I also thought straight away of the ¡®if your child is more important than your vision of your child¡¯ quote Sandra referred to in the last post. Totally applies to grandparents! (and husbands and sisters and ¡whoever!)
The idea of grandparents always being ¡®treaty¡¯ seems like a stereotype which is not seeing the grandparents as who they are - as people, still also parents themselves.
My mother was never ¡®treaty¡¯ - her gifts were famously mean (it became a family joke that even she acknowledged), and her input into the children¡¯s lives was frankly quite judgmental. But we talked about it as a family (usually when she had just visited or a visit was coming up) and we talked about how seeing her with my kids gave me really helpful insights into her insecurities when she was a mum with young children herself and helped me understand her and feel less anger towards her holding us at arms length. We really knew the love was there and we found ways to let her know we knew.
I suppose it felt sometimes that we as a family were sort of mothering her - acknowledging that she wasn¡¯t finding being a granny particularly easy just as she hasn¡¯t found being a mum easy.
Sometimes the kids would come back from spending time with her and dump on me about how she had said this or that, but I think the very process of listening and talking respectfully about someone we both loved and who we knew loved us (but was complicated) was so bonding - we really grew in those moments and it helped us all understand that people are, well, people, not just grannies or mums or another trope.
She has passed away now and we feel warm about her, but i¡¯ll be honest we don¡¯t miss her expectations. I feel sad that she really missed an opportunity for connection but that was her call. We just worked with what we had.
Belinda
belinda dutch