonable that their styles as grandparents would be similar to their styles as parents.

[Anonymous]

Still doesn't give you license to insult a whole generation.

And yet Boomers routinely use anecdotes to generalize about and insult other generations? See, e.g., any discussion about Millennials in the workplace.

I realize that multiple anecdotes =/= data, but I have a number of friends whose Boomer parents are detached grandparents who are more concerned with their own lives and social activities than their grandchildren. Maybe this is just my/our misfortune, and maybe the difference is divorced vs. non-divorced Boomers, but possibly you should consider that your experience as devoted Boomer grandparents is the outlier, not mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More involved grandparents is one of the benefits of having kids younger.

Unless your parents suck. Right now I am really grateful that my mom will probably be demented by the time my kids are old enough to figure out what a !?!/$ she is.

x1000000

MIL has always been selfish and checked out - certainly won't get better with age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well all 4 of mine were 60 and newly retired/soon to be retired when we had our kids. And ours will be the only grandchildren on both sides. We're suffocated and constant demands really strain us. They aren't helpful because they want to enjoy their retirement, but on the same time, they want grandchildren to put on a command performance. They want crazy travel with us and the grandchildren. They have time to host massive christmases when DH and I are burnt out and want small christmases. It's just hard. It's like they all have way too much time on their hands.

You are truly awful.

I’m not the Pp but you just don’t get what it’s like when grandparents literally have no life outside of the grandkids and are sad/hurt and guilt you that they can’t just drop by daily whenever they are bored, your schedule be damned.

Give them a key to your house, ask them to text first, and be happy you have them.

This is the most idiotic response I’ve ever seen. It’s like saying the answer to not having enough food is to become a hoarder and never throw anything away.

[Anonymous]

My MIL is younger and she still doesn't really want to be hands-on with the kids. I feel like they are more props for her social media than anything.

She is definitely also delusional about how DH was as a kid. If I tell her something about one of them (e.g., my 1yo started using a couple of words like "dada" and "ball") she will just respond by telling me about how DH did that so much younger (spoiler alert: no he didn't, and even if he did, it had nothing to do with MIL bc she was 18 when he was born and his grandmother raised him).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This occurred to me earlier today. My parents and ILs are not great grandparents, just really bad with our kids and very out of touch with what kids are like in general as well as the prevailing parenting wisdom. But I think it's just that too much time has past since they had kids and they are just too out of it. They don't really remember their own kids' childhoods (but kind of think they do) and so many of their expectations are based either on super outdated ideas or on what their friends/siblings have told them (much of which are just plain false -- lots of grandparents out there are straight up lying about their grandkids, especially on Facebook!).

But we had our kids in our late 30s, plus we are younger children ourselves so our parents were in their 30s when they had us. So now all the grandparents are in their 70, several are experience serious mental decline, plus obviously they are physically less able to help or be involved than they would have been 20 years ago.

This isn't a judgement on having kids late. My DH and I married in our mid-30s, and wanted to buy a home and pay down school debt before having kids. I have zero regrets about any of those choices -- they were the right ones for us and were partially dictated by the way the world works now. We were not raised to get married straight out of high school or college and of course that pushes the timeline back. Plus as a woman, I was just really encouraged to be independent, focus on my career, get an education, etc. Not to have babies at 25. So I didn't.

But part of the consequence is that there is just a bigger gap and I think that has led to lower quality relationships between my parents and my kids, plus a more intense squeeze on my DH and I in terms of raising young kids while also caring for aging parents. Not sure I'd advise my kids to do it differently, but it's something I will keep in mind as they grow up. I think we have to have more realistic expectations of grandparents when they are 75 as opposed to 55. It's a very different experience at that age.

Sounds like your parents are very much in touch with what’s important. You’re lucky they encouraged you in this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymou[b wrote:s]My MIL is younger and she still doesn't really want to be hands-on with the kids. I feel like they are more props for her social media than anything.[/b]

She is definitely also delusional about how DH was as a kid. If I tell her something about one of them (e.g., my 1yo started using a couple of words like "dada" and "ball") she will just respond by telling me about how DH did that so much younger (spoiler alert: no he didn't, and even if he did, it had nothing to do with MIL bc she was 18 when he was born and his grandmother raised him).

