r/absentgrandparents

My oldest daughter suggested i come here. I understand that it sounds like there's more to the story. There's really not. That is why I am here. There's nothing weird going on, I never had issues with her. Once she got pregnant she chose this and he went along. It hurts me badly. I've never even had a chance to overstep. I just met them 6 months ago when she found a new boyfriend. But now she's back and I'm out again. Yes, my son chooses to go along with it. I was looking for support, suggestions. Thank you anyways

My daughter in law didn't like that my son and I were close. Once they had kids she cut me out of everything. She will not allow anything from me. If my son brings me up, she gets mad and punished him. She will take the kids and leave if he allows me to see them. I left birthday gifts on the porch for them, she is now mad at my son. The oldest just turned 3 the other is 2 and I don't even know them. They live 5 miles from me too. What should I do? What can I do? Am I the crazy one?

my in laws are absent or super low effort. we live an hour away and during both maternity leaves, mil never once came to visit me and help. rich people and gave their only granddaughter a towel for her first birthday lol. so I started to think, I wonder how she was as a mom? I know she was a stay at home mom but seeing comments here how absent grandparents were absent parents….made me sad about my husbands childhood. on his part, he thinks he had a good one but if she’s like this now… I can’t help but wonder? father in law was an absent dad cause he is a workaholic and still is so that’s not a question. theorize and opine!! haha

My in-laws are mostly absent grandparents who visit 1x/year because we cover their expenses (plane tickets, ubers, food/groceries, and random things they want when we are shopping) when they’re here. They enjoy traveling and bragging to their friends/social media that they’re visiting a place. I’m currently in my third trimester with twins, and since my husband will be away for a business trip, he thought any support would be helpful.

My MIL is mentally sharp but physically frail and can’t lift much or keep up with my 3 y/o. She fits the stereotypical MIL role, commenting on house cleanliness, how often we eat out, and my parenting style. I usually bite my tongue and I ignore the comments.

When interacting with my son, she gets upset if he doesn’t address her first with “hello, grandma,” and tries to coax him into it. It’s the same thing on repeat every morning. Her attempt at playing with my son is reading a book, and when she doesn’t have his undivided attention she goes on her phone. My step-FIL is very disconnected from helping with childcare since he doesn’t really consider my son as his grandchild (he has his own), just mostly watching TV or napping in the living room. I honestly prefer this in comparison to my MIL who will sit and judge what I’m doing.

They like to cook but leave the kitchen as a mess and tell me to clean because they cooked. They have complained about my stainless steel cookware and after teaching them how to make it nonstick they don’t try and made me Amazon next day delivery a teflon nonstick pan even after I explained why I don’t have one in my kitchen. There are a lot of minor kitchen differences that always show up and I end up telling them we should just go out or order because my son won’t eat what they cook anyways. It’s largely performative for themselves that they cook “for us” when in reality it’s just what they want to do. My MIL constantly offers to help, but when I give her something to do, she says she can’t do it. For example, when I’m in the middle of putting groceries away she shoos me away to go watch my toddler then a minute later she says she doesn’t know where things go and leaves the fridge doors wide open. I’m not really sure why she keeps doing this but drives me insane. I’ve never spent time with them when my husband isn’t around so I’m venting and hoping there are strategies to deal with my MIL so I don’t lose it next week.

My parents are two able-bodied people in their mid-60s who are both retired. They love when we come to their place with our daughter who is 1.5 years old (we are separated by a 1.5 hour long flight within the EU), but never want to come to visit us, despite us having space to host and asking them to come on multiple occasions (we live in Paris within a 10-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower I might add). In a day to day life, if I don’t give them a ring, they never call me. When I do call, they tell me how much they love their granddaughter and then proceed to list excuses as to why they cannot come (too far, they’re too old - but they do travel to other places). If we continue seeing each other 1-2 a year, I don’t think my daughter will have any relationship with them. They seem to only want to meet at their place to exercise control… or am I wrong? Anyone with similar experiences?

If you have an indifferent or bad relationship with your in laws, do you think that is the reason why they are absent grandparents and uncles?

