An open letter to apathetic grandparents

I would love to hear the other side of this story, where a woman complains that her husband's parents are more interested in babysitting their daughter's dog than in seeing their grandchildren. (Could it be that the dog is better behaved?)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/19/a-letter-to-my-in-laws-who-are-apathetic-grandparents

Given how often CF people get the short end of the stick, there has to be a story about that preference for avoiding the daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Reading between the lines, she was expecting them to fawn over the children and couldn't imagine that anyone could feel differently: "I assumed you would be typical grandparents and dote on your grandchildren as my grandparents had doted on me."

While it is sad if the children are trying to gain the approval of their grandparents who have no interest in them, I can't help but think that their mother must be pushing them in that direction because she has an idea of what the relationship should be like that she isn't prepared to give up. My grandparents didn't live nearby and I rarely saw them, and I was never eager for their approval.

Is it that hard to accept that you can't make other family members fill the roles you have assigned to them?

I could totally imagine my SIL writing something about how my parents prefer to visit me over her children, despite the fact that I live far away and her family lives relatively close to my parents. Because I'm the favorite daughter, blah blah, blah blah.

Of course she would not mention how she made my parents feel unwelcome because they failed to fulfill her financial expectations, which amounted to giving all their $$$ to her, because grandchildren. Now that the oldest child has acquired her mother's snobbery and completely ignores them when they do visit, my parents are making even less effort to see them. Rather, they prefer to spend time with people who do appreciate them - what a shocker.

Both my grandfathers died when I was four. My father's mother was a cranky women with a LOT of grandkids and "doted" on none of them, except for the occasional knitted slippers. We would go into her cupboards and steal cookies and she woud yell "Get out, get out" and we would go flying with Oreos.

My other gran was really not a people person which was weird, I guess for a grandmother. She was nice to me when I was a "cute kid" but I was never "doted on"

To this day when I hear about grandparent adopting their grandkids and going nuts over them, I still see it as "weird" I see my grandparents, who are all dead now as my parent's parents and there is some disconnect there, not older "backup parents" or whatever they are nowadays.

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yurble
Is it that hard to accept that you can't make other family members fill the roles you have assigned to them?

Well, breeders can't accept that their children aren't here on Earth for their own glorification, so I suppose it's not a stretch that they can't accept that the rest of the world doesn't worship them.

maybe because these parents dumped their kids off on the grandparents one too many times.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

Even as a kid I knew there were all kinds of grandparents. A few who raised their grand kids, some who lived in another country, some who babysat their grand kids all the time, some who only saw their grand kids on holidays. But at that time people didn't worship kids and if you did have them once they were grown you could do whatever you wanted.

I found this little gem to be funny and all-telling:

"You only have, and will only ever have, two grandchildren"

How does she know the sister won't drop a loaf or adopt? Not advocating for having kids, it's just so obvious the air of superiority in that one little sentence. It's like she is the only one worthy of any and all attention while the sister is a dirty, dirty whore who would rather have pets than kids. Can you imagine the fit this bint would have if the sister followed the Lifescript? Personally, I hope the grandparents decide to take the grandpets on a roadtrip just to piss her off.

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"It is better not to look like what you are; it is better to look like a bourgeois woman because then all the doors are open for you and then you can just go and make hell." - Marjane Satrapi

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addiea raine
I found this little gem to be funny and all-telling:

"You only have, and will only ever have, two grandchildren"

How does she know the sister won't drop a loaf or adopt?

My guess is the sister is CF, and it is pissing the letter-writer off badly that she and her husband aren't being given the favorable treatment they so obviously deserve for giving grandkids. I get the impression she thinks it is the natural order of things that people without children should be looked down on, and she is infuriated that her in-laws disagree with her.

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yurble

My guess is the sister is CF, and it is pissing the letter-writer off badly that she and her husband aren't being given the favorable treatment they so obviously deserve for giving grandkids. I get the impression she thinks it is the natural order of things that people without children should be looked down on, and she is infuriated that her in-laws disagree with her.

Some people have a sense of entitlement, too. They are true believers that, "I deserve grandchildren, and you must give them to me!" In this case there's a sense of entitlement AND greed. They've already got two grandchildren, but they want more.

Here's the truth: The only things you deserve are the things you can deliver for yourself. No one is owed grandchildren or virtually anything else, simply because they exist.