Help us: Allow children to see their grandparents

I think I said "Anybody who has experienced the death of a grandchild" I can't see where I said I was the only person to feel this way. But there we are, I expect a despicable woman" who can only post "ridiculous" things about actually loving a grandchild more than needing to get her own way, knows nothing about these things.

Jayana Your post below is what I found ridiculous, I haven't read one Mother/Grandmother saying such a thing, so this makes your comment a lie!!
Copy & Paste from last page:
There seems to be an enormous amount of wishing that one day the adult children will get their comeuppance, an awful lot of wanting to pay back the adult child in some way

What a despicable women you are Jayanna, any Mother & Grandmother would lay down her life for her child & her grandchild, it doesn't need to be said by you, as if us mothers/grandmothers would not do that in a heartbeat! The ridiculous was referring to your feeling you would be the only one on here to do this. Shame on you for saying such a mean thing on here!!

Oh there's lots more I'd like to say Jayanna but I'd probably get my post deleted, so I won't.

But it is certainly quite telling, isn't it?

Thank you Anya. I think that the fact that Yogagirl considers it ridiculous to wish a grandchild alive and happy, even if estranged, says more about her than it does about me

YogagirlI remember the detailed account you gave some time ago of your experience in court and how devastating it was for you, not just because you failed but because of what you were subjected too. Going to court was not something we wanted to do but like you, I've signed this petition for those who may want to go down that road.

I posted a couple of days ago, if it was easier for EGP's to get contact with their EGC because they had legal redress, it might stop some of these AC denying them in the first place and I still believe that could be the case.

Jayanna I hope my post answers your query (which was certainly not mindless)

Also adding that I went to court for visitations rights to my beloved GC, didn't get the permission you need to go court to get the visitation order, hope you can follow that, so that was the end to that. My precious GD's stepdad has been taking drugs since he was 13yrs old, all day every day, he is open about it and as he lived with me for 6mths [my D&GD were already living with me before he came along & we had a very happy close bond, no problems,just love] I saw first hand his pot smoking, cocaine snorting he hid. Due to smoking skunk whilst his brain developed [or not in his case] he is a pathological liar. I was told that the learned judge would see straight through him, but she didn't! I think the judge was childless due to her lack of empathy & understanding, Judges do get it wrong sometimes.

Having said all that, looking back, I realise that going to court is not the way to go, I regret going and can see now how this avenue can't work. I still signed the petitions for those who want to go court though.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Smileless Very good posts as usual I can't understand the mentality of folk on here, with all this nonsense about being made to travel to Oz or USA to see GC if the petition were put in law, and other such absurdities, the bill for visitation rights to see beloved GC would be carefully put together.

Good post too Eddie 27th 20.48 yet to read further posts...

Yes, that was a good summary Luckygirl

There is too much made of GC missing out on GPS that are estranged. I've said this before, but it didn't seem to get noticed. My mother cut our grandparents of of her life in the 1950s and moved from Scotland to England, we were 7 & 5. I never saw them again and it didn't bother me in the least. Children are very resilient..

I'm not saying this would be the same for all GP but I do think this 'missing out' is hugely exaggerated. It is as Lucky says the estrangement causes more pain to the GPS than to the GC.

Very good summary luckygirl.

I do not think it is a matter for petitions. It is a matter for the people involved and the statutory services where they are involved. There can be no blanket rule about rights.

Both parents and grandparents can behave unreasonably; and it is sad for the GC caught in the middle - but it is truly only their needs that matter, however unimaginably painful the situation might be for the GPs.

Although I do have to say that, while children do become deeply fond of their GPs, they usually survive an estrangement with less distress that the GP, as long as they have their parents there. We are TBH dispensable I think - hard idea to get our heads round I know. GPs can be a great addition to a child's life - but that is all they are.

I have hesitated to post again on this thread, having said earlier I wouldn't sign this petition.
I agree that not all grandparents are kindly folks, that some grandparents weren't the best parents when they were younger, that (as Fairydoll said earlier), some grandparents drink, use drugs, are involved in domestic abuse of some kind to name but a few worries.
I share the concerns expressed about the potential for estranged grandparents to behave like some separated parents do, in attempting to alienate the children .
It's possible I missed it but so far as I recall, on this thread, no one has mentioned the risks to grandparents who raise concerns with their adult children about domestic abuse, drug/alcohol misuse etc in their own lives and the impact of that on their children. Some grandparents find themselves losing contact with their grandchildren and their own adult children as a result of this. It may happen if grandparents simply raise that concern with their children and very often happens if grandparents take the step of contacting schools, social workers etc.
This whole subject is complex and fraught with difficulties. If their were easy solutions, as some posters suggest, I've no doubt estrangement would be much less common than it appears to be currently.

