Have paternal grans always been less involved with their grandchildren than maternal grans?

Sadly, my DM’s health meant she couldn’t be in my girls’ lives as much as she wanted to be. MIL - least said!
Unfortunately I’m the only GP my DDs can rely on - so I do as much as I can for them, as I know how much I needed the odd hour or two to get a task done quickly and didn’t get it. It also means I get one to one time with my little DGSs.
A friend had her DS, DinL and baby living with her for 6 months after delivery - DinL is from Thailand and says that’s normal and other than feeding, left everything else to her.

It’s not my experience, at all. I also think it depends on how you define help and support. In the early days mum and dad often need different things. Any emotional support my dil may have needed, came mainly from being hormonal, sore, exhausted from breastfeeding and, (once his 2 weeks paternity leave had finished) alone with the baby for 12+ hours when my son was at work. These factors just didn’t apply to my son. It wasn’t that he wasn’t ‘worthy’ of support, he simply didn’t need it.

My dil has always said that the thing she appreciated most in the those first few weeks was adult company. My son was out of the house for over 12 hours, she was alone. She and I were close before she had dgs, so I used to pop round for an hour or so, have a cuppa with dil. That was only ‘possible’ because we had an easy relationship. Quite often dgs would be asleep or feeding the whole time I was there. It would have been a very uncomfortable 90 minutes if dil hadn’t got on well. Where that been the case, I can understand why mil isn’t the one dil ‘chooses’ for company. My son simply didn’t have the same ’need’ for adult conversation/company. He was getting it at work.

As far as ‘help’ goes, I’m not sure what you mean? When it came to dropping round food, making a cup of tea etc all help was appreciated and accepted equally. If you mean specific baby care, my son and dil didn’t ask or seem to require any help. I (and I’m assuming others) occasionally ‘watched’ gs for 10 minutes while dil had a quick shower. But son and dil were both capable and keen to take the lead with their own child. I think sometimes as grandparents we underestimate our adult children’s ability, and overestimate their reliance on us.

As my gs got older, I saw him most, simply because I was the only retired grandparent. This was largely facilitated by my dil, who invited me to spend time with her and dgs. My own son is very protective of his family time, and if left to him, I’d see my gs a lot less.

I'm a paternal grandmother and I see as much of my GC as the other GP. We both have days of school pick ups, sleepovers and adventure days with them and we often meet up and do things all together. There's never been any rivalry between us at all thank goodness.

I think it is a complete myth. I also don’t get this business of new mothers being so reliant on their mother? Honestly having a new baby isn’t that much of a deal is it ?

I met my paternal grandmother twice and my maternal grandmother once in my childhood. I guess that's fairly equal.

Sadly, we are the only grandparents our little ones have. We try to be the best we can and we both feel so fortunate for the opportunity to spend time as a family, circumstances permitting. We are the maternal grandparents. That said I know in my heart I’d never haven been a competitive grandma as I just think the more people who love and care about these two gorgeous children, the better.
?❤️

As a paternal grandmother, I have always been as much part of my grandchildren's lives as the maternal grandmother, given our circumstances and distance. DS and DDiL, together, go to great lengths to see us, usually staying a week every school holiday plus us visiting them at least once every term. We used always to stay with DDiL's mother, although her age and infirmity means that is no longer possible.

When our DC were small, we were meticulous about being even handed between both sets of grandparents and, towards the end of their lives we spent more time with DH's parents because they were older, ill and were non drivers, and support and care and both predeceased my parents by over 10 years.

The same applied to my grandparents, they lived close to each other and we saw both of them equally. Not that my paternal grandmother, who had 18 grandchildren showed much interest in me.

In fact until I joined GN I didn't realise that this disparity even existed.

My older grandsons nan has been much more involved with him than I have.
She was beside herself with joy when she knew he was expected, and obsessed with him.
They are very close.
I'm sure she facilitated a lot of the time my grandson spent with his dad, so that she could get her hands on him.

I think it's lovely that they hang out together.

I didn't want my mother around and didn't need her help postpartum when my babies were born. She was welcome to visit though, as was MIL. I was quite capable.

The main difference in my MIL and mother's involvement with my children was that my mother was also interested in being involved with me. My mother also called and asked if she could come visit and had suggestions like, let's take the kids to the zoo together. My mother invited me to visit her at her home. My MIL never did any of those things which led to less involvement.

I did take the initiative thinking my MIL would like to be more involved, and invited her to have a regular visit monthly. She came the first month. Then she didn't. I thought it was going to be a standing arrangement but wasn't going to chase her each month. She either took me up on it or didn't. So that never happened.

I'm not interested in working out what is fair and making things even. I'm more interested in a natural relationship. I'm not going to count. If it worked out that I had a closer relationship with my MIL in the end, that's just how it would have happened.

I think yes, a more natural relationship does exist with your own mother, most of the time. That is why your son should organise time with his family. This is not on the DIL.

You wrote: "isn't the son also worthy of his family's support at this momentous time?" Well, of course. If he wants it. Though his role is really to support his wife as she establishes nursing and recovers physically from the birth. You can support him in how to do that best. A lot of the time my impression is that the MIL isn't so much interested in supporting her son as she is in having access to the baby. My MIL should feel free to come over and support her son. Me and baby will go catch a nap while she does that, after a quick catch up to say hello, of course.

it's not about the grans.
that's the wrong way of looking at it.
nothing to do with being worthy, or fairness; just what suits the family, what feels right, is convenient, and life-enhancing.
any hint of competitive grannying, and they've ruled themselves out, red card. ditto for pushiness.