March 28, 2024, 06:11:39 AM

News:

"Welcome to WiseWomenUnite.com -- When adult children marry and leave home, life can sometimes get more complex instead of simpler.  Being a mother-in-law or daughter-in-law can be tough.  How do we extend love and support to our mothers-in-law, adult children, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchildren without interfering?  What do we do when there are communication problems?  How can we ask for help when we need it without being a burden?  And how do our family members feel about these issues?  We invite you to join our free forum, read some posts... and when you're ready...share your challenges and wisdom."


Question: is grandparenting a privledge that must be won nowadays?

Started by Tara, November 14, 2010, 05:47:03 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Tara

Scoop,

These are some great ideas about being a great grandmother.  My GD came for a week this summer and it was a first for us.
My DIL and SS suggested it.  I was kind of nervous before she got here, but we had a wonderful time, doing the kinds of things you mention, scrapbooking, boat rides, etc. etc.   



I always appreciate your posts.

kathleen

My husband looks forward to being a grandfather.  One of the reasons his children are so amazingly accomplished and loving is the gift of bushel baskets full of fun and love he lavished on them.  Unfortunately, our son's children will be cut off from this side of the family just as we are.  I have printed your essay for my husband and set it next to his breakfast plate.  I doubt there is anything we can do to head off this catastrophe.


Hello Seasage,

Thank you for writing this.  As you did, I have shared your post with my husband.  Like your husband, mine poured so much love, time,
resources, and attention on all our three children.  He did not deserve what he got from one, nor from his DIL.

As you say, little to nothing can be done.  There is comfort in sharing.

I so much appreciate your comments,

Kathleen


1Glitterati

Quote from: Anna on November 15, 2010, 08:47:12 AM
Sunny1, I'm sorry your mil is disrespectful to you & your hubby.  I still think she should have a chance with future gc.  Maybe she would be totally different with them?  Maybe her gc would soften her in some ways & make her a better person?  One never knows, unless one is given a chance.  Just a thought.

(((((Hugs)))))   Anna.

Anna...I am not trying to start a dust up.  I truly don't understand.  Why should you (general you) let someone be around your children who is mean or disrespectful or says hateful things about you or is horrible to you.  If they can't be trusted to be nice in the first place, why would you trust them with your child?

kathleen

Glitter,

I don't know or don't remember if you are a DIL.

Here's the deal: hopefully to help:

It is your judgment what is hateful or disrespectful to you.

It is your child's judgment whether or not she/he wants to have a relationship with a family member that the child may love as deeply as a parent.  If your child has been well raised, that child will know the truth and you will not have to concern yourself about what is said about you. Your child, on his/her own, will reject the grandparent if that grandparent is unfair, vicious, or otherwise abusive.

The child may well know (most probably does) that the grandparent has faults, even very deep faults.  The child may love the grandparent(s) despite the faults. 

Children learn from loving family members with deep faults and flaws, and thus, they learn to love their parents, with their parents' deep faults and flaws.

If they learn not to love people with flaws, this can be translated later.

At least, this is my experience.  I may well be wrong.

Good luck,

Kathleen


1Glitterati

Quote from: Anna on November 15, 2010, 06:51:41 PM
Thanx Kathleen.  I have a hard time trying to explain things & you did it perfectly.   Yes,  I thought it was an understandable explanation.

Glitter, would you want someone else telling you how you should feel about someone else?  I am an adult.  Children don't get to make their own decisions until much later.  That's what parents are for.  would you want someone else keeping you away from a person cause they don't like them?  Again...I'm an adult and same answer.  I know it's different when it's your own chidren, but how do they learn who they can or can't trust if they are never allowed to be around anyone?  You talk with your kids.  You sometimes explain why you make the decisions you make.  Just because a child isn't around a grandparent doesn't mean a child isn't around other people.  (And during the time when dh's parents didn't see the kids, I did talk with ods about it.)  How do they learn to figure things out for themselves?  There are plenty of opportunities in life to learn how to figure things out...I don't think it hinges on being exposed to grandparents.  Children will figure things out on their own if given the chance.  I think that most gp should be given the chance to have a relationship with their gc.  Maybe a lot of it does come down to generational differences in thinking.  I don't know, but I do notice a real schism in the way people perceive it.  Maybe it is a difference that has resulted as society has moved away from large extended families and focused more on the nuclear.

