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DEAR ABBY: I am a mother of six and a grandma to four. We are a close family and enjoy each other's company. My mom is nearly 80. For reasons I could never understand, she didn't enjoy my children when they were growing up and didn't connect deeply with them. She once commented to me that she was bored with women her age because they were "obsessed" with their grandchildren and she wanted deeper conversations.
Mom moved away and would mostly visit just for holidays and birthdays. When the children tried to share things that were going on in their lives, she wasn't interested, and we eventually stopped inviting her to sports events and recitals because she seemed annoyed to be there.
Now that her grands have almost reached adulthood, my mother wants to connect with them. She texts them often and sometimes invites them to visit. They respond politely, and a couple have gone to visit her, but none seem interested in a deeper relationship. This bothers her, and she has been asking me to pressure them to visit her and include her in their lives more. But to them, she is a distant relative. They don't feel close to her.
What is my responsibility now? I wish they had a closer relationship with my mom, but I feel awkward telling busy young adults they must plan trips to visit someone who didn't try to establish relationships with them when they were young. Any advice? -- TORN DAUGHTER IN WASHINGTON
DEAR DAUGHTER: Your only responsibility is to remind your mother of the truth. When it was time to establish a relationship with her grandchildren, she chose to be absent. Then explain that pressuring them to include her in their lives after she excluded them from hers won't have the desired effect because that ship sailed a long time ago.
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Mom moved away and would mostly visit just for holidays and birthdays. When the children tried to share things that were going on in their lives, she wasn't interested, and we eventually stopped inviting her to sports events and recitals because she seemed annoyed to be there.
Now that her grands have almost reached adulthood, my mother wants to connect with them. She texts them often and sometimes invites them to visit. They respond politely, and a couple have gone to visit her, but none seem interested in a deeper relationship. This bothers her, and she has been asking me to pressure them to visit her and include her in their lives more. But to them, she is a distant relative. They don't feel close to her.
What is my responsibility now? I wish they had a closer relationship with my mom, but I feel awkward telling busy young adults they must plan trips to visit someone who didn't try to establish relationships with them when they were young. Any advice? -- TORN DAUGHTER IN WASHINGTON
DEAR DAUGHTER: Your only responsibility is to remind your mother of the truth. When it was time to establish a relationship with her grandchildren, she chose to be absent. Then explain that pressuring them to include her in their lives after she excluded them from hers won't have the desired effect because that ship sailed a long time ago.
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Honestly, her mom should count herself lucky that these are such nice people - they don't ignore her, they've even gone out to visit! But building a relationship takes time, you can't just have an insta-connection. Grandma needs to spend more time asking about their lives at the level she's at, and sharing her own at the same level. It can't just be a barrage of cat texts.
(That being said, there's something for a family text chain where all they do is share cat pics. We've got one of those. Sometimes it's bird pics or dog pics instead.)
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However, I note that some people just aren't good with kids, and that's okay. Sometimes it can be an advantage, where teens or new adults will connect with a relative who doesn't see them as little children from having helped raise them. But it depends on the kids whether that appeals to them.
I would ask, what can she do for them? If there are practical benefits not just social ones, if she can meet a need of theirs, it might make establishing a relationship with her more attractive to them.
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I’m more of a “teenager person” than a “little kid person”, and kids under 4 might as well be radioactive in terms of how little I want to spend time around them. But I still know how to put on an interested face and add an occasional “oh wow” or “and then what happened?” when they’re talking, because 1) that is basic politeness, and 2) if I ignore them now when all their stuff is tedious small stuff, they’ll ignore me later when we could actually have interesting discussions.
If LW’s mom was capable of smiling and nodding through an adult conversation at a dinner party that bored her, she could have done so for the grands. One can find a long-standing excuse to get out of the recitals and sporting events - “I find my muscles get painful sitting for that long, but please do let me know how it goes, I can’t wait to hear about it!” and then write a supportive sentence - “That looked like an amazing game, I hope you’re proud of yourself!” afterward. That’s literally all it takes with young kids. They aren’t expecting an epic poem or a ten-minute speech in their honor. It takes so little to make them feel cared about. If someone doesn’t even care to do that tiny effort, that goes beyond just “not being a kid person”.
Anyway Grandma did this to herself. She can rest in the shitty bed she made because she wasn’t willing to make the smallest effort to brush a hand over the bed and sweep crumbs away.
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(There's no guarantee they'd like her as a person even if she were willing to try harder to be likeable, but the chances would be better than in this situation!)
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Perhaps these young adults are bored with women their grandmother's age because she is "obsessed" with her grown grandchildren and they want deeper conversations with people they are better acquainted with.
Grandma can lie in the bed she made.
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And it's not like this is unique. It's an equation that isn't hard to pull off because tradition is there to help you. LW's mother was just selfish and didn't make the effort, and now she's experiencing the consequences.
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I do think she should tell her mom that her kids are adults and are capable of having the kinds of relationships they want and to leave the LW out of it. She is not the gatekeeper for her kids' relationships with their relatives any more, full stop.
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But if she's not sorry, or willing to engage sincerely *with them* about it, it's no one's fault but her own.
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