grandma who never wants to spend family time.?

Question

I don't know if anyone else has these issues or not but some feedback would be great. My mother-in-law never wants to spend quality time with us or our son. This is her very first grandchild and shes even an elementary school principal. She just always makes excuses to never see him and if she does its maybe once a month for a few hours with us present. Also if we ask to babysit ,which we rarely do and we havent gone out my husband and i in 6 months, she always says no shes busy going here or there or she'll go and ask my sis in law. it just aggrevates me because if i wanted to ask her i would! Is this normal behavior for a grandmother? my mom lives 4 hours away and i know shed be kidnapping our kid every chance she got because she does it when we visit her. I mean I don't know if i should approach her and mention it because it bothers me but my husband says shes missing out oh well. i mean grandpa is so involved but grandma is MIA. im open to suggestions so plz give me some!

just so u guys know our son is almost 2 years old and we're in our mid 20s

Answer 1

My husbands mother was the same way.
My mother was deceased early on, but would have loved my children.
But, there's nothing you can do about it--short of using guilt.
But, do you really want to do that? Make them feel guilty for not being "good" grandparents???
I wouldn't and didn't resort to such levels. I just left her alone. It really was her loss. So much so that my children refer to her as "dad's mom." They don't even call her grandma or any other such names.
She came for a visit when my youngest was four and my oldest was 10. My daughter (age 4) asked me who she was. What does that say???
I mean, she lived less than 8 miles away.
They never knew her as such. Now she is deceased. It's too late for her to ever be a part of their lives. How sad. She was their only opportunity at having a "grandmother."

Answer 2

Your mother-in-law is a professional woman and she probably is busy. Ask your son about how she was when he was growing up. I'm going to be she was either the same or after he grew up she reached her professional desires.

You know, not every woman finds having children to be the end all be all that other women do. I have never believed that nurturing in a traditional "mothering" way is instictual. Some women have to work at it. Your mother in law may be facing some issues about aging and the whole "grandmother" image. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, nor are any of my friends. We want grandchildren, some actually have them and are active in their lives but who wants to be confused with the woman who can't shut up about her grandkids accomplishments and whips out the pics at every chance when most of us would rather be having adult conversation. This isn't the 50's, and we are redefining grandmothering as well as everything else about aging. If you keep comparing your mother's behavior with your mother-in-law's you are going to hurt someone who doesn't deserve to be judged by you. After all, she raised your husband, and if you married him, then she must have done a good job.

Tell her that your home is always open to her, and be satisfied with the time she is willing to spend. There is no "normal" behavior for a grandmother, as long as she remembers him and is in your life as she wants to be, then that's normal.

You might want to have your husband talk with his mother and ask her if she's upset with you all, or if something is going on in her life. If she's simply trying to adjust to these very big changes(and if you don't think having your role redefined as mother to grandmother is a big change, you are going to be unpleasantly surprised when you have to deal with the same thing in 25yrs).

As for babysitting, hire someone. If you can't afford it, ask her to pay for it. I'll be she'll be glad to, and with the holidays coming up, it would be easy to ask for "babysitting" money so you can go out on a couples night.

One last thing. Your mom is a completely different person than your husbands mom. Stop comparing them, its disrespectful and just mean. You have no idea if your mother-in-law is struggling with the whole grandmother thing, and you should find out before you go judging her. Be thankful for your mother, you got lucky, mine never wanted anything to do with my daughters and never ever babysat them, and she was a homemaker.

Answer 3

She probably loves you all but after seeing over 500 kids at school 5 days a week for the entire school year . . . well you can understand. So my recommendation would be to hire a babysitter when you want to go out.

I am sure she loves everyone but if she is not rude, unresponsive etc, allow her to set the time and place when spending time with your family and son. Another option is to just go ahead and share your concerns with her in a nonjudgmental way. Remember everyone is different. Let her know you want to make sure nothing is wrong with your relationship.

Answer 4

Nobody can hear can tell you how she feels, all we can do is guess and try to find a logical explanation for her actions.