I'm glad that you and Kathleen could put it into words.  It doesn't change my mind about what I think, but it does help me understand the reasoning behind the different opinion.  That certainly can't hurt me.


Tara


[/quote]

Anna...I am not trying to start a dust up.  I truly don't understand.  Why should you (general you) let someone be around your children who is mean or disrespectful or says hateful things about you or is horrible to you.  If they can't be trusted to be nice in the first place, why would you trust them with your child?
[/quote]

Hi Glitter,

I've been reflecting on your comments and from my perspective the issue of grandparenting is  not black and white so to speak. .  I agree that no one would want to let their kids be around someone who was horrible to them.  ditto with someone who says hateful things to you.  I honor your thoughts on this. 

I just get worried when I hear people on the post saying the right to grandparent has to be earned.  I'm just thinking out loud here
but would prefer that someone was trusted till they gave a good reason not to be trusted vs the other way around.

This is an out of sequence thought but -  my ds wife stopped speaking to me once after the elections 2 yrs ago for nearly a year  because I am a liberal.

You gave me some very good feedback on my first post here awhile back to focus on my DH's family more.  In reflecting on what you said I called my 6 yr old gd and explained I was going on a trip to India and would't get to see her at Christmas  but would miss her
and asked her what she wanted for xmas, how was soccer, etc.
I thank you for encouraging me to focus more on her and my other GC on DH side.

Pen

Kathleen, I agree that we teach our children about loving others even if they have faults. Who among us is perfect? My issues w/my DF & my SM are my issues, not my childrens. I didn't think it was fair or classy to start a family feud ala Hatfields and McCoys and force them to hate the people I had trouble with. Ds & DD were given the freedom to either develop or dismiss a relationship with their grandparents w/o editorializing or pressure from me.

In other aspects of our lives, such as the workplace or in friendships, we may also try to form alliances perhaps as a way to boost our feelings of security. It's unattractive in those situations, too, and rarely works out for anyone involved.

I'm glad my children learned how to handle this, and my entire family is stronger for it.
Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

1Glitterati

Quote from: Tara on November 15, 2010, 09:27:43 PM
I'm just thinking out loud here
but would prefer that someone was trusted till they gave a good reason not to be trusted vs the other way around.    I can see that.  That makes sense to me. 


You gave me some very good feedback on my first post here awhile back to focus on my DH's family more.  In reflecting on what you said I called my 6 yr old gd and explained I was going on a trip to India and would't get to see her at Christmas  but would miss her
and asked her what she wanted for xmas, how was soccer, etc.
I thank you for encouraging me to focus more on her and my other GC on DH side.   :)

Just an odd question...will you be able to SKYPE with her from India?  That would be so cool to a 6 year old...to be able to see someone else in another country and talk to them at the same time.  Be even cooler if you wore a sari and wore some of the traditional jewelry (I hear they have some of the pieces that look "authentic" but don't require a nose piercing) while you talked to her.  [Maybe I'm a geek...but I'd have eaten that up at 6 years old.]

Scoop

To me, no one, absolutely NO ONE, has the RIGHT to be involved in my child's life without *MY* permission.  And my permission rests on a LOT of factors, how you treat me, how you treat other people, how you treat animals, how you treat your stuff.  It depends on whether your actions line up with your words.  It depends on what I've heard about you from other people.  It depends on whether you will listen to me and hear me.  It also depends on my gut feeling.

And no, I'm not going to let ANYONE have unlimited access until the first time they hurt her and then cut them off.  That's like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.  It's my job to PRO-ACTIVELY defend her and to raise her up to be an upstanding, contributing member of society.

For example, I trust my Mom explicitly with my DD.  DD stayed with Mom for a week this past summer.  Mom drives DD places.  They have a blast together.  However, I had to have a talk with my Mom this summer too.  She is obsessed with weight and she was telling DD that she had had enough candy/dessert/whatever.  So I told Mom that she did not have to be the food police for DD.  That DD knows when she's had enough and we want her to figure it out for herself.  So my Mom stopped.  And it really was just like that, it happened, I talked to her, it stopped.  No grudges, no hurt feelings, nothing.  Let me tell you, it would NOT have gone down like that with my MIL.  And that's why I trust my Mom, it's not that she's perfect, it's that she can respect that *I* am the authority over DD.

