Growing up, my husband and I both spent a lot of time with grandparents. Many of my favorite memories are of staying the night at my Grandma’s house, who only lived a few minutes from us. I don’t know that my parents really had many nights “off” where we all stayed with my grandparents, but it was definitely a frequent occurrence for 1-2 of us to be there for anywhere from one to several nights. My husband, meanwhile, spent an extraordinary amount of time with his grandparents. His mom was single when he was young and both sets of grandparents kept him frequently. One grandma kept him after school and a couple days a week when he was young. Both sets often kept him overnight, took him on long vacations with them, etc.

Because we had such great memories with our grandparents and because we spent so much time with them, we had this idea of what the relationships between our kids and their grandparents would be. We certainly didn’t expect them to raise our kids or keep them frequently as we do not live as close (two hours from one set and a few more hours from the other set) as we lived to our grandparents. But, we did expect to feel like they wanted to see our kids, like they wanted the “grandkid fix,” and would put forth effort to be part of their lives. In fairness, our parents absolutely love our kids. No question about that. They love them, they talk to them and love on them when the grandkids are around, and they will do their best to help us with the kids when we really need help.

In truth, however, this last year, we have often found ourselves struggling with a feeling of disappointment in our expectations vs. reality. Perhaps it’s not an accurate perception, but it often feels like none of our kids’ grandparents really WANT to see them, or at least not enough to make it a priority. I hear friends talk about how their parents are always asking to keep their grandchild/children, and it just makes me sad. I literally cannot tell you the last time either set of our parents ask to see the kids or to keep them for a night, etc.

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One set thinks it’s just too far away (they’re only in their 50s, so its not a health/travel issue). They are happy if we come see them and will make a lot of comments about how they never get to see kids, we need to bring them more, etc., but they don’t really want to come visit us even if they have a week or two off work. It’s only if we are willing to come to them. And even then, sometimes, they won’t be around until later in the day each day. They’ve watched our kids for several days when we were on a trip, and we were so appreciative so I’m not trying to be completely ungrateful for what they do. It’s just that we thought they would ask to see our kids, want to come to the big events in their little lives, not make us feel like it’s just too exhausting when they do keep them, etc.

The other set is closer geographically. They are happy to see the grandkids if we bring them or if they are in our city for some appointment or event, they might ask to stay the night so they don’t have to travel early, but it often feels like we are little more than a hotel, not that they’re really here to see us or our kids. They get in late, they sleep in our house, and they see the kids for less than an hour, and are on their way. They will do their best to keep them if we have something going on and really need help/can’t find a sitter, but afterwards all they talk about is how they’re too old to keep everyone, they would rather it just be one at a time, they’re just too tired, etc.

One part of me gets it. They’re our kids and their our responsibility. Our parents aren’t as young as they used to be, and they’re not right down the street. Our kids are good kids but they’re young and they have a lot of energy and sometimes they wear us out, too. Even though I know those things in my head, it’s hard not to feel a little bit hurt. Why do you have time to go to other grandkids’ games and events and keep them for a week or more at a time, but you never ask to keep our kids, tell us you miss them, make plans to come see them, or to take them on a fun trip with you? Or on the other side, why is it that it’s too much effort to drive a few hours to see your only grandkids when we specifically invite you and tell you we’d love to be able to spend part of the holiday with you? Not only would it be nice as a parent to have a break now and then, but it would  be wonderful to feel like it’s important to them to see our kids, to know that they miss them, to know that they make them a priority (even if it’s not the biggest priority, just A priority). There are some more specific details that add to the feelings of hurt that I won’t get into for the sake of preserving some anonymity, but the bottom line is we just rarely feel like our parents want to be part of our kids lives in a real way unless we are making all the effort.

In some ways, it makes me want to just have a big pity party and move really far away from everyone, so we never get our hopes up and have to be hurt when they can’t find time for us or our kids. The other part of me knows that at least our parents love our kids and try to help if we’re really in a difficult situation. That part of me knows that not everyone has grandparents that even do that much, and I need to be thankful for what we do have. It’s just hard to adjust those expectations from what we each had growing up to what it seems our kids will have. It makes me sad because my husband and I are/were extremely close to all of our grandparents, and I hate thinking that our kids will likely never know their grandparents to the same degree. And their grandparents really are good people, but they just don’t grandparent quite like we expected—at least they don’t in the current stage we’re in. Who know? Maybe that will change over time.

Did your expectations for what your kids’ relationships with their grandparents would be measure up to the reality? If you’ve been in our position of feeling a little bit disappointed and hurt by less involvement than you expected, what helped you let it go and embrace whatever relationship was offered?