Reply to S/O: ‘The DIL is in the busiest chapter of her life; you have nothing to do’

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Reply to "S/O: ‘The DIL is in the busiest chapter of her life; you have nothing to do’"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is such a great thread. Thank you for posting it OP.

Ok, both my kids are in college now so there is probably many years ahead still until they hopefully settle down and have kids. But everyone here has got me thinking. What would the ideal relationship between ILs/parents and their adult children with families be or involve? I can think of some things but I'm sure I am missing many others:

1. the obvious things like not putting extra pressure on DIL/Son-in-law/adult children to visit us, host me, call, etc. etc.
2. if living in close proximity, offer to babysit and as grandkids grow older offer to have them come for sleepovers
3. again, if living close enough, offer to help with any carpooling
4. if not living in close proximity, offer to take grandkids for a week+ over the summer; again, help with babysitting

In a different vein, I can see the following should also be on this list:
5. remember how hard it really is to raise young kids, balance work and home life and all the things that all of that involves
6. really try to not have unfair expectations of your DIL/Son-in-law/adult children expecting them to fit us in to their busy schedules just because we "are here!"; instead the goal is to add value to their lives when we visit
7. remember that as much as we all love one another remember that on a day-to-day basis, parents to grown adults with families are just not as relevant anymore and that that is okay - it is just the cycle of life

What else?[/quote]

Number 6 is so important - add value to their lives. Lots of grandparents (including my parents) think that my kids exist to add value to THEIR lives. They have put in zero effort to get to know my kids, it's always just all about them plus finding out about my kids' accomplishments so they can brag to their friends about their intelligence being passed on to their grandkids.  Not even joking.

I think it's so important to get to know your dd/ds's spouse, to get to know the adult version of your dd/ds, and to get to know your grandkids. You can ask them if they would appreciate you offering help, you showing up with help, you're waiting to be asked for help, but if you get to know them, it might not even need to do this. But just actually paying attention to them and their needs and remembering that just because you're a grandparent, doesn't mean you get to throw all social skills out the window.[/quote]

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