Grandparents not coming to son's HS graduation- advice please...

Parent Cafe
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<p>I was not personally hurt by my in-laws’ resisitance to visiting us because I knew it did not have to do with me. It was their own issue and they were the same with their other children, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Sometimes I wondered if they simply did not want to confront the reality of their children having built their own independent lives. (Mother-in-law never had any interest in seeing pictures of our house, for example.) </p>

<p>When my sister-in-law got married she did it in the town where she had been living, and handled everything herself. H and I offered, as a wedding gift to his sister, to arrange for a private car/driver to transport my mother-in-law (widowed at that point) to the wedding. She declined, of course, so was not at her own daughter’s wedding, nor did she visit when her daughter had her first child. </p>

<p>(Mother-in-law actually, amazingly, **did **come to my wedding back in 1975 to her son, the ONLY time she travelled to family rather than their coming to her.)</p>

<p>Anyhow, it is what it is. The best way to deal with this is to resolve to be a different kind of grandparent yourself. I discuss this with my kids from time to time – how they would like it to be when we are at that point, visiting expectations, etc. Neither is married yet but I figure it is proactive to explore this topic while we don’t yet have their spouses involved. The balance between uninvolved and too involved can be delicate.</p>

<p>But for this month I hope you can joyfully celebrate with your son.</p>

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<p>As I wrote earlier, I think it is worse that they didn’t come to your wedding. I find that unusual but then again, jyber said her MIL didn’t go to her own daughter’s wedding either.</p>

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<p>like all those kinds of events (e.g., my father not attending our wedding) in the long run it is their loss; we had a great time any way </p>

<p>I’;m sure your event will proceed with celebration and honor for the graduate</p>

<p>only suggesstion - and it soudns like you’ve taken care of it - it to let the graduate know that the REASON they aren’t attending has nothing to do with him, something like “they love you very much, but sometimes people limit themselves and find reasons NOT to do things that they would really enjoy” </p>

<p>the joke in our family is that someone ALWAYS gets the better inlaws :-)</p>

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<p>I would let it go.</p>

<p>I know it’s a disappointment to you, but it’s their loss - you can’t force people to care.</p>

<p>At least they are not the over controlling, in your business all the time types - that would be worse!</p>

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<p>Some people travel. Others don’t. It’s as simple as that. Not everyone is willing to put in an 8 hour drive for a HS graduation, even if it is a dearly beloved grandchild. Was flying an option between these two locations? Could an offer of plane tickets have made a difference?</p>

<p>We paid for Happygrandma to fly from Miami to DC for Happykid’s graduation this year. A cousin and his wife who live near us joined us at the ceremony as well. I gave our other ticket away to a friend so her daughter’s neighborhood “grandma” could attend. None of my sibs could make it, and SIL is out of the country. As for Happydad’s father and stepmother, well they were never on the guest list. The relationship is not particularly close, FIL is not in good enough health to travel easily, and the MIL and step-MIL can’t be in a room together - even if it is a giant auditorium.</p>

<p>Two days later, Happykid and Happygrandma went shopping while I filled in the role of cousin at the cousin’s daughter’s graduation an hour away. Cousin’s sister arrived in time for that graduation, and all of us (Happydad, Happykid, Happygrandma, self, Cousin & wife, Cousin’s sister, Cousin’s two daughters) had a big family dinner at a local restaurant where the waiters sang “Happy Graduation” and delivered free desserts for the two beautiful young lady graduates.</p>

<p>We had a lovely time. I wish you the same.</p>

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<p>You’ve received some very sound advice. But this sentence stood out for me. If this is your only time off to get away and change your scenery, I would end this practice. Not in a vindictive way in spirit or in any way, shape, or form. In my explanation to the in-laws, I wouldn’t tie their attitudes in any way to the change in habit. But enough is enough. Maybe you could make it an every other year type of thing. If my only vacation was to be spent in the company of such apathetic relatives, I’d go nuts.</p>

<p>Regardless, congrats on your son’s graduation and have a wonderful time.</p>

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<p>My husband & I both come from large familes – our 3 kids have 31 FIRST cousins – and after driving ourselves nuts about who would come to what and being disappointed by our parents not showing up for things, we decided about 10 years in that our family was just that - us + 3 kids. Anyone else was welcome to share in any of our celebrations but we didn’t make having a good time contingent on anyone else being involved. </p>