Performance grand parenting! We have that in our family. Grandparents visit or we visit them and they have no actual interest in the children with the exception of taking a photo for the Christmas card. They otherwise ignore them, get annoyed if the children ask a question or ask if the grandparents would like to read, play a game, etc. Our kids, at 6 and 11, have long since stopped bothering to even ask since the answer was always “no” and now we have pouting long distance bored isolated grandparents who have a sudden interest in FaceTime to break up their days. Kids are not interested. You reap what you sew!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well all 4 of mine were 60 and newly retired/soon to be retired when we had our kids. And ours will be the only grandchildren on both sides. We're suffocated and constant demands really strain us. They aren't helpful because they want to enjoy their retirement, but on the same time, they want grandchildren to put on a command performance. They want crazy travel with us and the grandchildren. They have time to host massive christmases when DH and I are burnt out and want small christmases. It's just hard. It's like they all have way too much time on their hands.

You are truly awful.

I’m not the Pp but you just don’t get what it’s like when grandparents literally have no life outside of the grandkids and are sad/hurt and guilt you that they can’t just drop by daily whenever they are bored, your schedule be damned.

Give them a key to your house, ask them to text first, and be happy you have them.

Um, no thank you, I love my parents and I am plenty thankful, but I moved out for a reason. I didn’t have kids so they could be entertained. We have a routine, school/activities, jobs, social lives. They live 15 minutes away and see us and the kids at least once every single week, usually twice. I drop in on my lunch break every week or so. They aren’t neglected. Daily forced visits would do nothing but hurt the relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymou[b wrote:s]My MIL is younger and she still doesn't really want to be hands-on with the kids. I feel like they are more props for her social media than anything.[/b]

She is definitely also delusional about how DH was as a kid. If I tell her something about one of them (e.g., my 1yo started using a couple of words like "dada" and "ball") she will just respond by telling me about how DH did that so much younger (spoiler alert: no he didn't, and even if he did, it had nothing to do with MIL bc she was 18 when he was born and his grandmother raised him).

Performance grand parenting! We have that in our family. Grandparents visit or we visit them and they have no actual interest in the children with the exception of taking a photo for the Christmas card. They otherwise ignore them, get annoyed if the children ask a question or ask if the grandparents would like to read, play a game, etc. Our kids, at 6 and 11, have long since stopped bothering to even ask since the answer was always “no” and now we have pouting long distance bored isolated grandparents who have a sudden interest in FaceTime to break up their days. Kids are not interested. You reap what you sew!

We have the bolded dynamic with my inlaws as well. They are local though. I dread going to their house because there is nothing for my kids to do there (we can't leave toys there because "clutter") and they don't want to play with the kids. They just want to repeat their long boring stories to the adults while ignoring the kids. At least if they come to our house our kids have all their own stuff and I can busy myself in the kitchen or fold laundry or something during the boring conversations.

[Anonymous]

I think grandparents like that were terrible parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Still doesn't give you license to insult a whole generation.

And yet Boomers routinely use anecdotes to generalize about and insult other generations? See, e.g., any discussion about Millennials in the workplace.

I realize that multiple anecdotes =/= data, but I have a number of friends whose Boomer parents are detached grandparents who are more concerned with their own lives and social activities than their grandchildren. Maybe this is just my/our misfortune, and maybe the difference is divorced vs. non-divorced Boomers, but possibly you should consider that your experience as devoted Boomer grandparents is the outlier, not mine.

I’m sorry but I have to agree. The boomers were a real something of a generation. I don’t think it’s the “waited to have kids” thing; I had my first at 30 so not super young but I didn’t have my first ten years later, either. It’s not the polite thing to say, but I think the massive damage that the Greatest Generation had (born into or just after the Flu Pandemic, the Depression and then the world war) really did a number on the boomers. In general, obviously, as not all of them emerged with damage, but I just think it’s a generational thing.