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Stay at Home Moms
NSAHR: Disappointed with parents (long)
My parents drove up here Friday (6 hrs) to visit for the weekend and my mom also attended a baby shower I was throwing for my SIL. Unfortunately on Friday our almost 3 year old started coming down with a stomach flu or something, so he has been under the weather all weekend. Then this morning both him and my husband woke up sick and throwing up. So 2 out of 4 of us are sick (me and baby are holding out so far). My parents were going to leave tomorrow but decided to leave this morning because we were sick and they also did not want to get sick. I understand why they decided to leave but I'm just so disappointed. They hadn't seen us in 4 months and the weather is going to be beautiful today. We could have spent time in the backyard even though it would have been low key. I understand them not wanting to get sick, it just seems like things in general with them are disappointing lately. They don't visit super often for various reasons and it's more difficult for us to go to them. Car rides with the 2 kids aren't fun, and their house is super small and there really isn't enough space for us to stay comfortably anymore. I think the next time they will be here is in early July for the baby's first birthday. We will miss Mother's and Father's Day with them, as well as my mom's birthday and DS #1's 3rd birthday.
I just feel a profound disappointment and maybe a bit of sadness. My parents are great, super involved grandparents when they are with the kids (way better than the local grandparents, my husband's parents), yet they do not visit very often. It's all due to multiple factors, but I'm frustrated and disappointed. This isn't how I envisioned our relationship as my kids are growing up. I feel like they are missing out on their childhood because of stupid reasons. I am probably resentful to some extent too. I know we have so much to be thankful for (health, husband's job, etc), its just... I guess I had higher hopes/expectations for my parents and I feel let down.
This is a totally random vent. Does anyone have a similar experience with their parents? It is hard to talk about without sounding like a whiner/complainer irl.
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Re: NSAHR: Disappointed with parents (long)
I'm sort of in the same boat but the kicker for us is that my dad and stepmom are... dun-dun-dun... a whole TEN MINUTES away. The didn't want to visit Easter weekend because they had to go shopping for a dryer rack. Apparently they are only available for purchase once a year and its the day before Easter (we already had plans to go to my mom's for dinner).
My dad goes golfing at least once a week and one of the courses he goes to is right in my down. As in, he has to drive by our street to get to the golf course. He'll call later that evening and say "hey, I was golfing in your town today!". Um, yeah, great, Dad. ::headdesk::
My mom lives about 45 minutes away and manages to get some time in every weekend. MIL lives about 45 minutes away as well and doesn't drive and yet she makes plans to come stay with us for an extended weekend about once a month.
The thing I've come to terms with is that while yes, they are missing out on big things, its on them. They are the adults and they are the ones capable of making the effort to forge a relationship with the kid(s). DH was really upset about all of this for a long time (his family was really close and he couldn't understand their mentality). I explained to him that DS isn't going to "miss" anything; he can't miss what he doesn't have/know. That's when it finally clicked for DH. So, maybe try looking at it from that angle? That is of course not saying that it doesn't suck big time, but as far as your kids are concerned/know, its just the way they are.
Maybe your parents thought that your sick DH and DS would be more comfortable without house guests.
It sucks but you can't expect people to travel to see you all the time. We moved from Michigan to Texas and only see my parents about twice a year. They visit when they can but I would never expect or ask them to visit more. We are the ones who decided to move far away.
We don't bother traveling for holidays or birthdays. There's just no point.
I see what you're saying. I don't necessarily "expect" them to visit but when they talk about missing the kids, wanting to see them more, etc then yeah, I feel like they need to do something about it once in awhile. I know my mom misses the kids desperately. We ichat with them weekly and I know it kills her to miss special occasions and holidays, etc. Also, to that end, I've told my dad that I thought we should work out a more regular visit schedule so we all know when we will see each other next. I proposed we'd come down 2x/year and they could come up 4. Considering they have no little ones to deal with, this seemed like a fair deal. He said something about how things change and basically he can't make any promises. Clearly there are some other issues here but ... I'm just frustrated. And we have always lived 6 hrs from them, we didn't move. They still live in the town I grew up in, and after I graduated college, I moved to this area. My husband is from here.
Re: the birthdays and holidays - why don't you travel? I am curious. How often do you go to see your parents?
We have the same kind of situation with IL's...and they live 3 minutes from us. They can be great grandparents when they're involved. But lately it has very much become about their "needs" (vacations, quiet time, etc.) and that's fine until MIL starts whining about not getting to see her grandkids.
