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Post by miranda on Jun 1, 2025 23:41:57 GMT
Newish grandma of 2 little ones. Adore them! One I see quite often. The second one I see slightly less, but I feel like this is always going to be the case. Mom to one is more available and happy to share their families time. Mom to second is available, but weekends are starting to seem like their family units time, which makes it harder to see them. This will only get worse with their job schedules if they don’t share their weekends more.
Obviously their family, their choice. I can see their point some even…with limited time it’s hard. But it feels sad to me that one will be more prominent in our life. It must be somewhat common with multiple grandchildren for people, how do you navigate it? I’m already feeling closer to the one and feel bad about it
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Post by voltagain on Jun 2, 2025 0:24:45 GMT
Newish grandma of 2 little ones. Adore them! One I see quite often. The second one I see slightly less, but I feel like this is always going to be the case. Mom to one is more available and happy to share their families time. Mom to second is available, but weekends are starting to seem like their family units time, which makes it harder to see them. This will only get worse with their job schedules if they don’t share their weekends more. Obviously their family, their choice. I can see their point some even…with limited time it’s hard. But it feels sad to me that one will be more prominent in our life. It must be somewhat common with multiple grandchildren for people, how do you navigate it? I’m already feeling closer to the one and feel bad about it I've got 10! 4 I see roughly twice a year. 3 of them I have never meet due to distance (I lived in Oklahoma, currently in Missouri and they live in Oregon) I am not healthy enough to travel that far alone and it is too expensive for them to travel with that size of family. Plus they have a small farm full of animals that need daily care. I've met their 2 oldest siblings (sib set of 5) but only the oldest remembers ever meeting me in person. My youngest one is 15 months was born in Japan and they are currently living in Germany. She will be 3 before I get a chance to see her. At most I will see her a week or two every 3 years until her daddy retires or has a career change. I try really hard to not let ***feelings**** dominated my relationship with them. I try to treat them evenly. Everyone gets the same spent on them for Christmas/birthdays or other gift giving occasions. I must say my daughter and both daughter in laws are great about keeping my face book up to date with on goings so I do feel connected to all of them. To me MY feelings aren't the important part it is THEIR feelings... do they feel like they are known and important to me? So display photos of all of them. Not just photos of the close ones. Gift them all the same. Even if you can't actively visit then find a time to call/face time each week and chat with them. My kids grew up feeling close to my parents just based on a weekly Saturday phone call back in the 1980s. Where they told my parent's what was on their minds every week. |
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Post by grammadee on Jun 2, 2025 0:51:00 GMT
Love them all. Make the most of the time you have with each. Use electronics when you can to connect. I have always respected their primary family unit and expected it to take priority over my own time lines.
We have eleven grandkids, aged 9 through 26 years. When the oldest five were little, I worked hard to see each family at least once every couple of months. The younger ones it has not been that regularly, more like two or three times a year for the ones in this province. One lives close to us and of course we spend more time together, but it isn't all "special" time.
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Post by rymeswithpurple on Jun 2, 2025 1:28:37 GMT
I'm one of 14 grandkids on my mom's side, and my dad's biological parents died before I was born.
I grew up about 30 minutes from my grandparents in PA. We didn't see them every weekend, but probably once a month, maybe a little more or less, depending on what was going on in our respective lives. 2 of my mom's sisters live on the other side of the country, one lived in VA (and is elsewhere now), one lived about 15 minutes away from them, and her brothers are all within an hour of her.
When they could, they and their kids would visit. The times I remember family visiting most were summers and Christmas. Of course, as we grandkids got older, it wasn't as easy (the oldest is 40 and youngest is 19 this year).
One of the last times we all got together was in 2013 when my grandpa turned 80. He passed in late 2019. After he died, my grandma lived with my parents for a few years, and she is now in an assisted living facility.
So it definitely wasn't easy for them, but visits happened when they could.
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Post by Texas Scrap on Jun 2, 2025 2:10:50 GMT
I think people have very different proximity as well as expectations. My mom lives in another state, so she sees my kids at most 1 time a year and most of those are us coming to her as she does not really like to travel much. I will say, even though it is only once a year, my kids are 19/22 now, and they went with me happily last December to see her and had a great time and love her very much. The consistency of time spent together annually and the “quality” of time matter. My in laws were in another state when my kids were both born but moved back here when my youngest was 1-2 years old. They live 30+ minutes/ 22 miles away so not super close but also easy to see. They had another set of grandkids literally across the street and in some ways jointly raised those g-kids. So obviously, my kids saw them less. I was a working mom so week days were really not an option other than as kids got older and had sporting events or activities. My in laws were great to come to those and we celebrated major holidays. My kids are still super close to them even though they spent less time than their cousins with them. I really think the relationships over time are so much more about quality and how time is spent together rather than frequency.
I totally get why you are feeling concern and wanting to make things equal, but as someone who was working, the weekends were not only family time, but also down time and time to get caught up on things. I would just encourage you to make the most of the time you have and know that this little one is going to love any and all time you give them.