I cannot explain the behaviour of some children towards their parents and I can imagine the distress this can cause, but sad personal cases make poor law, but like it or not some grand parents get cut out of their grandchildren's lives because they make their children's life unbearable.

Whether my friend would have cut her mother out of her life I do not know but she had 2 learning disabled children and her mother refused to accept that there was anything wrong with the children that wasn't caused by bad parenting. At one point her husband had a round trip to work and back of over 100 miles to keep her mother at bay.

I was fortunate to have the best of parents and parents in law, so our relationship was always loving and harmonious. Nevetheless it does not stopping me accepting that not all grandparents are nice and cuddly. Similarly grandparents tragically separated from grandchildren need to accept that some other grandparents deserve everything they get and some children are happier for not having their grandparents in their life.

At the end of the day children are the responsibility of their parents, and the parents decide on what wider family involvement they want for their family group. However hard it is, and I do acknowledge that it is, I do not see how battles between generations for access to grandchildren help anyone and it could be argued that to insist on it is to behave as badly as the parent causing the estrangement.

You are in a better position than couples who would love to be grandparents but their children cannot or will not have children. You do at least have a glimmer of hope.

And had there not been an easy way of controlling visits, would your friend have cut her mother out of her life and the lives of her GC forever? Or would your friend have had enough decency to find another way of dealing with her mother's overweening and overbearing behaviour, seems a distinct possibility as she had enough about her not to estrange her mother.

If the GP's aren't toxic or abusive and the GC aren't at risk by seeing them why can't some of these AC be grown up enough to find a solution. Too many of them refuse to talk to their parents, they sever all contact.

How can a son before the estrangement write to his parents telling them when their GC was just 3 months old that they'd never be stopped from seeing him because they know how much they love him, and then for no apparent reason whatsoever, when he is just 8 months old, they never see him again.

Estrangement is the only solution for AC who can't be bothered to pursue and alternative.

An overweening, overbearing and possibly bullying grandparent, especially when they are convinced that they are doing what they are doing from love of their DGC, will never recognise or accept that they are overweening, overbearing and bullying.

I had a friend whose mother was always convinced she knew better how to bring up her DGC than the parents did and constantly told them. I was in the house several times when she was laying down the law. She was invariably wrong. They were never estranged, but as the grandmother did not drive my friend and family chose to live somewhere close, but not easily accessible by public transport, so as to be able to control her visits. There are often not such easy ways to control visits and estrangement is the only solution.

I haven't come across any posts from EP's and GP's seeking revenge on their AC Janyanna. Yes, sometimes anger and frustration is vented and when the discussion revolves around the possibility that our AC may find themselves estranged from their own, it's a reasonable point to make as their children may follow their parents' example.

IMO there's a vast difference in not knowing ones GP's because they have died and/or finding out about extended family members when older who weren't aware of your existence or if they did, had no particular desire to see you.

There are many EGP's making memory boxes for their EGC so that one day they'll know that they loved them. In the past, those of us that are dong so have been accused of seeking to cause problems between our AC and GC as if that's why we do this. It isn't, we simply want our GC to know that even though we never saw them they were in our hearts.

A poster on the estrangement thread recently posted how upset she was when she found that the GF she'd never known had died alone and that her mother, also deceased, had lied about him to her.

AC who CO their children's GP's as an act of revenge and lie in order to justify their actions are potentially storing up trouble for the future with their own children.

Going against a parent's wishes is hugely destructive. Taking a legal course of action to lawfully force parents to allow grandparents to see grandchildren against parent's wishes destroys families. Some AC might be spiteful, sure, but like someone else said NOT all grandparents are whiter than white. To force a another person to go to court and make them give you access to their child is to take money, resources and time from the people who are taking care of that child you're meant to care about all for your own benefit. Some grandparents are wronged for sure, however some grandparents prefer to try everything except just being nice to the parents of the child. There may be instances of sexual, emotional or physical abuse, neglect, absent grandparents, absent parents to AC, racisit, unfit caregivers, appalling judgement, a huge threat of parental alienation "oh mummy and daddy are SO awful to us, we love you so much, mummy and daddy are mean, grandma loves you, you should live with grandma, grandma loves you the most, mummy and daddy tried to keep grandma away but she loves you more than anyone, mummy and daddy are awful and nasty to grandma"

There really is a whole host of reasons why people stop you seeing their children. They want family time, just want to live their own lives, maybe you're overbearing. Who knows. You got to make the decisions exclusively when you raised your children however and now you don't like the outcome want a blanket law to FORCE parents to give up their right to parent their children and forcefully insert yourself into the picture. What good outcome is that going to be? Tense mum and dad not wanting to sent child to court ordered access? Tense parents not wanting to communicate to the people who dragged them to court and are taking their kid against their will for a few hours on the weekend? Looking the people in the eye that would rather take money and resources from their children and trying to lay out guidelines for the visit? Will they be allowed to speak up? Do they have to forfeit their rights as parents in other ways? Can they ask you not to feed child xyz or take child to xyz?