<p>It’s a good thing too!! Here’s how it’s worked out for us – </p>

<p>I’ve always lived closer to my husband’s family than my own (about a 2 hour ride to my family). My parents were always good about visitng UNTIL my sister who lived in the same town as them had kids – then it was all over. They will show for the occasional first communion, baptism but graduations are not high on their radar screen.</p>

<p>BUT in some ways I found my in-law’s lack of interest to be more annoying – they live within a 20 mile radius of 23 grandchildren and have never been to one high school graduation - just not their thing, I guess. Actually, they’ve never been big on going to any functions for the kids - little league games, school plays, awards ceremonies etc. I know that’s a lot of grandkids to keep of track of but there’s a pretty big age gap (from age 5 to 32) so there’s been plenty of time to get around to things. I was never my annoyed than when D3 had her VIP day in kindergarten, invited grandma (my MIL) and grandma left after 1 hour --the whole program was about 2 1/2 - 3 hours so she was left all by herself for most of what they had planned for their VIPs!</p>

<p>Middle D just graduated from HS – her favorite aunt and sister travelled from out of town and we had a really great weekend with our small family…but there really was a wide range at the ceremony – some kids had 10, 20, 30 people there cheering them on while others had a much smaller group like ours - so I guess it just depends on the family!</p>

<p>I hope you can enjoy the day!!</p>

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<p>My grandparents didn’t come to my high school graduation. But then parents use to only be able to get 4 tickets for seats back then because 600 kids graduated with my brother, 300 with me. Nobody use to think of asking grandparents unless the grandparent was living in the house.</p>

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<p>Trying to resist " I can top that" horror stories- but mean to illustrate how we can work around difficult people.</p>

<p>my mother and inlaws did attend our wedding which was local- although it was a pretty miserable time- I was 16 wks pregnant- and was feeling ill ( the day of the ceremony, I had been having contractions & three days later- the pregnancy was over).</p>

<p>Before we got married ( we had been living together over three years), my Mil, told me we didn’t have to get married- I didn’t really know what she meant by that- I just told her we wanted to.</p>

<p>After the ceremony- when I was trying to relax and socialize with my work friends that I had not seen for a while ( since I had to take a medical leave), my mother ( who was all about appearances- :rolleyes:), drug me over to talk to my inlaws and aunt in law. They proceeded to tell me- that being pregnant didn’t hurt- and I better " toughen up".</p>

<p>Too bad they weren’t there when our first night in our new house ( without a phone), when the fetus shot out of my body still attached to the cord- I handled it pretty well I thought- considering.</p>

<p>But I digress</p>

<p>“they love you very much, but sometimes people limit themselves and find reasons NOT to do things that they would really enjoy”</p>

<p>I tried to let my kids know that their grandparents problems- were their own problems- but I didn’t emphasize that " they love you" because I feel behavior is more important.
Words are cheap & I didn’t want my kids to think that they deserved people who “said they loved them” , but didn’t act like it.</p>

<p>I feel very bad for my H- because he is not his parents & he doesn’t understand their behavior. My family always was very kind to him and went out of their way- but since he has been with me- he was pushed into the role of " black sheep".</p>

<p>Ironic- since their other two children whose spouses the inlaws doted on, are now divorced, but we will be celebrating our 29th anniv next week.</p>

<p>Enjoy the graduation- " you can’t change others- you can just change your self"
But I admit if I was more tech savvy , I would consider making a splendiforus webpage celebrating the graduation and send the link to grandma so she can see what she missed!</p>

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<p>I agree with some of the other posters that it will be less complicated without the out-of-town guests. Howeve, it does get old always being the family that has to do the traveling. </p>

<p>Rant on here. Get all of the negative energy out and let it go. Sounds as though plenty of us can relate.</p>

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<p>Yeah, on my side of the family, we are pretty much the ones who travel to see GPs, sibs, etc. Was that way when I was growing up, too – we did the travel. I wish the cousins got to see more of each other; that is my biggest regret about it all.</p>

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<p>EK4 said: “Words are cheap & I didn’t want my kids to think that they deserved people who “said they loved them” , but didn’t act like it.”</p>

<p>I understand that actions > words, but . . . lurking in the backs of kids’ heads is the question about whether relatives acting badly love them or not, and as part of my taking the high road I wanted to let the kids know that love and actions ARE separable, that when someone acts badly to you that doesn’t mean they stop loving you (whatever “love” means in one’s family)</p>

<p>the logical extension of mixing actions and words together is that behaving badly = no longer love you, which makles love too darn tenuous, since we ALL behave badly sometimes</p>