I am so thankful my kids have had grandparents who wanted to be involved in their lives and have been around to spend time with them. So many kids don’t get that.
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seaexplore
Prolific Pea
Posts: 9,366
Apr 25, 2015 23:57:30 GMT
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Post by seaexplore on Jun 2, 2025 2:40:47 GMT
My parents have 5 in Texas and 4 in California. They live a few miles from 2 of them and an hour plus from the other 2. 2 of the ones in Texas get seen when my sister brings them to California or when my parents go to Texas. The other 3 in Texas are rarely seen because my brother never brings them to California and when my parents are in Texas my brother is too busy to get together. My mom spends quite a bit of time with the 2 who live a few miles away, picks them up from school and goes to their sports. My parents come to my kids sports and events as often as they can. We try to all get together at least once a month for lunch or dinner.
My MIL and FIL have 4 grandkids. MIL lives about a half hour from us and we never see her. FIL lives about 7 hours from us and an hour away from SIL who has 2 kids. He sees them often. He doesn’t see my kids more than once a year. MIL came to my 9 year olds baseball game a few weeks ago and he didn’t recognize her! She seemed offended but is always too busy when we offer opportunities for her to come and see the kids. FIL would see my kids way more often if we invited him up but we aren’t big on house guests and there are no places to stay closer than about 45 min so we don’t tend to invite them up more than once a year.
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Post by librarylady on Jun 2, 2025 2:48:25 GMT
You have to quit worrying about things you can't control.
Create the best relationship with the children you can and let it go. When you are around them do things to show you love them and it will fall into place.
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caangel
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,025 
Location: So Cal
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Post by caangel on Jun 2, 2025 3:10:22 GMT
My brother and I were the grand kids who lived far away. My dad was in the military. Paternal grandparents lived in Wisconsin and maternal grandparents lived in Taiwan. We never lived in Taiwan and never lived
even a day's drive to WI.
We visited WI almost every summer once we were in grade school and my mom's parents visited once every few years or so same with her siblings (1 of 8). My dad's 5 siblings lived near their parents so we saw them then.
We definitely had a strong connection to our paternal extended family and a decent one to our maternal size although that was a bit harder with the longer distance and language barrier.
My kids have been to Taiwan and WI 2x each, once when they were younger and once as teens. We also make an effort to visit family who come to visit my parents (nearby).
I always tell them they are lucky to have lived in the same community for their entire childhood and have both grandparents and extended family (our siblings) near by (30 min).
We have different relationships with all depending on availability but we all gather together, both sides, for holidays, as well as include my SILs families many times too. I am so grateful for how inclusive our extended family is of all.
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pinklady
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,653
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Post by pinklady on Jun 2, 2025 3:31:18 GMT
In the era of FaceTime, Zoom and Skype, there’s more to a non-existent relationship than miles.
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Post by gar on Jun 2, 2025 7:54:05 GMT
I have 4 by my 2 daughters. One DD lives within a 15 min drive and we babysit fairly frequently, they drop in etc so we're very lucky. The others live 2 hrs away but visit frequently as many of their social circle are near us.
When you say that their weekend are family time, (fair enough) do you mean they don't visit you or that you're not 'allowed' to visit them? It takes a lot of effort with small kids to visit family doesn't it but could you maybe go to them and say that you'll just stay for an hour or two as you appreciate they want their family time?
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Post by christine58 on Jun 2, 2025 10:02:03 GMT
My mom has six great grandchildren under the age of seven. Her grandchildren are between 25 and 38 years old. Growing up the grandchildren were nearby so that was never an issue. But now with the addition of great grandchildren who she loves so much, it’s a bit harder only because of distance.
Two of her great grandsons live in Florida, which is why she goes there for three months out of the year. They are five and seven and have learned how to use their iPads to FaceTime Great grandma. So that has helped a lot. They are here for a week this summer and will be here a couple days after Christmas. Her two great granddaughters live about 45 minutes from here and their grandparents also live here so we see them. Again they FaceTime her. (With help because one is almost 2, and the other is almost 4)
My nephew who has a daughter and a son live lives about an hour from here. So we see them and we’ll see more of them now that he has been deployed for a year through the National Guard.
I have 15 cousins on one side and 18 on the other and 90% of us lived near our grandparents. But I think today families are more scattered however FaceTime is a wonderful thing.
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Post by zuke on Jun 2, 2025 11:06:31 GMT
Think quality rather than quantity. I have 4 grandkids. Two live in NY and two live in Austria. We live in Florida. We facetime with the ones in Austria about once a week. The 6 hour time difference sometimes gets in the way. We see them once a year. They love doing that and get very excited when converse with them. They are 2 and 4 years old. The two in NY, sometimes we facetime with them 2-3 times a week and other times it might be once in a week and a half, depending on different schedules. They are 3 and 5 years old. The 3 year old has started asking our daughter to make a video of her asking us questions. Last week was "have you ever eaten cotton candy? I had some today. It was pink. It was so good but then it flew away when a wind came. Next time I will try a blue one". Doing that has made a fun game for us. Yesterday she had our daughter call us so she could tell us that she pooped on the potty! I hope that when she is a teenager, she'll still feel close enough to us to want to facetime with us and tell us interesting things going on. We see them 2-3 times a year.
