estranged grandchild's upcoming birthday - what do you do?

Nina started this post in 2017

I'm in the same situation. It's torture not seeing my GS after five years of looking after him most weekends. My daughter is a monster for doing this to me and her son with whom I've had a close relationship. I saw him coming out of school and he was gaunt and very thin. I'm sure it's affecting him as much as it is me. It's hopeless at the moment so I am planning on getting legal advice and apply for leave to start proceedings to restore contact with him. She has just started to send messages to mutual friends saying I attempted to abduct him and fears for his safety. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm heartbroken and it's affecting my health how cruel she is behaving. I did everything for her while she was growing up, she wanted for nothing, was allowed to keep a horse and develop her skills as a horse woman. I am not going to allow her to treat me like she has been and am going to get legal advice.

Nina, your posts are very long and involved, so have not read them properly. Your daughter clearly is unhappy sending vicious e mails, put a stop to that for a start, it's as if this continuous battle between you both is a game. I as a mom would be concerned for her. Is it that you cannot let her be? As for your sending cards to your granddaughter, If you have an address send cards, if not do as we all do. Be the mom again and lead the way. Accept the situation, you have been in it many years, I remember your previous posts.
Bradford Lass, you have handled a heartbreaking situation, with dignity, I know how awful it is, no one unless can unless they are in a similar position, the pain and loss are always there. I think your response is the best all round inacheartbreaking situation. You have to move on.

I don't know if anyone else has suggested this but I would make it clear in your Will that you've left a box of things and letters for your grandchild.

That way, the mother will, eventually, be legally bound to pass it to her daughter.

You can even state in the Will that your granddaughter be handed the box personally and in the presence of your solicitor.

If she is old enough when you pop your clogs, she'll read how much you loved her. Otherwise you can tell your solicitor to keep it until she is 16 or so.

That way, you will at least know she'll be told about you, and you will have left her letters and gifts (maybe one little thing each birthday and Christmas, with a note)

I write a letter every year, sometimes more, for my elder son who 'divorced' me and his brother 15 years ago at the behest of his girl-friend.
In my case, I'm leaving the letters with my younger son whom I know I can rely upon to pass them on when the time comes.

It's the only comfort I can suggest but it gives you just that bit of hope and power, even if it can only happen after you've gone.

jeanie99

That's not appropriate. It teaches the children that it's acceptable to go behind mum and dad's backs. It also places the school in an awkward position.

Is it possible to send a card via her school, just a thought.

My grand daughter 2nd Birthday is tomorrow . Her mother my DIL won’t allow my son or kids to see us. Per my son he may loose kids if goes against her. Until they turn 18 or he grows some Iv decided to buy a glass piggy bank and every holiday write the date on dollar bill and place in bank. I’ll give to both my grand daughters on 18th birthday .

Thanks. xxxx I hope my posts console anyone else. You're not hurting anyone by leaving a bad situation. You're saving yourself and that's a good thing. God put us all on this earth to bloom and blossom. We were not put here to be a slave or at the mercy of others.

I hope the above all came across as balanced. I really do love my daughter and little grandaughter. There is no bitterness in my heart which I'm relieved about.
I have a very strong faith and it gets me through a lot.

But I still have all the cards, 'to the best mum in the world' from my daughter so I know that I was a good mum. Like all human beings, I have made mistakes but I have stood by her through thick and thin. There were times as a teenager when she did some reckless things and I never let her go. I was like a cling on, just making sure she stayed safe. She never got into trouble or brought the police to our door. So for all the hell she dragged me through, she stopped short of it all ending badly so I am grateful for this.
And I'm grateful that she's safe and seems settled now.

But her continued grievance with me? She has been asked so many times by many people, 'what's your problem with your mum'?
You know what she says? 'Oh mum is lovely, she is a good person. I just don't get on with her'.
That's it! That's her argument. I'm lovely and a good person but that's all.

Meanwhile behind the scenes, the emails I get are vicious and cruel. No one can thrive or survive in an environment where a tyrant oppresses you in your home. And neither should we be expected to.
I am a human being. I feel pain like anyone else. My daughter became my mother and I reached a point where I thought I was going to die if I received another situation where I was pulled in and then cut off again with no explanation. This was what had been happening. Daughter came back, reeled me in, then stopped speaking again. My mum did the same. I broke and I made a decision that I couldn't go back to anymore.

But I am now free of it all and I'm not going back. I am loved, cherished and cared for by those I have around me now and for this I am eternally grateful.

That's the way forward. I gave up on those who made my life miserable and you are definitely doing the right thing

And for you.

Thanks for all the comments. I do appreciate them. I only wish my daughter peace in her heart now, I really do. She's always been a very fiery, rebellious spirit even as a toddler. Today I think they would probably diagnose her with some ADHD condition. But this wasn't available then so she grew up very volatile and prone to black moods. We all had to walk on eggshells at times.
On the other side of the coin, she was gifted and quite brilliant. There were definitely two sides to her and you never knew which you were going to get.
But I copped the blackest of her tantrums and moods and in the last 10 years, this controlling, quite spiteful and endless tyranny has brought me to my knees at times. Now she's got a child and I'm not allowed to be part of her life in any way. I've tried. I've tried over and over. I'm even very well read in psychology trying to understand it all. She meanwhile posts photos on FB making them public thinking I'll see them. I don't put myself through the torment but occasionally a friend will send me the latest update. I know a lot of AC do this to their parents, they've cut them off but post photos on FB to hurt them.

