Reply to Help me figure out how to see my grandkids more often!

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, have you posted on DCUM before or read many posts here? If you had done either, you'd know that you're likely to get ripped apart for daring to ask this and especially for using the term "duty" as regards any parent "taking" grandchildren to see a grandparent. I am a parent, not a grandparent, but I see a huge amount of vitriol about grandparents on this forum, so you should prepare yourself.

I'm going to hope that you don't actually see it as a "duty" for your son or his wife to bring the kids to you. It's not.

Here's what I hope is a constructive answer: Please stop [i]expecting[/i] that either parent can or should bring the kids to you for meals etc. It's nice when they do but don't expect it as the norm, which I think you are expecting right now.

Instead, if the kids are school-aged (or even preschool-aged), go to THEM. Say clearly that you realize they are very busy and you do not want to add to their "to-do" list the item "see grandma," so you are very glad to attend a preschool concert where a grandkid is singing, or a school bingo night, or a Cub or Girl Scout event or whatever. Ask if it would help the parents if you took a grandkid to bingo night at school so mom and dad can have a date night or do something special with the other sibling. You get the picture -- offer to see the kids in their own world, rather than expecting them to come to meals at your house when that may be something that requires them to round up the kids, get in the car, etc.

If you have mobility problems that make this impossible, that's a whole different story. But if you don't have such issues, and you just have an expectation that the grandparent-grandkid relationship is built on the parents bringing kids to grandma's for meals on weekends, please rethink that. And try to do it without resentment. Your post hints at resentment toward your DIL and that is probably something she and your son feel from you, even if you think you're not telegraphing it to them. That is surely why DIL doesn't bring the kids to you, plus she probably figures it's her husband's job to foster any relationship between their kids and you. So talk to him about how you'd like to see them more but make that talk about how you would like to help, and would be glad to see the kids at school events etc., and you now realize you've been sitting back waiting for him to bring them to you and that was wrong.

As grandkids get older there will be more and more activities the kids do and [/quote]

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