Reply to Parents guilting me about time with the grandkids

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Rural Georgia sounds difficult. Can you encourage your parents to come visit you more often? Maybe buy them plane tickets if they can’t afford them. Assuming they are in good health, if they refuse to come, that’s on them [/quote]
It seems like many times we ask them, they already have other plans. They're fairly active, with travel for their bowling league, cruises or trips to the beach every 3-4 months, and visiting my brother and his kids 3-4 times per year. I'm sure they would come here more frequently if we asked with more notice (we usually ask 6-8 weeks before the proposed visit date), but DH and I are not the kind of people that plan that far ahead.[/quote]

What would happen if you said hey, dh and I are thinking of going away for a week this summer, could we meet up in Atlanta and then Larlo and Larla stay with you for a week? When would work for you?[/quote]
OP shared more context. Her children are young and the grandparents have similarly damaging way of treating their grandchildren as they do OP. Leaving them with the grandparents isn’t a healthy option. I think it’s great that OP is willing to facilitate, but if these grandparents are so keen to have the relationship, they need to accept OPs invitations.

Grandparent relationships can be among the most amazing in our lives, but not all grandparents fall naturally into a healthy relationship. I think OP is being very reasonable and is open to helping her parents. They are being stubborn and want the relationship on their terms. Grandparents who try to overrule parents seldom get what they want. [/quote]

Did OP share how her parents treated her growing up? [/quote]

She did:

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP back to answer/respond to some of the common questions/comments.

[b]My relationship with my parents[/b]
Our relationship has always been a little awkward and strained. My parents have never been comfortable with emotions and it caused me to bottle up my feelings as a child in ways that I'm still working through as an adult. They have also admitted to never quite understanding me or my interests in reading, history, politics, living in a city, etc. They have always been proud of me, but never really known how to relate to me. My younger brother has always been their clear favorite, because he's very easygoing, athletic, outgoing, and a boy.

Over the years, I have gone through periods of calling my parents once or twice a week and also periods where I call them once a month. I am always the one to initiate contact, no matter how long it's been since our last phone call. Even the conversation I posted was the result of me calling them to say hi.

As a parent myself now, I am especially protective of my eldest (who is very emotional and struggles with anxiety) when we're around my parents, because they minimize her feelings when she's upset or sad, like they always did to me. At the same time, it's increasingly obvious that my younger daughter is picking up on the fact that she's not their favorite. My older one is quiet and content to sit and color for hours, which is more my parents' speed, so they'll often leave my younger one to play by herself (another situation I know from my childhood) while they both color or read with my eldest.[/quote]
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