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Return to Granny's Query index Granny's Advice By Rosaleen Dickson, BA, MJ
- Dear Great Granny.
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My son has been living with this girl for 2 years, and planning to be
married. At the beginning we got along. Boy has that changed! He has 3 children He has had full custody of his 5 year old for 3 years, and one and half years ago got his other 2 children (their mother is a crack addict). Well his girlfriend also has a daughter, who is 2, my other granddaughter is 3 and my grandson is a year and 9 months, which I have been raising , I buy his clothes pay his medical expenses everything!
My five year old granddaughter is having problems in school. I arranged for free counseling for her but they (my son and his girlfriend) refuse to take her.
I have raised my granddaughters half their life, and it is very hard for me not to give advice to help them. She does treat her daughter very differently. Her brother even told me this. She will take her places but not my granddaughters, especially the 5 year old. When I suggested to her that this could be the problem, she had my son put the girls in daycare and I have always watched them.
She changed the phone number. She does not even think about my
grandson, but does allow me to watch my granddaughters when they go out. They didn't buy my grandson a birthday present. She did not even come to his birthday party with my son. They invited her mother (who had left her when she was 7-14 years old) for Christmas dinner and not ask me and my family and I have his son.
Well I did get mad and I did get hurt I blew up! I told my son I
was hurt and told her she can take time out of work for her needs but not to take my granddaughter to counseling. She once again told me never to call her house again and so did my son. I am not and haven't been allowed to visit their house in several months any way but I am just lost !! I love my son so much and it hurts and I love my grandchildren with all my heart!
Christmas my son did call me, and came so I could give my girls their gifts. .The next day I called and his girlfriend said, " I thought we told you never to call this house again. I will get this number changed again!"
This time I did something so wrong because of my pain, I finally told my son I would stay out of his life to make him happy but what about my girls!! I love them so much and I do not want to hurt them, they have been through so much! They need to see their brother and grandmother they are every thing to me! Help me please! I cant sleep I am always worried about them and my son. I am in so much pain!
Desperate grandma and mother
- Dear friend
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Being a grandmother is not an easy task. We cannot just sit in our rocking chairs and knit, enjoying the little grandchildren around our knee when they have time to visit. No - things are not like that. We are often called on to pitch in and look after small children, and help them out of their problems The better we are at taking care of family problems, the more they use us. But when it comes to making decisions, we are not sought out. Nobody really wants to know how we would solve problems. They want to do all that themselves, and rightly so.
Whatever decision your son makes about this girl friend who he probably will marry, that is his decision. If the result is that his previous children are not well cared for, well, that's his choice. Maybe he really does love this girl who seems to you to be favouring her own child over his, or maybe he is marrying her because he is in great need of a person to look after his house. Whatever is his reason, that's his business, not yours.
Having grown to love his little girls, whom you call "yours", you now feel as if they really ARE yours. But they are not. And if he chooses to put them into day care, that is his decision. Probably they are having a fine time in day care, most children do.
If it ever happened that those little girls were being mistreated or their health was in danger you could call the Children's Aid Society, or whatever your local health department has to investigate mistreated children. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think that when you have handed over the care of these children to your son and his girl friend, they will organize a good family life and raise them up properly.
About the counselling at school, why don't you contact the school and tell them what happened and maybe they will encourage your son to see that his child gets to those counselling sessions - or the school might make some other arrangement.
You have raised your family and that is over. Now that they do not need you to look after the grandchildren, you should go about finding something else interesting to do. Take your mind off your son and his family. Get a life of your own. I can't advise you on what to do, or where to go, but if you just investigate your community a bit I'm sure you'll find an interest that will so involve you that you won't have time to worry about the children.
It's time for grannies to step out for themselves and let the younger generation solve their own problems. If I worried about all my grandchildren, and great grandchildren - or even just my own six children for that matter - I wouldn't have time to write these letters, or do any of the other interesting things I've found to do lately. If they need me badly, they will call - otherwise, I'm on my own agenda. You should do that too.
Yours sincerely,
GG
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