Think of ways to engage more, no matter what their ages are. It can be more rewarding, for you and for them, over seeing them in person multiple times. Try not to be hard on yourself.
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Post by wordyphotogbabe on Jun 2, 2025 12:52:41 GMT
When we used to live a couple hours from my parents, my mom would drive down to see us about every 4-6 weeks. She would drive down on a Saturday morning, spend the night in a hotel, and drive back home Sunday afternoon. I would say she was just as close to my kids as she was my nephew who lived close to her and she got to see weekly. She always sent cards & gifts, too, in the mail. This was when my kids were little so they didn't have school or sports obligations then.
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Post by rymeswithpurple on Jun 2, 2025 21:21:01 GMT
In the era of FaceTime, Zoom and Skype, there’s more to a non-existent relationship than miles. My SIL has a little one, and another on the way. My FIL is pretty far from her, so she tries to do video calls with him and her son. However, it seems like even on those, my FIL barely pays attention to my nephew and then wonders why his son in law's mother has a better relationship with his grandson. He's even the same way in person sometimes. TV's blasting, he barely pays attention. Heck, even when we call my SIL (non-video call) and she tells our nephew to say hi to us, he calls me Kayee (close enough for a nearly 3 year old for my actual name). |
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Post by Karene on Jun 2, 2025 23:00:39 GMT
My kids were very lucky. We lived 1/2 hour away from my parents and 45 minutes away from my husband's parents. We saw all of them regularly.
Growing up, I lived a street away from my maternal grandparents for my first few years then an hour away and then farther. But they always came for Christmas at our house. (I often wondered about that because my mom had 5 siblings, 4 that also had children.) I think there was only 2 Christmases that we did not see them, the last one because my grandfather died 3 days later. This set of grandparents was very social, loud and fun.
My other grandparents we only saw one Christmas. These grandparents were quiet, reserved and didn't come with presents every time we saw them. These ones, although we rarely saw them when we were really young, we moved near them when I turned 13 and then we saw them every 2nd weekend. They lived in the country, taught us card games, had a large garden that we could plant things and play games.
But I loved both sets of grandparents and can't say I had favourites. They were such totally different sets of people. It made it interesting. I had 27 first cousins, some I saw a lot and a few I never met.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Jun 2, 2025 23:22:21 GMT
Congrats and just enjoy and love them. If you get caught up in differences, everyone will pick up on it - so just enjoy and love them. AND don't be surprised if it all changes in ways you didn't anticipate - life be funny that way!
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scrapngranny
Pearl Clutcher
Only slightly senile
Posts: 4,948
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Post by scrapngranny on Jun 3, 2025 23:44:12 GMT
I have seven grandchildren, who all live fairly close. The first 3 lived on the road and I saw almost every day. The other 4 live 30-40 miles away, I saw them less, but before they started school, we could arrange play dates or sleep overs.
The 3 oldest are all adults now scattered around. One still lives close, so we see him quite often. The 4 others are all teens and are very busy with teen life. We see one set of 2 more than the other 2. One of the sets of 2 are the only ones who have 2 sets of grandparents. We go to as many sporting events and recitals as we can.
I have different relationships with each one of them. One keeps in touch almost daily, she is oldest of the only 2 girls. I see the oldest grandson very often, his 2 brothers much less because one is in the Marines and the other is away at college.
I adore each and every one of them.
All the kids are so different and have so many different interests I really enjoy any time I can spend with them now.
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scrapngranny
Pearl Clutcher
Only slightly senile
Posts: 4,948
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Post by scrapngranny on Jun 4, 2025 0:49:38 GMT
I have seven grandchildren, who all live fairly close. The first 3 lived on the road and I saw almost every day. The other 4 live 30-40 miles away, I saw them less, but before they started school, we could arrange play dates or sleep overs.
The 3 oldest are all adults now scattered around. One still lives close, so we see him quite often. The 4 others are all teens and are very busy with teen life. We see one set of 2 more than the other 2. One of the sets of 2 are the only ones who have 2 sets of grandparents. We go to as many sporting events and recitals as we can.
I have different relationships with each one of them. One keeps in touch almost daily, she is oldest of the only 2 girls. I see the oldest grandson very often, his 2 brothers much less because one is in the Marines and the other is away at college.
I adore each and every one of them.
All the kids are so different and have so many different interests I really enjoy any time I can spend with them now.
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Post by 950nancy on Jun 4, 2025 2:00:15 GMT
I only have one, so right now everything is peachy. I would just make sure you offer to see them as much as you can, make sure the gifts are as equal as possible and be excited when you do see them. I don't think you can blame yourself or feel bad about what the parents choose to do.
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