Can it be too late to have a relationship with a grandchild?

In some ways you are right. But the OP may not be around, and if new posters have their own issues, a new thread will be more helpful.

It really doesn’t matter if the thread is five years old imo.

4Silverlady, this thread you have found is five years old!

I’m new here, your the fist post I read.
I can attest that the bond I have formed with my grandkids from their birth is so much stronger than the ones I didn't get to interact with until after they were one. There is a look shared in the eyes and a silent commitment that is so much deeper. In my personal experience with both biological and step grand babies, this happens in a profound connection before they turn one, and even deeper between birth and 4 months. My oldest step granddaughter is 16 now. My youngest of 8 grands is now one year old, she’s the only one I never got the chance to bond with. The fear of her being used as a pawn for her mother’s control issues, stops me cold. For me, it’s less painful to possibly never really know this granddaughter, than to be deeply committed to her and have us torn apart after a bond is made. I believe it is deeply insecure mothers, who do not have faith in their own ability to nurture a discerning spirit in their children to judge for themselves who a person is. They feel the need to control that for their children. This speaks volumes to me. No two individuals share the same beliefs, experiences and beliefs. Introspection is much more meaningful than control.

flyingsolo maybe I can pop in here My dad came from a medium sized family 4 brothers and sisters I had seven cousins one from one brother and the other six from the eldest child, we all grew up in the same town and yet I never knew any of my cousins Their mother and father had told them we were snobs ....this was so laughable, we lived in a prefab, both mum and dad had non professional jobs, we had very little money as I was growing up but I was an only child so I presume they thought I was a spoilt kid without getting to know me ...so no brothers and sisters and no cousins in my life I was lonely and looking back now realised I missed out on so much
I married, moved away for many years, but after my divorce I returned to my home town and then made a decision to find my cousins, I did, we all got on well I hosted many parties and get togetherS over the next decade including my mum and dad who were delighted They are all dead now but for a good few years we had decent relationships I didn’t love them but I had them in my life and we got on well
I guess what I m trying to say is a relationship is what you want to make of it at any time in your life It’s never too late and you can never change the past so a waste of emotions to dwell on it

Jenpax

I would agree with that, I love them all dearly, and I do see them on their own quite a lot, but I’m always very happy to hear my daughter come in.

I don’t feel the need for one to one time particularly, it’s always nice to have an uninterrupted chat with one of them, but I don’t go looking for opportunities.

I sometimes wonder if I am normal in this regard! I love all my GC and enjoy seeing them but it’s not the only thing in my life and I am perfectly happy with doing my own thing most of the time! I love them as babies of course but never had the urge to have them all to myself!

Oh, *flyingsolo” of course your feelings are valid. What you feel is what you feel.

Maybe what you long for is something different though. That sense of belonging, in your case to a family.

I was brought up in a big family, some of us adopted, some of us birth. Some of us loved the big family and have remained close all our lives, some of us needed more me space and have kept minimal contact as adults. Everybody is different in the closeness they need,

I think you have a picture in your mind of what it could have looked liked for you. But maybe, even if you had been brought up with them, it might not have been like that picture. I know one of my brothers always felt that he was on the outside looking in.

I had four grannies and grandads because of my adoption. My bond with each one of them was different, because we were all different people.

The bond with your grandchildren is one of the most unexpected delights of later life.

I’m not sure if the children are older it could ever be the same, but I’m sure a relationship could still be formed. One set of grandchildren we see less frequently than the others, and I love them the same, but don’t feel as close.

I saw one of my grannies almost every day, it’s nice to have someone in your life, who loves you for what you are, unconditionally.
I think that’s what grandparents do, whatever age the children.

They haven't took my mum away. I was way into adulthood before my mum started having loads of contact with them again. When I said she went back to them I meant in an emotional sense, she hasn't moved away. I just feel my mum never gave them to me in the first place. We just grew up not really knowing them because my dad didn't like them and they didn't like him. Perhaps he couldn't find his way in either. It is a massive family. I mean huge. I was just one grandchild among over 20. And, of course, us grandchildren have gained husbands/wives and produced even more great grandchildren. I wouldn't recognise and couldn't name the vast majority of my family. So mostly just completely indifferent to them. The whole thing is just awkward and I can't quite explain it. And I just don't feel I have any right to be there, like a gate crasher within my own family. Like I said there is just nothing there

Are you indifferent to them, or do you think there is an element of holding yourself back from them? (Maybe because they took your mum away?)
Just a thought.

It is really odd because I do have a relationship with my mum but it is as if her family are just that, her family, not mine. It is as if her family (my family?) are all my inlaws and not really anything to do with me apart from I have a certain medical condition that runs in the family and about half of them have.

I know of two other people who have felt the same.

One has a very, very cool relationship with her mother (in fact she doesn't even call her "mum", and one chose never to meet up with her father after a couple of very stilted conversations.

MissAdventure, thank you. My mum went back to be close to her family. I tried but could never find a way in. To try felt as forced and artificial as if I had picked any random strangers. There is nothing there.

It isn't your fault, flyingsolo.

Its natural to feel closer to family you see regularly for years, I would think. (Unless you don't happen to get on with them)

Fs,
But some do. Glass half full vs half empty

Hithere, some do bond with their bio families and some don't manage it

You know what, I think what I am looking for really is someone to tell me my feelings are valid. That it isn't my fault that I couldn't form relationships with my extended family as an adult. And that I am allowed to feel as I do about my son's child without it making me a terrible person.

Silly really because I haven't even really told you how I feel.

Not always, and reuniting doesn't always work out for people, either.

There are so many variables.

Of course not! Relationships do not have a window to be created before the bond cannot be created or its quality decreases or becomes non existent

Don't adopted individuals look for their birth families and bond with their half siblings, bio parents?

Hithere, maybe there would naturally have been less contact as they/you grow older but I am simply talking about whether family love exists between the people involved. Family love wouldn't just naturally vanish simply because the grandchild grew up if the relationship had existed growing up. However, creating family love between you once the grandchild is an adult must surely be so much harder, maybe for some not possible at all.

"I feel it becomes too late to really feel like family"

Relationships evolve.
Your relationship with your gc as a baby, toddler, teenager, adult - is not always the same. It will become more distant/less contact the older gc gets, it is normal.

So your relationship with your gc as an adult may be the same as if you met him/her when you are both adults.

It all goes back to expectations - what you think the relationship should look like.

I would think it very much depends on the personalities of the grandparent and the child.

Another poster said that you can always reconnect with a grand-child even when they are adults maybe you can but so much of their growing up would be missed and things would just not be the same.

I think that a grand-parent has love for their child in the first instance and so when the grand-child comes along the love is then extended to the next generation/new family member.
The ties you have for your grand-child can then strengthen as the mum lets you help her with some feeds nappy changing and also short walks out with the baby in the pram it is just a natural follow on from your child to the grand-child.

Things can go wrong between the mother of child and grand-mother and if the mother then cuts the contact with a grand-parent and the grand-parent is pushed out from the little family unit and the length of time starts to be more than six months I would say in order for the grand-parent to cope then they have to lessen their ties to the child and they can give up hope of that bond ever being restored such a loss as the more people that love a child the better.

Speaking as a grand-mother that this has happened to there does come a time when "the crying has to stop" and life moves on but thoughts of those Grand-babies never fade.