Nobody believes this LW, absolutely nobody

[conuly]

Dear Care and Feeding,

My 12 year old granddaughter hates me, and has for a number of years. She won’t even let me hug her. I take her and her friends to fun places every weekend. But if I call her she won’t answer. I have no idea why she hates me. I get no help from her parents and they have no problem with her constantly saying nasty things to me. Should I give up?

—Hated by my Granddaughter

Dear Hated,

If it makes you unhappy to spend time with your granddaughter, you can stop doing it. You’re an adult! But cutting people out of your life isn’t an easy task. The good news is that a 12 year old doesn’t stay 12 forever. If you walk away (or do the bare minimum of interacting with her on holidays) you’ll probably regret it. Instead, try to change your relationship with her into a positive one, or at least into one where you don’t feel terrible.

Start by trying to figure out if it’s really something you’re doing or just her general attitude. Talk to her parents (or her!) to try to figure out if she really “hates” you. She might be acting out towards everyone in her life. She might also just be a nasty person! What you think of as “taking her to fun places,” she might think of as “being dragged to annoying places.” What you think of as a hug, she might find awkward or embarrassing. Who knows what goes on in the minds of tweens?! You may never know the answer in this case, but you can probably get a little bit of insight by asking. Also, does your granddaughter know how you feel? When she says nasty things to you, tell her how that makes you feel. She’ll probably keep saying them, but you’ll feel better having said your piece.

You could also find a middle ground between “giving up” and continuing to be so present with her. Every weekend is a lot to see a grandchild, especially one you aren’t getting along with. Could you step back from schlepping her and her friends around, or at least reframe it in your head that you’re helping her parents out, not her? Is there an activity that she would like to do with you?

Also, don’t call. Text. She may or may not write back, but I think texting will up your chances of getting a positive response.

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Comments

[conuly]

Oh, this woman is such a martyr for her ungrateful grandchild, constantly taking her to the most fun places while the girl says such nasty things as "please stop trying to hug me"!

Oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth!

[oursin]

'All I want to do is sit at home and read, and beastly ol' granny keeps dragging me out with people she thinks are my friends to do things she thinks are fun. Please advise.'

[redbird]

And/or "One of my grandmothers insists on taking me somewhere every single weekend, and between that and my basketball practice and music lessons, I never have time to see my other grandmother, or my favorite uncle. She also doesn't realize that sometimes my friends and I want to hang out by ourselves, not be running around with a relative who expects our attention. Can't she find some of her own friends, and not expect mine to entertain her?"

[pauraque]

All I can think is that it sounds like Grandma's ability to grasp that other people are individuals who may have different preferences than her has not developed beyond the toddler stage. At 12, Granddaughter may be too mature to want to hang out with her.

[mrissa]

What the "nasty things" are really matters here, but I feel like it's likely that the parents would object if 12 was insulting her directly, calling her names etc. I could be wrong! They could think, "hahaha how cute that our kid is calling the mother of one of us a stupid bozo or worse!" But I feel like glossing over without examples of what the objectionable comments are leaves room for them to be "I disagree, Grandma" and "I don't like that, Grandma," which...are okay things to say.

[summerstorm]

If this were AITA (which I don't frequent but I think this is how it is in there), my response to this would be INFO: what nasty things? Give examples. Also, is grandma asking grandkid what she wants to do, or just assuming and dragging her along?

[lilysea]

I would not be at all suprised to find out that

Grandma is dragging a butch, always wears trousers, grandaughter along to go shopping for frilly dresses;

Grandma is dragging a vegetarian grand daughter along to a steakhouse;

Grandma is dragging a bookish, quiet grand daughter along to noisy crowded sports games;

Grandma is dragging a sporty, can't sit still, grand daughter along to classical music concerts/ballet recitals

[melannen]

If Grandchild's friends are coming along I feel like the outings must be at least somewhat fun, or the friends would stop coming (maybe granddaughter is enduring them for the sake of being able to invite ballet-loving, frilly-dress-enjoying, meat-eating, noise-loving friends, but that seems pretty unlikely when you're twelve. Or maybe LW is being untruthful about the friends part, which seems more likely.)

[melannen]

I feel like it is very unlikely grandkid actually hates grandma. She could be forced to go on the outings by her parents, but nobody can force her friends. (I suppose it's possible the friends are coming along just out of sympathy to be a buffer, but at age 12 that seems pretty unlikely too.) (Or maybe the friends like grandma but grandkid doesn't, in which case, congrats LW, enjoy your new adopted grandkids and stop obsessing over the other one.)

I suspect what's actually happening is that grandkid is no longer an adorable six-year old; doesn't currently want hugs from grandma, for 12-year-old reasons; and occasionally expresses independent opinions, sometimes poorly, also for 12-year-old reasons; to which the solution is: Grandma, get over yourself.

[mrissa]

exactly this

[melannen]

Also she probably hates talking on the phone to anybody, which is so obvious I don't think anyone even noted that bit of the letter.

[azurelunatic]

I mean, MY generation mostly eschews the phone!

[dangercupcake]

Most of this is innocuous but "She might also just be a nasty person!"??????? SHE IS TWELVE. Twelve year olds can be cruel and awful but it doesn't define who they are as people. My 11 yr old nephew can say incredibly cruel and/or nasty things, and 99% of the time it's either that he is testing boundaries, trying to see if saying mean things makes him more adult, or something is wrong. Writing off a 12 yr old as "a nasty person" is such a horrible thing to do. I hope it was sarcasm :\

[melannen]

When I was 12 I sometimes said nasty things because I hadn't at all figured out where the line between "friendly teasing", "expressing a valid opinion" and "being nasty" were. It didn't help that things that would have been "adorable" before I hit puberty were very suddenly offensive instead, and opinions that would have been written off as a small child not knowing anything were suddenly very hurtful.

Like, grandkid probably is a nasty person right now, she's 12, but it's (hopefully) not fundamental to her personality.

[dissectionist]

I’ve definitely known preteens who were (unintentionally or deliberately) raised to be nasty people, and it would be accurate to describe them as such at that time. The good news is that kids at that age are pretty flexible and changing an enormous amount, and in my experience, while they were nasty people during their early to mid teen years, almost all of them realized (usually during high school) that their parents were shitty people and they didn’t want to be like their parents anymore. Of the seven young people I can think of who I would have described as nasty people (by which I mean “deliberately cruel to others”), only one continued to be a vicious person into adulthood. The rest of them turned into considerate, caring adults, through their own efforts to be better.

And even adults can change from being hateful people into kind people if they become motivated to do so. Other than inborn traits (cruelty/viciousness is a learned behavior, not an inborn trait for almost everyone), anyone at any age can do better if they want to and can access appropriate learning. So just because someone is nasty now doesn’t mean they’ll always be.

[movingfinger]

Where does it say that this is grandma writing?

Irregardless, it kinda sounds like the parents are into getting the child out of their house for at least part of every single weekend, and I am wondering what that is about. And it kinda sounds like no one is ready for this child to grow up and have preferences about how she wants to spend her time. Has the LW asked her? Probably not! I suspect the "nasty things" involve the words No and I don't care.

My advice would be skip the nosy analysis and back off, apologizing first for having taken her out to things she didn't want to do. And never, ever force a hug.

[kshandra]

...oh, that's an excellent point. There's a big difference between Grandma forcing physical affection on a 12-year-old girl and Grandpa doing so. (There shouldn't be, it isn't actually okay in either case, but gender would add a whole other level of NOPE to it.)