Reply to my parents are not the type of grandparents I wish they could be....help me accept this fact!

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Reply to "my parents are not the type of grandparents I wish they could be....help me accept this fact!"

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[quote=Anonymous]I don't understand why some of you are being so hard on the OP.  Expecting one's parents, especially retired parents, to drive 25 minutes to visit their kids and grandkids is a far cry from expecting them to take over the daily grind of raising their grandchildren.  The reality is that most of us raising young kids, especially with two working parents, are busier than our parents.  It is much easier for two self-sufficient adults to drive 25 minutes to see their kids and grandparents than it would be to clear everyone's activity schedules and pack up a young family for the same car ride.  Also, while I do think it is unreasonable to expect grandparents to provide primary childcare services (i.e. to act in lieu of daycare or a nanny), I don't think it is unreasonable to wish or even expect that they would babysit occasionally.

OP, is it possible this is more about your mother's basic personality than it is about her placing a low priority on family relations?  Does she have a history of anxiety or ADHD-type behavior?

My mother lives a fair distance away so we don't do last-minute visits, but she is great about caring for my kids.  When she's with them, she is 100% present.  She's actually like that about every single thing in her life.  But the flip side of that intensity is poor executive management skills.  She is frustratingly hard to pin down to a schedule and she always seems to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated--even by her many personal leisure activities--in part because she has trouble planning beyond whatever she is giving her 100% attention to at any given moment.  She was exactly like this when I was a kid:  She was always late for pickups and almost always stressed out by busy-ness when she did arrive.  Dinner time might be 6 pm or it might be 8:30 pm; she could never really plan or predict and would explode with anxiety if she was trying to prepare a meal to accommodate an immovable evening commitment.  Now that I am an adult, my own household is all about moving parts and tight schedules.  When my mom is in town, it stresses her out.

In your case, the fact that your mom loves to have you visit but seems overwhelmed by the idea of coming to you tells me this might be anxiety or ADHD rather than disinterest.

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