I would also like to point out that 'hurting' a child doesn't always mean hitting, slapping, name calling, insulting - it's also damaging to children to never be told 'no', to give them anything they want "so they don't cry", to compare them to siblings/cousins, to favour them over siblings/cousins and to favour siblings / cousins over them.   It's damaging to children to see one gender favoured and it's damaging to them to see their parents treated with disrespect.  It teaches them that it's okay to disrespect your parents, and also that it's okay to be treated like that.


pam1

Good post, Scoop.

I think parenting is even a privilege, not just grandparenting.  There seems to be some kind of societal thinking that people deserve children and have rights to them.  I joined a forum to support my sister in her infertility issues not too long ago.  It was amazing to me that so many people thought they were owed children, that monetarily poor parents or young parents should give up their children to the more deserving women.  Some of those women thought they were owed those children, that the government should step in and physically take away children from under privileged families to give to them.  An extreme example, but it was a persistent theme and it seems to kind of bleed over into our society -- those who think they are owed.

In any case, from a DIL's point of view -- my two utmost important relationships are my marriage and my children.  My parents were removed from the honor of #1 relationship.  And even so, as a child I knew my parents marriages were #1, not me.   I learned from them that marriage comes first.  To raise healthy, independent children you must have a strong marriage.  These two relationships are linked - for now, until my children break away.

With that said, anything that continually hits the marriage is bad for my kids.  No one has to walk up to my kids and physically or verbally hurt them directly to their face for them to suffer or feel the effects of it.  Anyone or anything that continually strikes, batters or pounds on our marriage affects our kids too.  And it works the other way, anything that continually uses the kids as a pawn will affect our marriage.

And little things add up.  And affect two really important relationships at once.  Again, as a DIL my two priorities is my marriage and my children.  I don't take it lightly, DH and I are the protectors of our unit.  And I think this is a normal way of viewing marriage and children.  In our case my MIL would agree 100 percent, in fact, I've heard her state similar things.  But she also refuses to acknowledge that her gossiping of me, my children, the undermining and attempts at control have any negative affect on our marriage or children.  So what that she talks about me and she doesn't feel the need to stop, what harm is there really in that?.....It hurts me, it hurts my DH even more, therefore it hurts our marriage and that hurts our children.   Something so small to her has a huge negative domino affect on our unit.  If it's not worth it to her to stop, it is up to us to protect our marriage and children from continuous hits.
People throw rocks at things that shine - Taylor Swift

Pen

Quote from: Scoop on November 16, 2010, 05:56:38 AM
To me, no one, absolutely NO ONE, has the RIGHT to be involved in my child's life without *MY* permission.  And my permission rests on a LOT of factors, how you treat me, how you treat other people, how you treat animals, how you treat your stuff.  It depends on whether your actions line up with your words.  It depends on what I've heard about you from other people.  It depends on whether you will listen to me and hear me.  It also depends on my gut feeling.

And no, I'm not going to let ANYONE have unlimited access until the first time they hurt her and then cut them off.  That's like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.  It's my job to PRO-ACTIVELY defend her and to raise her up to be an upstanding, contributing member of society.

For example, I trust my Mom explicitly with my DD.  DD stayed with Mom for a week this past summer.  Mom drives DD places.  They have a blast together.  However, I had to have a talk with my Mom this summer too.  She is obsessed with weight and she was telling DD that she had had enough candy/dessert/whatever.  So I told Mom that she did not have to be the food police for DD.  That DD knows when she's had enough and we want her to figure it out for herself.  So my Mom stopped.  And it really was just like that, it happened, I talked to her, it stopped.  No grudges, no hurt feelings, nothing.  Let me tell you, it would NOT have gone down like that with my MIL.  And that's why I trust my Mom, it's not that she's perfect, it's that she can respect that *I* am the authority over DD.

I would also like to point out that 'hurting' a child doesn't always mean hitting, slapping, name calling, insulting - it's also damaging to children to never be told 'no', to give them anything they want "so they don't cry", to compare them to siblings/cousins, to favour them over siblings/cousins and to favour siblings / cousins over them.   It's damaging to children to see one gender favoured and it's damaging to them to see their parents treated with disrespect.  It teaches them that it's okay to disrespect your parents, and also that it's okay to be treated like that.