When DH and I first got together, DD#1 was their first grandkid (at the ripe ol' age of 5, lol). MIL was thrilled and would often talk about things she planned to do when she had more grandkids, the time she'd spend with them when they came to her house, etc. Yeah...whole lot of empty words. I'd like them to be more involved, especially given that we live *3* minutes apart. It's hard to explain to the younger ones why they can't go and see grandma.
DD#1~8/17/96------DS~10/24/05
I go once a year. Last time was Feb 2010 and then I'm taking the kids for two weeks this summer. Its just too expensive to travel. DH doesn't get many vacation days and we don't want to spend every trip going to visit family. We want to do other things, too.
We don't bother for holidays because its too expensive. Flights go up a lot around Christmas and the weather is crappy anyway. If I only go back once a year, I'd rather go in the summer. We don't travel for birthdays because...well...its just a birthday. My parents come to visit when its convenient, not for birthdays.
Honestly, I think asking your parents to travel 4 times a year is unfair when you're only going to do it twice. Lots of people travel with little kids, its not that big of a deal. If you want to see them, you have to make the effort.
We're very close with my parents. I talk to my mom several times a week, she talks to the kids all the time and they send gifts all the time. DD is only 2.5 years old, she's only met my parents a few times but she still knows who they are. You can be close even if you're far away.
I may be the voice of dissent here, but as many times as I've had a stomach virus in the past six years, I would have left, too. If anyone is throwing up, I stay FAR, far away from them...having the stomach flu is no fun and is highly contagious. That happened on my DD's 2nd birthday party weekend last year...my ILs came in town and my nephew (also 2) came down with a stomach virus. They were trying to insist that it was because he ate cheese with his lunch (WTF?), but he clearly had a virus, and they ended up taking him to the ER down the street for a shot of Phenergran. I was not having any of that because I didn't want my family getting sick just because they wanted to stay and hang out, so they ended up going home earlier than they had planned (but not before they also tried to insist that it would be just fine to bring nephew to the playground where we were having the party. Yes, because crawling on a playground while you're around eleventy billion other kids and have the stomach flu is really a smart thing to do).
Had the situation been reversed (we were at their house when my nephew got sick), I would have been out of there.
I'm sorry you were disappointed, and I understand that...just trying to give a perspective from the other side!
Honestly, I think asking your parents to travel 4 times a year is unfair when you're only going to do it twice. Lots of people travel with little kids, its not that big of a deal. If you want to see them, you have to make the effort.
We're very close with my parents. I talk to my mom several times a week, she talks to the kids all the time and they send gifts all the time. DD is only 2.5 years old, she's only met my parents a few times but she still knows who they are. You can be close even if you're far away.
I will talk to them at some point and see what htey think is "fair" but either way, I think we need a better system of visits. As others have pointed out, in some ways I do not blame them for not wanting to get sick. On the other (given other things my parents do), its just par for the course and that is part of my frustration.
The other thing that I think this brings up is that they really don't like to travel much. And my husband and I do to an extent, but putting the kids in the car and driving halfway across the state is not our idea of a good time, so we tend to not do it too often. He thinks that since they don't have kids, they can visit. I tend to be a bit more neutral but ultimately it ends up where they don't visit much, and neither do we so then we are in this situation now. I am pretty close with my parents. I talk to my mom several times a week, we iChat, email, etc. It is not the same as having them visit often or somewhat nearby and I guess that is where I get hung up. As I said, there are bigger issues, and this weekend was just sort of another remind of all of those.
But thanks for the input, it is good to be reminded of the other side of the coin.
We have the same issue with MIL. When we lived in the same town and less than 1 mile from her we still only saw her once a month or so. She had a boyfriend at the time and was always too busy with him or babysitting my niece. Although she raised 3 children, having DS and niece together(even if I was there) was just too much for her. We moved 9 hours away when DS was 14 months old and I was pg with DD. We lived 9 hours away for 1 year, then 5 hours away for 2 years and now we are 10 hours from her again. She has visited 4 times for a weekend(one of those being when DD was born). It bothers DH a lot and he asks her to come often. BIL is a pilot so MIL can fly for free or extremely cheap but yet she never uses it. She also has a 3 day weekend every weekend so she has time also. We don't expect her to do it every month but 2-3 times a year would be nice. Every time she talks about missing the kids and wanting to see them, DH tells her she needs to come visit. We travel home to visit often and although sometimes that is just me and the kids and we stay with my parents I make sure MIL sees the kids. I agree with geek-girl though...it is her choice and her loss.
FIL and his wife NEVER visit but I am okay with that!