If you don't feel comfortable directly asking her why she does what she does. You could invite her to breakfast alone and focus the conversation on your family and let her know how important family time is to you. If you don't see a change immediately keep putting effort into it but also know the decision to change will ultimately be hers.

Answer 5

she has made her choice. invite grandpa out to do things with the three of you but let her be.she will either come around or she wont. some people are different. maybe shes waiting until hes older. then she wont have to take care of him,but she will also miss out on the bonding.

Answer 6

I'm sorry to hear this. I too am a grandmother and my daughter is not allowing me to see them right now. I haven't done anything wrong to them, I've made her mad and she's living in her fathers home along with her husband.

I have not spoken to him in 3 years and she is actually mad at me. She just needs to grow up because I was there for every birth to take care of her and each child born for 1 week. I cooked homecooked dinners every night, bathed the kids, put them down for naps and night time bed. Fed them their 3 meals (and good ones too) a day along with play time, snack time, learning time, outdoor time, gave them al baths, did all the laundry, cleaned the house, whatever. They were very close to me.
I have spent the whole weekend at their home so they could rent a room for a friend of theirs wedding.

I use to call her and say, hey do you want me to baby sit Saturday night so you two can have a date night? She would also say yes, I just felt they were young and still needed a "time out" for themselves and I was more than happy to babysit my own grandchildren.

So, I can not understand your MIL ...except for 2 things.

I use to have a lot of anxiety and found out by going to baby showers, I was terrified of holding a baby. (this was before my grandchildren were born)

I was horrified. Of course my friends who had started on their 2nd families wanted me to hold their babies, because I loved babies. I felt dizzie like I was going to drop it. I had to sit down, my heart would start rasing and I was horrified and shocked about how I felt. How could this be?

Well I was affraid this would happen to me of course upon the arrival of my 1 grandchild. The fear was set into me for years.

But it did not. I will never forget the feeling of holding each one of my grandchildren for the first time. Such a peaceful feeling.

Well.. the 2 thought I have, is also because of my mother.
She has to go with me to visit her great grandchildren because she too told me she didn't like them when they were so little, she was affaird she'd drop him/her. So she could never go alone and visit because what is the first thing a new mother does???? AND to a grandma or greatma???

Is here> Want to hold the baby??? As you are placing the baby into her arms. See what I'm saying? My mom said she wanted to visit but was affraid she'd be kind of forced to hold the baby when she was affraid to, and so she just avoided going alone not to her hurt my daughters feelings. I went so "I could take more charge of my mom's situation". I told mom, to just sit on the sofa and I'd take the baby first then just hand her over for a minute and take her back. My daughter had the biggest smile of course. but she doesn't know the fear that was running through my mom's veins at the time.

How could her grandmother of 7 children be affraid to hold a baby for gosh sakes? So.....this might be her problem. She may want the baby to become a little bigger before she embarrases herself, especially in her job position.
It sounds like she loves kids, but can't take holding an infant for fear. I had it, Had NO idea why, my gosh, hand me a baby anyday and I'll take it and hold it. But not during that time I mentioned.

So, the more you push Grandma, the more anxiety that may build up.

Can you visit her at her home? If so, can you go over there without asking or acting like she "MUST HOLD YOUR BABY?
If so, see how she reacts. Let her feel more at ease at just having the baby around her (MORE OFTEN) and realizing it isn't going to break.

you could also suggest telling your husband about this and suggesting him to talk to his dad about what he thinks.
There is nothing wrong fearing to hold a baby, if you think you might drop it, you'll feel terrified, so you just avoid the situation just like any other ANXIETY situation.

You did say she'll see you "with you present". So that's whay made me remember my very distressful time just holding anyone's baby and my mom's feelings.

So try and be open minded about this. I hope this is what it is, it kind of sounds like it. Just make sure all involved never push the baby into grandma, let grandma pick up the baby on her own in due time with no pressure.

I miss my grandkids so much, but she has her father and half sisters to help her. I guess she no longer needs me.

I would babysit if I could:). Give her some time, I'll sure she'll come around, Good luck and Congrats ~