Absent grown up children.

*between

*put out...soz 4 typos.

You appear to have had at least 4 professions G?

I find it quite comforting to know that I am not the only one whose family can seem to ‘forget’ them, even though I know it’s because they are so busy with their own lives. When I was first married, I hardly saw my own mum because she lived in another area and phones weren’t so readily available then, but we exchanged letters now and again.

I have now learnt to get on with my own life, but we still keep in touch via Facebook, FaceTime and messenger. They will usually send me a message if something special or different is going on in their lives.

I think sometimes, because we see and hear of all these ‘perfect’ families who always seem to spend quality time with each other and never fall out, that we have either not brought our kids up right or that they don’t love us enough, so to hear on these sights that a lot of what we think is just our families behaviour is in fact pretty normal.

This site has educated me in so many ways. It has helped me when I have been thinking ‘am I the only one’, when I have been feeling down about something, but also made me grateful that I still have a happy, healthy family who I still see and hear from and love.

Lily65
Appearances are not all they seem.
I may possibly be all fur coat and no knickers.
Are you jealous of anyone who can successfully have more than one job?

Skimmed milk masquerades as cream.

A nurse , a lawyer, a lion tamer and a gardener all at the same time.

Oh no! Not just 4. Many more than that.
Now put your needle away because it's having no effect whatsoever on me.
You need a softer target.

Harry Chapin wrote and performed Cat's in the cradle x

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What is an AC please?

Adult child

We had a bit of this a while back. I posted on here about how upsetting it was. However, it is much better now thankfully. Hang on in there. Things can change.

Lilly Is there any reason why you do not like Gabriella?

Even if there is, please stop being rude to her on thread. Apart from anything else feuding is so boring for others and interferes in the flow of a thread.

I think all of us have members we warm to, others we don't and others we take against, I find it easier to just ignore those whom I have grown to dislike,

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Gabriella as a fellow nurse who enjoyed nursing home living back in the much better day I think it’s testomy to your mums ability to cope with your brother? Probably she was very relived that you were enjoying life and coping. She needed you to cope without her and you did

Yes, Mycatisahacker you are probably correct, nevertheless, it was a lonely life for her from her early 40s until her death at 81.
If we could but put the wisdom of years on young shoulders...

I hope when the time comes that I need more help that my son will be there for me, just like he has for his in-laws these past twenty years.

Gabriella, I could have written your post about not keeping in touch with your parents when you were first working. I too was always “too busy” to phone or call my parents when I lived in the same city, not genuinely uncaring but just the thoughtlessness of youth. Even when my mother was widowed young, and I had got married, I didn’t see her very frequently and she must have been so lonely. Luckily in later years we became close and I nursed her devotedly in her final illness, but I have often felt so guilty about my thoughtlessness in earlier years. Imagine my dismay when I see history repeating itself with my own adult children. My married DS sees us frequently as I mind DGS once a week, but our other AC obviously regard it as a chore and a duty to phone or see us. But I say nothing and pretend I don’t notice as I hated feeling pressured by my own parents back then...... what goes around comes around

I often went home to visit my parents once I had left home.. but they still had my younger brothers at home so were quite busy! They helped with childcare when I first went back to work. I guess I saw them weekly until they died, when I was in my 30s.

Maimeo
Mmm, sad but true. We cannot go back but we can at least recognise in our children, the way we were at the same age and not berate them for being distant in manner or unthinking.
Being mum is often a bittersweet experience.
I wonder how the majority of fathers feel?

oops! Meant to say that what makes my DDs a bit busier than me is the current expectations that kids " do" so much out of school stuff! I did not drive when my kids were at primary so if we could not get there easily on a bus/ train or foot it did not happen. Othewise I would be mother to amazong musicians, athletes and dancers ???

My grandmothers complain I don't keep in touch with them, or come over to visit.

Indeed I do not.

My maternal grandmother never ever came over to visit when my mother lost her mind and spent years terrorising us and beating me so badly I couldn't go to school. No, she was very 'busy' then. My paternal grandmother went no contact with us for a decade when I was a small child because my dad and his brother fell out, and she took the 'other' side. She terminated any relationship we might otherwise have had by essentially disowning me as a child. That was her choice, and these are the consequences.

I am sure they are being honest, and they would enjoy me bringing the children over to entertain them. But I will not force time into my schedule for people who never had any time or concern for me.

I'm not upset about being a crap granddaughter, since they were crap grandmothers. You get back what you give out.

Wow !!!!! I see a very hurt and angry little girl, Muffin !! What utterly selfish and unloving grandparents you have. Don't blame you at all for having no desire to see them or have a relationship with them. My grandchildren are the joys of my life. I see them regularly, depending on how busy their parents are.
Good luck to you...I hope you're having a lovely life, with or without your grandparents in it

I play Scrabble online with my adult son. That way, he says, he knows I'm OK on a daily basis without pestering. There's a messaging facility in the app so we have a little word every so often. It's lovely. But he's very good at keeping in touch anyway...we live in different countries.

If AC is dropping children off at child -minder's about 8am so they can be taken to school, collecting them after 5pm, and factoring in travel time, then there isn't a great deal of time (or energy) to emulate the life-styles of parents and grandparents.
If grandparents' AC are so stretched, then offer to collect kids from school, and take them for a McDonald's. If further away, Saturday morning will give AC a bit of a break. Or Sunday brunch?