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ed11563


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Skype with absent grandma
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Dear Prudie,
I am an only child with a well-off mother who divorced my father and remarried when I was an adult. My husband and I have two elementary school age kids. My mother has never lived terribly close to us, but recently she decided to relocate to a tony retirement community on the opposite side of the country. Her solution to seeing the grandkids is to have weekly Skype sessions with them. On my end, this goes badly. I have to threaten and cajole my kids to engage through a screen with someone they understand loves them, but who they don’t really have much of a relationship with. I’ve been doing it dutifully for more than three years, but it is starting to wear on me, and, frankly, I feel as though if it were important to her to have a relationship with my kids she could have chosen to live closer to us. We live in a highly desirable part of the country for retirement, but this is not where Mom or her partner want to be. So what is my obligation to her? Can I tell Mom that one of the consequences of choosing golf over grandkids is that she can’t then expect them to choose her over coloring?

—Luddite

Dear Luddite,
There’s a lot of quiet seething in that description of Mom gallivanting in that tony golf community with her new love. It may be that your children have picked up on your resentment of what you perceive as a mother who’s more into her own pleasure than her family. Instead of burying your feelings and cajoling your kids, you need to have an honest conversation—through Skype or not—with your mother. Set up a time for you two to talk and lay out to her what you’ve laid out here: the kids don’t really enjoy talking to their disembodied grandmother because they don’t really know her. Then say you understand that she’s moved somewhere great, but it hurts to have her live so far away. See what she has to say. Maybe she can take some time away from the links and show up for a real visit. Maybe your kids are getting old enough to fly out and spend some time with Nana. As for the Skype conversations between grandma and the kids, instead of ending them, try to make them more fun. Have the kids get together a bunch of their best drawings to show her, or sing her a song. Even if you aren’t thrilled with the current arrangement, you can tell your children you expect them to take five minutes a week to talk to a grandmother, however distant, who loves them.

—Prudie



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Lawyerlady


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"Even if you aren’t thrilled with the current arrangement, you can tell your children you expect them to take five minutes a week to talk to a grandmother, however distant, who loves them."


Yes. This really isn't that much. It's not different than sitting your kids down and teaching them to write thank you notes, or going to visit grandma when they don't want to. You are the parent - you make them do it.

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She sounds like she resents her mom. Complaining that her mom has money and moved away. Did she expect her mom to hang around and babysit all the time? Sometimes OUR expectations of what a grand parent should be are not what THEIR expectations are. And I don't know why she doesn't just voice her concerns to her mom.

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I have mixed feelings about this.

Forcing your grandchildren to satisfy your need to connect with them on your terms only, without asking about ways they might enjoy communicating, is a sure way to foster resentment. I would NOT want my grandchildren to dread my phone calls and to think of me as a chore. I think it is the responsibility of the grandparent to figure out the best way to communicate with the grandchildren - the way that engages them, and move on from the skype calls (which aren't working).

On the other hand, the OP sounds like she harbors some resentment and I am wondering if it has to do with the divorce and remarriage. The fact that she mentions money more times than love is telling. In fact, she doesn't mention love at all. There is no "I love my mother but..." This isn't a letter about Skype...it's about so much more.

Regardless, the OP needs to tell Gram that the kids aren't enjoying the calls, suggest another way to connect with them, and if that doesn't work, she could always just ignore the call when it comes!

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Rib-it! Rrrib-it!

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Mellow Momma wrote:

I have mixed feelings about this.

Forcing your grandchildren to satisfy your need to connect with them on your terms only, without asking about ways they might enjoy communicating, is a sure way to foster resentment. I would NOT want my grandchildren to dread my phone calls and to think of me as a chore. I think it is the responsibility of the grandparent to figure out the best way to communicate with the grandchildren - the way that engages them, and move on from the skype calls (which aren't working).

On the other hand, the OP sounds like she harbors some resentment and I am wondering if it has to do with the divorce and remarriage. The fact that she mentions money more times than love is telling. In fact, she doesn't mention love at all. There is no "I love my mother but..." This isn't a letter about Skype...it's about so much more.

Regardless, the OP needs to tell Gram that the kids aren't enjoying the calls, suggest another way to connect with them, and if that doesn't work, she could always just ignore the call when it comes!

 This!  This isn't about the kids.  This is about the daughter and the mom not resolving their issues.  I bet if she works out her issues with her mom then the kids will be fine with grandma.



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“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!”
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