I've now left all that hurt behind and gone. I ended up on pills last year and knew I had to just walk away for my own sake.
I can't change my daughter and blocking me from knowing a grandchild is her last card in the control game. Except I'm not on the hook anymore.
I don't think AC ever believe their parents will cut the umbilical and it takes a lot of strength to actually do it. But I had to. My doctor advised that she was an adult, my job as a parent was done and I should just blend into the background and get on with my own life.
As some of you may know, I've long been a listening ear and shoulder for other grieving parents in similar situations.

So now, unless she's homeless or starving, I've accepted I can't change things. A lot of damage has been done by other family members, my mother being one of them and I can't undo it.
I was born when my mother was 18 and she made me very aware of how inconvenient it was. She went on to have 5 more children but made me pay the price for disrupting her life. As I grew up she was jealous and pretty evil at times really. This jealousy was relayed in things she said to my daughter and so I'm not surprised that she now views me as my mother did.

But I am now free of it all and I'm not going back. I am loved, cherished and cared for by those I have around me now and for this I am eternally grateful.

I don't blame my daughter, I still love her. But if she ever wants a relationship with me, she will have to treat me like I'm a human being. Not my mothers unwanted child.

If I were you nina, this is what I would do. [Though of course you dont have to, and it may not change things either].

I would tell your daughter what you have said above. That because of the childrens act, you let her rule the roost so to speak. That you were frightened to do otherwise, and this resulted in her being brought up in ways which were not beneficial to either of you.
That if you had your time over again, you would have done things differently.

Something like that.

Nina, it seems that teacher misinterpreted The Children Act or, more likely, your d misinterpreted what the teacher said. Was she a teenager at the time or almost? Then this defiance probably would have occurred anyway.

I'm so sorry that the two of you "went through hell." But again, if those were the adolescent years, it is not unusual, and I'm sure you know that. Family counseling was probably in order, at the time, but too late for that now, of course. If the 2 of you weren't able to come to peace in the years following adolescence, I can understand the unfortunate estrangement now. It's still very sad that this happened, of course.

Not a grandma and not estranged so I don't really belong here, but when I accepted that I would never have grandchildren I "adopted" two. I pay for the education of a boy in Africa who has grown into a very fine young man, soon to be a doctor. And a lovely girl in South America who now lives with a family instead of on the streets. I get regular letters and photos and have visited the young man and his family. Please consider it Nina, let's turn our misfortune to the good!

Oh that. I do remember now. My thoughts at the time were, "I will decide what is best for you not the government, I will bring them up roughly how my mother did, and "well if you ring Childline or whatever it is, then they are hardly likely to take you away from us are they?"

I feel so sorry for you and others who were so influenced by it.

Ankers, it was brought in to combat child abuse by giving children rights to speak out against anyone that was hurting them. 'We must always listen to the child' became the new mantra.
In truth, it penalised a lot of good parents and did very little to improve child abuse. Figures only went higher.
I was on the receiving end of it several times. When my daughter came home from school once and I insisted that she could not meet her friends until homework was done. She replied that she didn't need to do anything I said because she had rights. Her teacher had told her so. There ended any control or influence I had over my daughter. She had the upper hand from then on and we went through hell.

And I brought my kids up in that time. I dont remember any parent that I know talking about it either.

The 1989 Children's Act must have passed me by. I dont remember it at all, and havent a clue what is in it. Or what is different from before that time.

It's true that parents who have sacrificed and given their children everything seem to get landed with an attitude of 'I'm entitled'.
But in my view what's really cause such a huge generational failure is the 1989 Children's Act. When it came into force it made parents and teachers subservient to the child. This produced a slave and master relationship where the parent literally had no or little influence over the child. A lot of pandering went on and if you could avoid being accused of abuse for the simple act of saying that fatal word 'no' you were doing well.
Since then the child, bless their cotton socks, have grown into a generation where expectations are unrealistically high, parents are bullied often, (giving children rights turned them into tyrants at home) and a lot of them aren't very happy, (all our fault of course) because reality doesn't match their expecation that the centre of the universe doesn't revolve around them.
Hate to say it but the words...............'I told you so' rings a bell.

A lot of parents, myself included, are now skipping off into the sunset thinking thank the Lord I've escaped at last.

In France, it is in their constitution that children have the choice to an ongoing relationship with their extended family after a family breakdown. How well it works in practice is not clear.

That makes sense Starlady.

Ankers, I think some parents feel that they focused so much on their kids growing up that those kids developed a sense of entitlement and so, aren't very tolerant of parental foibles. But there are plenty of parents who focused on their kids who aren't co, so Idk if that's the problem.

I do think this generation of young people are, on the average, more self-assured and independent-minded than some of us were when we were young. That may make it easier for them to push us aside, right or wrong. Also, on another thread, Nina advised us to google "going no contact." When I did, I found there were a wealth of online articles telling people "how to" co others, including parents. Many of the things that egps here have experienced are part of the "script," as Nina calls it - being blocked on all electronics and social media, having messages ignored, the co of other family members and friends who try to intervene (they even have a name for these - "flying monkeys" - and more. So I think it's part of the current culture, that on the whole, they have a different approach to family problems than most of us did. Just my thoughts.

I have now read the thread more fully.
What is it that happens in France about this[I think it was nina who mentioned this]. Grandparents by law have to be allowed to see their grandchildren?

Obviously we get that Ankers.