Grandparent interaction question...

[RCT]

My brother and I are fairly close to one another, although sometimes, I feel like we grew up in different houses....we remember things quite differently....:lol:

anyway...my brother lives in the same state as my Father and his wife....they are really good people and Fantastic Grandparents (at least I think so and I am after all 3000 miles away...) My brother however, never makes the effort to get his two sons together with my father and his wife...when my Dad calls him to make a date...my brother is always busy with his inlaws...hence the other set of Grandparents....who my brother feels are PERFECT...and why would his boys need anyone else....YIKES 8o anyway...my brother and I were talking on Saturday and he said "its the grandparents responsibily to get together and interact with the grandchild....." fine, but if the Parent isn't willing to make time for this interaction how is that supposed to work....so my reply was to disagree because....

society has set up that if the Grandparent gets to involved they are intereferring in the parents ability to raise the grandchild, I am not saying that they shouldn't invite the kids over or anything like that...I just feel that its more up to the parents to decide when and where...blah blah blah...... the parent of the grandchild should instigate get togethers or at least make time for them (grandchild/grandparent) to have time together....


What is your opinion on this?

[AnnW]

I think it's a two way street, the grandparents have to give out the signals that they want the kids to come over, and the parents have to accept them.

[RCT]

thank you Ann...you summed it up perfectly....and in less words....:lol: meet in the middle....happy medium....:)

[Lynda-WA]

I do think it's a two way street but I don't think the child's parents should have to be the one to initiate. That should also be a two way street. The amount of effort should be about the same.
For example, when we lived in AZ we made ALL of the effort to visit everyone in OR and WI. We tried for OR once a year and WI every 2 years. That's quite a strain on the budget plus it took up every day of vacation we were alloted. Same thing happened in CA. My family visited us once from WI and DH's parents only came down one time from OR. At that point we were visiting DH's twice a year. It was 7 hours away by car. The only time they came to us was when DH told them he was working a PGA golf turnament and could get them behind the scenes to meet people plus some golf lessons. You could say we bribed them to visit. Just seeing the kids wasn't enough of a draw! Prior to that they said that they didn't like to drive long distances. The year we moved to WA the in-laws began driving down to southern CA every winter. They literally pass withing eye sight of the house we lived in in CA and stop 2 hours away from where we lived in AZ. And each year they make a golf course detour on the way home. One year they drove from the west coast to the east coast to visit the MILs family.

The first summer we lived on WA they bought DS and the niece golf lessons. At that time they spent the summers 4 yours away from us. Every week I either made the trip all the way down or drove half of it to my nieces house. They came here once that summer.

Same thing is happening now. We live 1 hour and 15 minutes away from them for the past couple of years. They have no jobs so time isn't an issue. Money isn't an issue. Since they drive thousands of miles each winter I wouldn't think this 65 miles would be an issue either. We are still the ones expected to make the trip.

To be honest, I am sick of it and have quit making the effort. My MIL has been to my house 12 times in the past 11 years. I couldn't even figure out the number of times we have made the trip to them.

I know that its just how they are but that doesn't help. One of the times they visited I showed them some pictures I had just had developed. I was having 3 copies made at that time. My MIL divided the pictures into three stacks. I asked here what she was doing. She told me she was making a stack for me, one for her and one for the great grandma on that side. I was flabbergasted. First I think it took some gall to just think she can take my stuff and second I thought it was self centered to forget these kids have another set of grandparents, another set of great grandparents and other aunt and uncle. And my MIL could take pictures if she wanted them. My family lives half way across the country. I bought her a camera for Christmas.

So, while I do think it should be a two way street, I think both parties should make a fairly equal effort to visit. Unless there is some reason one can't make the effort. My Dad is sort of afraid to fly. He has two times in his life and both were to visit me. Then he gave us the money to fly to visit them.

Soon we will be moving to about 3 1/2 hours away from them. I can gaurantee that they won't make the trip more then once a year if even that. I've already told DH that all of the effort won't be made by us any more. I'm sure that will upset them since we are talking about sending the kids to visit my family every (maybe every other) summer by plane. They got upset when we flew DS to my family and left him stay for 6 weeks when he was one year old (I was sent away by the military). They said they would have had him. But the previous time we had visited my MIL didn't even want me to leave him alone with her a couple of hours since she couldn't lift him up.