<p>that said, the kids do not “deserve” to be treated that way</p>

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<p>One of my grandfathers paid almost no attention to me. Do I think he loved me? No, not really. Did I feel sorrow when he died? No, since he wasn’t a presence in my life. He was just one of those emotionally cold people.</p>

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<p>IT sounds like they simply hate the travel and block out anything outside their home state. They just hate it more than they feel obligated to be involved in their family’s lives. </p>

<p>What can you do? Screw 'em. Move on and have a blast at the graduation.</p>

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<p>Write the letter, get it all out of your head, perhaps rewrite is a few times and get it perfect; print it and save it in your drawer, but DO NOT mail it. There is no reason to mail it, they won’t change.</p>

<p>You don’t have Bobsey Twins in-laws, the ones who have the kids come for the summer and are involved. But you also don’t have the over involved in-laws from hell. It is very difficult to figure out why grandparents choose to be way more involved with one family and not the other.</p>

<p>My parents are much closer to my kids than any other grand kids- why? Well, I am the youngest by a large margin, I am more like them than my sibs so they are comfortable with us, and my DH and mother have always genuinely liked each other. We lived int eh same town as my Bro & his wife & my parents & every weekend we had every one to our home for a weekend of cousins & dinner.</p>

<p>When we moved far away, my SIL said the only positive was that now it was her chance to get close to my parents. In the 4-5 years before my parents retired and moved to our town, my SIL NEVER did weekend dinner, sometimes they would send the little kids over for a day with g’rents so Bro & sis could run errands, but even then, they were too busy to share a meal at the end of that day. They were just too busy to make the connection. To this day when I go back to their town to visit my in-laws, it is 50-50 whether they will have time to see me. And yet, honestly & truly, my SIL & I are close friends, she is not veiling hostility in her actions, she is just a really busy person. So, whilst every one liked each other, no closeness was engendered with the in-laws. My other siblings lived far far away from my parents so their was not daily interaction. If there is daily interaction, then they are going to feel closer.</p>

<p>On the other hand my sister is married to a man with 1 bro & 2 sis, all of them in the same small town. His parents do any & everything for the daughters- all the kids sports events etc, yet NEVER do anything with the boys kids or families, not even graduation ceremonies etc. Weird!!!</p>

<p>All you can do is decide you are blessed by not having the complications in your life. My in-laws are incredibly overly involved, or would be if we lived closer, nosy too, they want to know everything. We moved far away to create our own life away from their sphere of influence.</p>

<p>I am sorry your in-laws are missing out on all the good stuff, it is their loss!!!</p>

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<p>You have my sympathies. Like many others, I think the thing to do is take the high road and just concentrate on having a good time. Your S apparently does not feel slighted: that’s good. If they did come, it would probably be awkward and you would be on edge the entire time.</p>

<p>I found my hypercritical MIL very difficult to get along with–I’ll spare you the stories :slight_smile: --but after a few early erruptions I said to myself, “Some day this woman is going to die, and I don’t want my H to turn to me and say that I made his relationship with her difficult or that I disliked her.” So I did my utmost to avoid conflict or criticism.</p>

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<p>

My MIL was that way. She truly believed that you could only count your daughter’s children as your grandchildren.</p>

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<p>zoosermom: your in-laws and mine were separated by birth…now, it’s me who is driving my FIL to his doctor appointments; yet when I was 9 months pregnant, I was stranded on a train literally two blocks from their house; I had to wait for my husband…they refused to come and get me…</p>

<p>never came to any events for my kids…</p>

<p>another poster said that the OP was mourning for the grandparents her son never had; I soooo relate to that; lost my dad as a teenager; makes my in-laws attitude all these years so much more difficult…</p>

<p>oh, and yes, her daughter’s children were her only “real” grandchildren…now, my FIL feels the same way…</p>

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<p>I agree with the poster who said that it sounds like you are mourning the in-laws you never had. I also agree that it is better to celebrate with your son than have people there who are grandparents in name only. I am not sure why this is so important to you when they are not a part of your life. Somethings are just what they are and you can’t change it. Enjoy the day and make it wonderful for your son!</p>

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<p>You expected them to come, given the relationship, history and situation? Just drop the whole thing. Enjoy the graduation. We dragged my MIL to S’s graduation and I think that will be the last one for her. Really a lot of trouble, she did not enjoy it, it exhausted her, and took away from the occasion. We did it because we thought it was the right thing to do, but at her age, her preference should have had precedence.</p>