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and maybe they can't get over the fact that the grandkids are 50% our DNA, or maybe they think that we will constantly hold the relationship with their grandkids over their heads as some sort of power move.

Maybe they stay away to avoid drama? Am I the only one in this situation?

Hey everyone. I just need to vent if that’s okay. For context, my parents are dead but my husband’s parents are alive.

My in-laws literally refused to have anything to do with our children. My MIL used to tell my husband as a teenager that if he has kids she will never babysit. He thought she was just saying that to prevent teenage pregnancy but she wasn’t joking. She never wanted to be around our kids even for five minutes. (We didn’t have them as teens btw, we got married in our early 20’s and started our family.)

My husband is Mexican and his childhood was spent being taken care of by his grandmother and several aunts. My MIL ALWAYS had help. But now she doesn’t want to be in the same room as them. She would literally follow my husband around when we would go over there so she didn’t have to “watch” them. When we bought our house we asked her to watch the kids for a few hours so we could deep clean. She refused and chose to help clean instead. So our kids were forced to sit in a pack and play for hours in the house while we all cleaned. Keep in mind my MIL does not work so she has no priorities to tend to. She also isn’t old (she’s 52.)

We had to go no contact because of her refusal to be decent to me and her lack of care for our children. (She also viewed my husband as her husband instead of her son.) I’ll spare you all of the horror stories I had to experience dealing with this narcissistic woman but I’m so pissed off. It’s been years and we’re both so burnt out. I know I could hire babysitters but that’s expensive and I have trouble trusting strangers with our kids. I’m so depressed that we have no extended family to support us. It’s just us and the kids. I’m so tired.

My parents are in their mid-70s and live two hours away by car. My daughter is their only grandchild and will likely always be (we are not having any more children, and my sister has indicated she doesn’t want kids). Since my daughter’s birth several years ago, my parents have been incredibly hands off.

Being involved at a normal level has never been the norm for them. Until my sister and I left the house for good, our parents were extremely smothering, barely giving us any privacy or autonomy. It seems like now the pendulum has swung in the entirely other direction, to the point that we probably see them 2-3 times a year. They have really isolated themselves, and their lives revolve around about a five-mile geographic radius. I don’t expect them to make the drive if they’re not comfortable, but they also shoot down other options (our family coming to visit, someone driving them down, public transit, etc). My sister lives near me, so she is in the same boat with them.

It just makes me really sad that my daughter’s relationship with them consists of short FaceTime calls. I’m guessing it’s only going to get worse from here.

My parents are mostly MIA from mine and my kids lives. We live 10 minutes away, but see them maybe 4-5x a year only when and where convenient for them. They might be willing to watch our kids in an emergency, and they might not (ie they wouldn't watch our older kid while I was giving birth to our younger one. I had surgery recently and I didn't even bother to tell them or ask for any help.). My parents are wealthy retirees who spend every single day golfing at their country club and then most evenings at some sort of wealthy, bored boomer social event.

That being said, my parents do text us 1-2x a week. Asking how we are doing, asking us to send pics of the kids etc. I generally deprioritize responding because (1) I'm busy (it's hard to be a parent with zero extended family support) and (2) I'm never sure how quickly or how much to respond, because my relationship with my parents seems so superficial. If I don't answer them within a few days, they usually follow up and ask if everything is okay. They do seem genuinely interested in hearing what's going on and seeing some pics of the kids, but I can't quite reconcile that with the fact that they would prefer to play golf than actually spend time with us.

Anyone else in this situation?

Just venting. My parent live about 4 hours away and have been bugging us to come to them so they could see the baby. They’ve visited once since she was born. We finally packed up my 5 month old and drove the 4 hours for the weekend (of course it took even longer with the extra stops for the baby). And while we were there, they mentioned offhand that they had taken my stepsister’s kids to this big waterpark last month, which is less than 10 miles from our house! They showed pictures so I know it’s the one in our city. They literally have to drive a couple blocks from our house to get there.

They didn’t even bother to mention they were nearby, yet have the nerve to say we don’t visit enough!

