No contact for weeks

ohmother and mindfog Please do read Annie s post a little higher up ALL is sorted this thread is a year old

To save anyone else spending time answering last year’s problem without reading the rest of the thread......

The OP now knows what the problem was.

21/04/2019 13:03 AnnieOaklea

Cross posted, BlueBelle.

Thanks bb and Maggie, but I don’t think mindfog actually read the op properly in the first place judging by the reply!!

You have not done anything wrong if you had you would know. They want to live their own lives, adults children do not always want mum involved with their friends, think back to your own life when you had gatherings with friends and mum sitting their expecting attention all the time especially if you want to let your hair down. Let it go send a gift for your grandson your relationship with him is very special and he knows you love him. Get a hobby, go travelling show you are not upset, and most of all do not be clingy, or desperate if they call be cheerful and tell them all the things your up to take some trips find some friends have your own parties, let go. Sitting around mulling over whether your adult kids will ever call you is soul destroying. Two months is not a long time, and if DIL is off then let her get on with it, less trouble in your life.

I am afraid you have got to do all the work here. You are the one with more time and with less stuff getting in the way, it is really you who needs to keep the lines of communication going, just whilst they are busy with a young family. If any of my children contact me, my husband and I look at each other and say “ I wonder what they want??”. It is not that they don’t like or love us it is that unless we keep ourselves a constant in their lives it is easy for a busy family to put us to the bottom of the list. Just call them, say “are you in on Saturday, great I’m bringing DGS’s present around and I will bring cake too, put the kettle on”
It’s not a competition as to who cares more, it is a fact of life that we older folk need to still be guiding our DC to be how we want them to be!!

Clearly I haven’t read the whole thread. Sorry OP. And sorry for your situation?

Why do posters like this always assume that, if something like this happens it is always their'fault' .

Why on earth should it be? Far too many grandparents seem to think they should kowtow and bow down to their children like slaves andif there is a problem it is always their fault for not being as obsequious and as obediant as their children demand.

If there is a problem, treat your children as they treat you. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Well, IDK, MOnica. If DD seemed to be distancing me, I'd want to know if I had done anything wrong b/c then, perhaps, I could fix it. Would I assume I had done something wrong? No (unless there were something really obvious, but then I wouldn't have to ask or wonder about it). I know that, sometimes, it's really about issues in our AC's own lives, etc., that cause these strained relations. But I would, at least, think/ask about it and see what they said.

Once I hadn't heard from DD for weeks, not even in response to texts, phone calls, etc. (not incessant, just about once a week). So finally, I just decided to send her one more message, this time asking if she were angry at me for something. She replied immediately, saying she had just been "swamped with work" and would get in touch again when she had more free time (and she did). Ahhh... exhale!

Granted, IMO, she could/should have sent me a brief message earlier, saying that she would get back to me when she was freer, etc. But, at least, she responded to my show of concern and I found out what was going on. If I hadn't asked, I wouldn't have known.

All of which is to say, no harm asking if something's wrong, IMO, and sometimes it helps.

I think the problem is also so many of us are in constant contact with our DC that even a day without hearing from them seems like a problem.

I am not sure it is such a good idea. In the past there was a clear break between childhood and adulthood. Children grew up and if they moved away from home they might write home every couple of weeks, ring every month, but this constant living in each others pockets where parent and child never separate would have been thought weird and pathetic beyond belief.

We usually phone and chat to our children once a week, but even that gets missed at times because we or they are away or otherwise occupied. In between we ring/email/text, when there is information that needs sharing. We are all on Facebook. I couldn't tell you precisely when we were last in touch. Well, we spent last weekend staying with DS and family, but DD is about to take her last exam for her OU degree so currently is in purdah as she spends every moment she is not at work doing revision so we hear very littlefrom her. We will meet up after its over for a spa day.

It is not the quantity of contact that matters, it is the quality.

I blame mobile phones. When we lived abroad I used to phone my mum twice a week at the same time. If she wasn't in I worried. When my DD was at uni I used to ring her digs and speak to her or a friend if she was out. Now I do not ring my DC as I do not know where they are or what they are doing. Often it is inconvenient. I wait for them to ring me. They tend to ring me on the house phone and if I am not in they worry. My DS so much so that he has me on Find Friends so knows where I am all the time!

If either of my DC had me on something that enabled them to keep track of me. I would warn them that they either signed me off or I would leave all my money to a cats home.

Definitely agree that modern technology (mobile phones, computers, etc.) has raised expectations about contact. IMO, we all need to realize that people don't "have to" contact each other daily/often just b/c they can.

"They tend to ring me on the house phone and if I am not in they worry. My DS so much so that he has me on Find Friends so knows where I am all the time!"

IMO, it's sweet that DS worries that much, but over the top. Apparently, your DC have mobile phones, but how about you? If you do, why don't you ask them to ring you on that instead of the house phone? If you don't, maybe you should look into getting one. Then they'll be able to contact you wherever you are and not feel the need to track you down.

Also, do your DC ever leave a message on your house phone? If not, perhaps you should ask them to do that instead of keeping track of you all the time. If they do leave messages, do you reply in a timely fashion? If so, IDKY they are still worrying. If not, perhaps you need to answer more quickly than you do.

DS is lucky if you don't mind his keeping constant track of you. I'm fairly certain I would resent it.

I prefer face to face contact rather than phoning. All my children live in the same town as me. They prefer that I go to them, rather than them come to me, which is fair enough. They have little ones and by the time they pack the bottles, nappies, etc the whole day is gone.
Btw keeping you on the doorstep is so rude. I never keep anyone talking on the doorstep.

Oops! I see I didn't say who my last comments were addressed to. the first paragraph was for MOnica and dragonfly and the rest was directed at dragonfly.