It sounds as though GPs, especially IL GPs, are lumped in with random strangers. How sad that "family" has been reduced to the whims of one person. I'm sure my DIL feels pretty much the same as you, Scoop. We're rural, so the "way we treat animals" is different from how pets are treated in the city where DIL has been raised and currently lives. Our truck is a work truck, so it's not shiny and polished every day like their Beemer. We wear work clothes around the property rather than silk that requires dry cleaning. I know, because she's said it, that DIL puts us in the category of people who don't care about their pets or their stuff. It would be a shame for our GC to miss out on knowing us just because we drive a "dirty" vehicle or have our cats out in the barn instead of curled up on a cushion inside the house.
Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

seasage

Food fight. :o

May I interject a little levity here?  My wish for each WW, should you have a son, is that your DIL agrees exactly with your view on grandchildren.  ;)

MLW07

Quote from: pam1 on November 16, 2010, 09:05:57 AM
Good post, Scoop.

I think parenting is even a privilege, not just grandparenting.  There seems to be some kind of societal thinking that people deserve children and have rights to them.  I joined a forum to support my sister in her infertility issues not too long ago.  It was amazing to me that so many people thought they were owed children, that monetarily poor parents or young parents should give up their children to the more deserving women.  Some of those women thought they were owed those children, that the government should step in and physically take away children from under privileged families to give to them.  An extreme example, but it was a persistent theme and it seems to kind of bleed over into our society -- those who think they are owed.

In any case, from a DIL's point of view -- my two utmost important relationships are my marriage and my children.  My parents were removed from the honor of #1 relationship.  And even so, as a child I knew my parents marriages were #1, not me.   I learned from them that marriage comes first.  To raise healthy, independent children you must have a strong marriage.  These two relationships are linked - for now, until my children break away.

With that said, anything that continually hits the marriage is bad for my kids.  No one has to walk up to my kids and physically or verbally hurt them directly to their face for them to suffer or feel the effects of it.  Anyone or anything that continually strikes, batters or pounds on our marriage affects our kids too.  And it works the other way, anything that continually uses the kids as a pawn will affect our marriage.

And little things add up.  And affect two really important relationships at once.  Again, as a DIL my two priorities is my marriage and my children.  I don't take it lightly, DH and I are the protectors of our unit.  And I think this is a normal way of viewing marriage and children.  In our case my MIL would agree 100 percent, in fact, I've heard her state similar things.  But she also refuses to acknowledge that her gossiping of me, my children, the undermining and attempts at control have any negative affect on our marriage or children.  So what that she talks about me and she doesn't feel the need to stop, what harm is there really in that?.....It hurts me, it hurts my DH even more, therefore it hurts our marriage and that hurts our children.   Something so small to her has a huge negative domino affect on our unit.  If it's not worth it to her to stop, it is up to us to protect our marriage and children from continuous hits.

Good post Pam!  I totally agree with you.

MLW07

Quote from: Scoop on November 16, 2010, 05:56:38 AM
To me, no one, absolutely NO ONE, has the RIGHT to be involved in my child's life without *MY* permission.  And my permission rests on a LOT of factors, how you treat me, how you treat other people, how you treat animals, how you treat your stuff.  It depends on whether your actions line up with your words.  It depends on what I've heard about you from other people.  It depends on whether you will listen to me and hear me.  It also depends on my gut feeling.

And no, I'm not going to let ANYONE have unlimited access until the first time they hurt her and then cut them off.  That's like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.  It's my job to PRO-ACTIVELY defend her and to raise her up to be an upstanding, contributing member of society.

For example, I trust my Mom explicitly with my DD.  DD stayed with Mom for a week this past summer.  Mom drives DD places.  They have a blast together.  However, I had to have a talk with my Mom this summer too.  She is obsessed with weight and she was telling DD that she had had enough candy/dessert/whatever.  So I told Mom that she did not have to be the food police for DD.  That DD knows when she's had enough and we want her to figure it out for herself.  So my Mom stopped.  And it really was just like that, it happened, I talked to her, it stopped.  No grudges, no hurt feelings, nothing.  Let me tell you, it would NOT have gone down like that with my MIL.  And that's why I trust my Mom, it's not that she's perfect, it's that she can respect that *I* am the authority over DD.

I would also like to point out that 'hurting' a child doesn't always mean hitting, slapping, name calling, insulting - it's also damaging to children to never be told 'no', to give them anything they want "so they don't cry", to compare them to siblings/cousins, to favour them over siblings/cousins and to favour siblings / cousins over them.   It's damaging to children to see one gender favoured and it's damaging to them to see their parents treated with disrespect.  It teaches them that it's okay to disrespect your parents, and also that it's okay to be treated like that.
Great Post Scoop!