I brushed it off in the moment as them just being careless as usual but after the long car ride back to dwell on it I’m angry and crushed. Why didn’t they want to even stop by for a quick visit? Why don’t they care about my baby but are so happy to hang out with my stepsister’s kids? I don’t get it! They kept asking when I was going to give them more grandkids and now they can’t be bothered to even stop by for a cup of coffee or something.

>>Parasocial relationships are one-sided, non-reciprocal psychological bonds where an individual develops a sense of intimacy, friendship, or familiarity with a media figure, such as a celebrity, influencer, or fictional character, despite having no direct interaction with them. The term was coined by Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in 1956 to describe the "illusion of intimacy" created by mass media, particularly television.

Basically, they don't see themselves on our level, and they prefer the clout or the feeling of "in-group" we give them being connected to them online or over FaceTime or get-pics-then-dip interactions.

To fix: call them out publicly and/or clearly expose the lack of relationship by other means. If you address the parasocial relationship outright - they will either change or double down with less contact. But they wont keep acting like they know you/r kids when they don't. I'm willing to bet most of us here who have half ass parasocial relationship grandparents have simply never publicly called them out. Why not? Just expose them.

It sucks at first but it's easier in the long run than trying to fake a happy family image. Don't just drop the rope, set fire to the rope bridge. Show everyone that you know they're just parasocial fan boys, not grandparents.

I MEANT GEN X NOT Y, but I dont know how to edit the headings. New to reddit.

my mother literally used my grandmother every weekend and when we were "too stressful" we had to live at my grandparents house for 6 months until we graduated. my mom is now basically absent from my kids' lives. is it just me?

Just need to rant about my in laws!

“We never get to see the kids, it’s not fair your family gets to see them and we don’t”, right you never see them because you refuse to come over, won’t ever find a time for us to go over there, don’t care enough to show up to any of their events, and can’t ever be bothered to even pick up the phone and call them… so yes my family sees them all the time because they actually put in the effort and show up. Even in my pregnancies, it was like pulling teeth to get them to even respond to messages we sent.

My MIL is constantly whining on Facebook that my kids don’t even recognize her but will conveniently leave out the reason why 🙄 we don’t even bother trying with her anymore. If she doesn’t have a relationship with my kids that’s on her.

CONTEXT My fil has seen my almost two year old once. When she was still an infant. He claims he is a very involved grandpa because he prays for her. He has expressed annoyance that I the DIL don't plan, cordinate, and, facilitate grandparents time. I have continued to not do those things for him. FIL does know I drive 4 plus hours to see my own eldery grandma and even older great aunt. I aim to do this once at least once a month. I do this because both can no longer drive or take care of themselves. I don't consider this to be putting in more effort to my family. My grandparents spent loads of time with us kids as did my great aunt. I genuinely enjoy seeing them and they love my daughter.

Husband and I saw him and his current wife once this fall without my daughter. He hasn't reached out other than Merry Christmas here is 100 dollars. My husband has tired to call twice since but retired fil was very busy and would get back to him... never did. Both of his siblings have spoken to him somewhat recently so we know he is alive.

I'm now almost halfway thru the second trimester we don't know what to do.

I NEED HELP WITH PROS AND CONS OF EACH OPTION.

1. We send a text we are pregnant and due in x months_

2. Send a text after baby is born

3. Send a birth announcement

4. Send our normal photo Christmas card and just let them figure it out.

MIL text me Happy Mother's Day 4 days ago. Last time she texted me was Easter. I thanked her, told her HMD, and shared that my day would be taking care of our son because he's on day 4 of a cold/teething combo thing going on and has been miserable. Not looking for sympathy but just sharing that our little guy was sick. She has yet to text to see how he is. I'm not surprised by this. Not anything new. Just never ceases to amaze me how shitty a grandparent can be.

And I'm glad I didn't stoop to her level. I just sent a 'happy early mothers day' text the day before to everyone so I wouldn't have to do any labor on the actual day.

She didn't return the smidgen of effort to say the actual holiday greeting to her daughter who's the mom of her grandkids, of course, but she did talk about where she went for breakfast. Which I left on read, obviously.