Anyone else experience grandchildren not visiting?
My mother is 91 years old and has grown grand children. They do not visit her and she does not get calls from them around the holidays, her birthday or just a call to say "Hi". I find this very disturbing, saddens me very much. Is anybody else going though this experience?
Her grand children are all in the late 20s and early 30s. I do not blame them, however, I blame their parents for not knowing to do the right thing. I have brought this up to one of my siblings and the answer is "I cannot speak for them". At this time my mother has trouble remembering their names or who they are. Also, I get the excuse she won't remember anyway. This is wrong! If they visited or called frequently they will be more familiar to her. Visiting maybe a problem but a phone call takes very little effort and could be easily done.
When I was their age I would go see my grandmother every two weeks and the visits were always short. She would tell me stories from a long time ago. They would not mean anything to me, however, the social interaction was good for her. I would ask questions and she would explain what had happened. Before leaving, I would always say goodbye and I will back soon. She was happy to see me and it made her feel good and I felt better. It is too bad my mother's grand children don't feel the same way.
I tell people all the time the best complement a person can give another person is: To spend time with person. Life is too short.
And now that I am a widow, do they call me or stop by? No. Hmmm. They sometimes include me in their activities (Gramma, we are doing Karaoke tonight. Want to join us?) And I do get invited when they host events. And if I ask for help, they are willing. But their main focus right now is establishing themselves as independent adults and building relationships with their own new families.
I think perhaps it is not realistic to expect more from our grandchildren than their stage in life supports.
And it probably isn't realistic to expect them to start new relationships with grandparents at this age if there wasn't a relationship all along.
I find it hard to get my adult daughters involved with my disabled wife so I don't have any easy answers. They dont mind taking her shopping on occasion provided its a store they like and can throw in a few of their own items in the cart. It's sad to witness but I can attest that loyalty and sense of duty is lost even when it involves the parent so grandparent issues don't surprise me.
The few times she insists on taking a call, afterward she asked me who it was. The caller had no idea what she was talking about either.
I cannot blame the grandkids for not calling.
I just returned from a visit to 4 of my g-kids who live in the PNW. Mom is a dr., dad (my son) is an attorney. HUGE house. Waaaaay too many toys and things & money--gaming systems on all 3 levels of the house---kids are spoiled rotten.
We have to go visit them b/c they won't come back here (DIL has serious issues with her family). Only the oldest child even attempts to interact with us, but we have been more in her life than the rest of the kids'. Five minutes after we arrived last week, the oldest boy asked if he could have friends over--he was "bored".
By day 5, I was climbing the walls. The kids don't respect any authority, they do what they want, parents scream at them day and night, dog barks incessantly and nobody respects anybody, except mom, who needs her sleep.
I gave each of the kids a little souvenir from Disneyland, b/c they opted out of a family trip there. Just a small keychain with a Disney character on it, but nobody said "thanks" and I later found all 4 keychains, one had been chewed up by the dog, 2 were stuck on a shelf, forgotten and one was outside in the snow.
I love these kids, They know that. We just aren't close and never will be. After last Christmas when I sent a lot of lovely, personalized gifts and received not ONE thank you from ANYBODY..I decided that from now on, I will send them one small gift and that's it. I will send a birthday card with money in it. It is what it is. They pattern their behavior after their parents'. Their PARENTS don't respect us much and the kids take note.
On the other side of the spectrum, my other 10 grandkids are cuddly, snuggly, loving kids. They love to see me show up. They love to come here for sleepovers and parties. I am developing new relationships with the older "tweens" that are just delightful. I like to think we will always be close. But it will take work!
I was dear friends with my grandmothers and spent time with each of them every week, esp after I was married and had kids. I was not close to my mother, so these amazing women taught me how to be a mom and a woman.
The relationship has to go both ways...and it cannot be forced.
But you better believe when she passes away, they'll all be right there at her bedside, making a good show of being the dutiful grandchildren, and they'll want their share of her possessions to remember her by.
people do get quite busy with their own lives in this rough economy though . i dont have any animosity towards any of them . the less they came around the less they bilked mom out of money .
I LOVED visiting my dad's mom. She was a gentle, loving, kind, and wonderful person who I adored.
I HATED visiting my mom's dad. He was a bully. Even worse, the thing I REALLY couldn't stand about him, were his racist and homophobic attitudes. It was against everything I believed and everything I stood for. It was against everything my parents instilled in me, and I couldn't believe my mom was willing to put aside what she'd taught me and humour his intolerance. Worse, he was talking about my friends, and when I was in my 20s, my partner at the time was indigenous, so you can imagine how I felt. I stopped even going for Christmas at that point.
Some people from the older generation are just hateful towards people who are different. Some older people aren't necessarily hateful, but they still hold attitudes that are racist, sexist, and/or homophobic, and they don't even realize it, either because it was acceptable to be that way in their day, or they don't really understand what racism, sexism, and homophobia are. It's not acceptable anymore. I find the many of the millennial generation and "generation Z" have no tolerance for this kind of thing, and that should be okay. The world is changing, thank goodness, and they are there for it.
I also think, in the United States, this dissonance has become heightened by what's going on politically. You will find younger people cutting ties because of who and what their parents/grandparents support and/or vote for. They take it very seriously, and I don't blame them. It's their future, not ours.
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