Its a slippery slope. None of the above stuff is creating a happy, secure home life for the child. The child will know mum and dad dislikes grandma or grandpa, but every week they have to go to a contact centre and see grandma anyway. They come home and the atmosphere is naturally tense because the courts have taken away a decision that should be solely made by the parents.

Too many variables. Hence why the law currently gives no automatic visitation because its up the parents to decide who gets to be in their children's lives. Dragging them to court because you think your relationship with your grandchildren is the MOST important thing in your grandkid's lives is so self absorbed, deluded and naïve. As is thinking they'll be NO negative knock on effect to the grandchild. It all has to be weighed and balanced.

I absolutely agree with you eddiecat, my DC had and DGC have the happiest relationships with their DGP, but in situations where there may be tensions around that relationship, and where contact between child and grandparent has to be legally enforced that situation is bound to be surrounded by tensions. No relationship may be the best option. Anyway many children grow up without grandparents because they have died, like my DH. Nothing can remedy that.

Of course, children's lives are enriched by being embedded in an extended family, but we can say that about so many things in life, growing up with both parents who live together and are happy together, for example. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen. Providing children grow up in a stable relation where they feel safe and loved, anything else is icing.

But you could say that grandparents who are insisting that their grandchildren should see them are just as much using the children as a weapon. There seems to be an enormous amount of wishing that one day the adult children will get their comeuppance, an awful lot of wanting to pay back the adult child in some way.
Anybody who has experienced the death of a grandchild will tell you that they would happily never see them again if only that child could be alive, safe and happy.
If an estranged GC is happy why would a loving grandparent risk introducing a situation of conflict and ill-feeling into their lives. It seems more like a way to get revenge than a genuine care for the child.

All I know is that my children are now in their 30s and their relationship with their surviving grandparents are still enormously important to them - and they still miss the ones who are sadly no longer with us. They were fortunate enough to live close to the grandparents on both sides and regarded their homes as extensions of their own homes.

No, they might not have missed them if they had not existed - but they did exist and that relationship enriched their lives enormously and continues to do so

I think we get over-excited about children's 'rights' in relation to other members of their family. Children accept life as it is.

On one side of my family I had only a grandmother, my grandfather was dead and I never enquired about his or her sisters, cousins and aunts. I accepted that they didn't exist, if I thought about it at all. I have only discovered since that they did and do exist. DH grew up with no grandparents at all and a father who got upset if anyone asked about his parents. I do not think either of us were remotely bothered by this. We just accepted it and we did not miss what we never had.

Their families are already being disrupted Norah to the point that they probably don't know half of them.

When AC deny their children their GP's who are NOT in anyway a risk to them, they're using them as weapons. You say that using the numbers provided most GP's don't have this issue, well as I put in a previous post this could be affecting half a million GP's.

In any case what difference does it make how many are affected in this way. If something is wrong it's wrong whether it's happening to a few hundred, a few thousand or as it is in this case one million children.

You may not have found that life goes on as easily as you assume if it were you and not your D's in laws who'd been CO, if you were the mother and GM who'd lost not only your own AC but your GC too.

As for AC's parental rights, this isn't about their rights it's about the right for children to know their extended family which incidentally IS the responsibility of the parents. As for their desires being effected, why should their desire to use their children to hurt the parents they've decided to CO be regarded by society and the law as more important than their children's right to see their extended family.

You ask who would arrange a visit if the AC and their parents aren't talking well someone like you could do that couldn't you. The other GP's who enjoying their AC and their partners as well as their GC. Surely those who are fortunate enough not to be estranged must have some inkling of the pain that those who are are living with and would be prepared to do what they can to help. I know I would.

Jayanna9040, Yes it seems reasonable that if this were really about children, who are perfectly happy with their own little family of mum and dad, this petition and the resulting laws would have mechanisms in place to disrupt the children's family. How is that a good result?

Who will transfer these GC from AC estranged from GPs to the GPs? How would that work if none of the AC and GPs are speaking? Who will assure AC that their children will be safe? How would AC's parental rights, responsibilities, and desires to their children be effected?

Given that most GPs do not have this issue (using the numbers provided), is it not a bit OTT to make rules for what the courts can easily accomplish on a case by case basis?

My sils are estranged from their families, their choice as adults, nobody's business. Sometimes other people may not like our choices, life goes on because everybody is different.

I think EPs who make efforts to move on are quite wise, hardest part seems losing ones AC.