I am so incredibly hurt. For years my son lovingly teased me about becoming a grandparent and indicated he was eager to see me in that role. Then his wife became pregnant. We live 20 minutes away from one another, A week before baby's birth my husband and I were given the rules:
1.) We could not even see the baby for the first week as my son and his wife needed "time to bond" with the baby. My son used my husband and me as an example: no family saw him the first week after his birth. I pointed out that my family lived in another state and would be coming for his baptism 10 days later. It was too hard for them to come twice in less than two weeks. If they had lived in town, they would have seen him multiple times in the first week.
2.) No kissing baby - not even on the top of the head or on her toes. Hmm... If they wanted to use my experience as an excuse for their rules, as in rule number one, kissing by family members would not be denied. But my son chose to pick and choose my experiences with him as an excuse for their rules.
3.) No overnights. What the heck?? I never asked for overnights. I did mention I could get a free pack-n-play for baby to sleep in when they visit, but I was referring to napping or sleeping in if parents went out for a date and came home late to pick her up and she needed a spot to snooze.
After baby was born, my son and his wife, who had an emergency c-section, had two weeks of food delivery lined up from various people. The people were only allowed to drop off food to my son in the parking lot of their apartment building. I had no problem with people dropping off food, BUT if my son wanted to use my experience of first-time parenthood as justification for his rules, then no one would bring him food because no one brought us food after he was born. I also had an emergency c-section.
I brought my son and his wife a meal when my grandbaby was six days old. Because she was not yet a week old, I could not come up to the apartment. I was, though, "allowed" to "see" my first grandbaby from the balcony of the apartment building they live in and "wave" at her. I felt like I was going to a nursing care facility to wave to an ill super elderly person from a window outside during the pandemic. I hated it. It felt like waving a chocolate candy bar in front of a starving child and saying, "Look, but don't touch. Now, isn't that amazing?" I could not even see the baby. I didn't want to wave at the crown of an infant head. I wanted to "taste" my grandbaby's goodness by holding her and touching her. It was like salt in an open wound.
Finally, the day arrived when my husband and I could actually visit. When we arrived, baby was in the living room in her bassinet. We were not allowed to pick her up out of it. We had to sit on the couch and have her handed to us. She was bundled in a swaddle, and we could not see anything but her face. We were not allowed to touch her skin at all. When I went to pass baby to her Papa (my husband) sitting next to me, my son insisted that he be the one to pass the baby. I felt like I was being treated like a young child and not a grandmother who raised her own children.
When I later expressed how hurtful all this was, my son got upset with me saying that she is his and his wife's child and not mine and I do not get to make the rules. But that is all I was given: rule after rule after rule, and not anything I CAN do as a grandmother.
My grandbaby is now 4 months old, and I have held her an average of 10 minutes a month. I have never babysat her, played with her, read a book to her, sang a lullaby to her, given her a bottle, changed her diapers, pushed her in her stroller, or done anything grandmas do with grandbabies, especially kissed her.
What I have done is cried and cried and cried. I cannot understand why my son who was super affectionate towards me, even when he was in college, is now distancing himself from me and, more hurtful, keeping my grandbaby at an arms-length, saying this is how his generation operates. I am scared. Will it always be this way with her? Will I never have a true relationship with her? I literally feel like there is a knife piercing my heart.
In addition to keeping the baby at arms-length, it seems that rather than listening and learning from one another and across generations, my son and his wife are rejecting everything my generation believes about family, and acting as if my generation has nothing of value to offer the generations behind us because we are not as smart as they are: they can just go online and read stuff from people who are smarter than we are. Their baby must at all costs be protected from us. That is very hurtful. I don't understand it.
Please, I would love any insight and wisdom others can give me on this issue. I need to get my head on straight about this as the hurt is so deep. I just want to love on my grandbaby in real life - not by seeing pictures of her posted online.
