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agonyaunt2024-04-28 05:04 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2024-04-28 05:04 pm
Entry tags:
"What Do We Tell Our Child About His Racist Grandmother?"
Can we tell him she’s dead?
Dear Care and Feeding,
I am a woman of color, married to a white man for the past six years; we have a beautiful 3-month-old son together. Our problem is my husband’s mother, who lives in England. I’ve always known that she is a bigot who merely tolerated me as a daughter-in-law, but she exposed herself as a full-blown racist when we told her I was pregnant: She said really ugly things about her family’s bloodline being sullied by my child. (I won’t repeat the words she used.)
My husband was horrified and embarrassed and supports my cutting off all communication with her. I no longer see her during our visits to the U.K. (several times a year) and I am resolute she will never lay her eyes on our child. My husband continues to maintain a relationship with her out of a sense of duty since she is also estranged from other members of her family for different reasons and is pretty much on her own. When he visits her, they don’t discuss me or our child. As weird as it is, I am okay with him having a relationship with her—she is no longer my problem.
However, I do worry about what we will tell our son about his grandmother when he starts to wonder who and where she is—especially since his other grandma (my mom) is extremely close to us and we see her every couple of weeks. When he is old enough to ask, do we tell him that his English grandmother is dead? Do we tell him that we don’t see her because she is a bad person? I’m torn about how to be truthful without hurting our kid about who he is—or perhaps more likely, hurting him with the truth about the ugliness in his dad’s side of the family.
Any advice on how to navigate this?
—Grandma’s Gone
Dear GG,
I am so delighted to hear that she lives an entire ocean away from you! That does a lot to cut down on any chances of lawn tantrums and milkshakes being thrown at you in McDonald’s parking lots. I am also delighted that you and your husband have found a good and workable compromise that meets both of your needs: a limited relationship with his mother for him, and complete radio silence for you. I think she sounds like the absolute worst and has experienced the natural consequences of being the absolute worst, but people have the right to draw their own boundaries, and this one seems to be working just fine.
When it comes to your child, I strongly encourage you not to go the Dead Grandma route. He’ll find out; they always do. I think at this age it’s best to wait for him to bring it up organically. (It may take some time! Children are often deliciously unconcerned about their parents’ lives.) Whatever you do tell him about her, it needs to be able to incorporate the fact that his father still talks with her and sees her on trips to the U.K. You don’t want him worried that his father is seeing a “bad person” or a “sick person” (though both of those descriptions ring true enough.)
Instead, let’s take this slowly and age-appropriately as we go. Yes, Daddy has a mother. Why don’t we see her? Well, she didn’t want to be a grandmother, just a mother. Luckily, we have a wonderful grandmother already, etc. Once he’s a teen, and your conversations about race and the unfeeling world have reached what you consider to be the right place, you can tell him precisely why his grandmother didn’t want to be a grandmother.
Her loss. He’ll be in my thoughts.
Dear Care and Feeding,
I am a woman of color, married to a white man for the past six years; we have a beautiful 3-month-old son together. Our problem is my husband’s mother, who lives in England. I’ve always known that she is a bigot who merely tolerated me as a daughter-in-law, but she exposed herself as a full-blown racist when we told her I was pregnant: She said really ugly things about her family’s bloodline being sullied by my child. (I won’t repeat the words she used.)
My husband was horrified and embarrassed and supports my cutting off all communication with her. I no longer see her during our visits to the U.K. (several times a year) and I am resolute she will never lay her eyes on our child. My husband continues to maintain a relationship with her out of a sense of duty since she is also estranged from other members of her family for different reasons and is pretty much on her own. When he visits her, they don’t discuss me or our child. As weird as it is, I am okay with him having a relationship with her—she is no longer my problem.
However, I do worry about what we will tell our son about his grandmother when he starts to wonder who and where she is—especially since his other grandma (my mom) is extremely close to us and we see her every couple of weeks. When he is old enough to ask, do we tell him that his English grandmother is dead? Do we tell him that we don’t see her because she is a bad person? I’m torn about how to be truthful without hurting our kid about who he is—or perhaps more likely, hurting him with the truth about the ugliness in his dad’s side of the family.
Any advice on how to navigate this?
—Grandma’s Gone
Dear GG,
I am so delighted to hear that she lives an entire ocean away from you! That does a lot to cut down on any chances of lawn tantrums and milkshakes being thrown at you in McDonald’s parking lots. I am also delighted that you and your husband have found a good and workable compromise that meets both of your needs: a limited relationship with his mother for him, and complete radio silence for you. I think she sounds like the absolute worst and has experienced the natural consequences of being the absolute worst, but people have the right to draw their own boundaries, and this one seems to be working just fine.
When it comes to your child, I strongly encourage you not to go the Dead Grandma route. He’ll find out; they always do. I think at this age it’s best to wait for him to bring it up organically. (It may take some time! Children are often deliciously unconcerned about their parents’ lives.) Whatever you do tell him about her, it needs to be able to incorporate the fact that his father still talks with her and sees her on trips to the U.K. You don’t want him worried that his father is seeing a “bad person” or a “sick person” (though both of those descriptions ring true enough.)
Instead, let’s take this slowly and age-appropriately as we go. Yes, Daddy has a mother. Why don’t we see her? Well, she didn’t want to be a grandmother, just a mother. Luckily, we have a wonderful grandmother already, etc. Once he’s a teen, and your conversations about race and the unfeeling world have reached what you consider to be the right place, you can tell him precisely why his grandmother didn’t want to be a grandmother.
Her loss. He’ll be in my thoughts.