I adore all my grandchildren but to them I’m just an old bat they must visit once a year...
A grandmother’s cry from the heart that will strike a chord with thousands who feel forgotten by their families
WHEN I moved away from home and had a family of my own, I’d call my mother at least once a week, to see how she was. My then husband did exactly the same for his mother.
It’s true we had to listen to her telling us how she’d just been to see The Sound Of Music for the 35th time or that her sciatica was playing up, but that’s how it was in those days.
It was our duty to maintain regular contact, the natural thing to do. But it seems that the days when adult children gave their elderly parents some time and consideration are long over.
A recent survey found that only a fifth of over-65s see their adult children as much as once a fortnight. This lack of filial regard is cited as one of the major factors in the growing problem of elderly loneliness. According to the research, grandparents these days are lucky to see their grandchildren once a month.
Once a month? I’m lucky if I see mine once a year!
My son Tom and his partner Victoria live about 300km from where I live. They have three children, Arthur, 12, Delilah, ten, and Henry, eight. My son Will and his wife, Nicola Jane, are 100km away, and have two children, Otto, 12, and Pearl, ten.
I ’ m proud of my sons and my daughters-in-law. They’ve done very well for themselves. Tom, 44, is a writer and journalist and founded an upmarket events venue with Victoria. My younger son, Will, 42, is a rock journalist and writer and Nicola Jane is a fashion writer, lecturer and curator.
They are all very glamorous and lead suitably busy lives. But, quite simply, I don’t play a role at all. I don’t seem to be a vital cog in the wheels of their family life. Because of this, my relationship with my grandchildren has suffered.
It’s not just that I’m at the bottom of my children’s priority list, I’m not even on it. True, I’m not so close geographically — but never once does it occur to my sons, daughters-in-law or grandchildren to call, just for a chat. Some years, they don’t even call me at Christmas.
It’s very different f rom my own childhood, when I saw my grandparents every day and had a warm, close relationship with them.
I would like it if my grandchildren could just pop in sometimes without there having to be a great song and dance about it — come for tea or Sunday dinner, for instance.
But now they are growing up, they have their own endless activities and, it seems, are just too busy to see their granny. I’m even thinking of hiring 12year-old Arthur, a digital whizz, as my IT support man, just so I get to see a bit more of him.
Because I see my grandchildren so rarely, when I do manage to see them it means they seem to almost be strangers who have grown a couple of inches and are wearing trendier clothes than the last time we met.
With such minimal contact, I can’t keep up with what they are doing, what hobbies they have or what they like to read, if anything.
NO WONDER they see me as this strange, remote old lady who is so eccentric t hat s he has t o have everything in her house matching, right down to the towels. My grandchildren regard me with a kind of amused tolerance but they do seem to quite like me, as far as I can tell.
They chatter all the time once they relax, but because I never get to know them very well, they are shy with me at first. As they grow up, I’d like to get to know them better and perhaps even offer some grandmotherly advice. We all
get on well, but I don’t play any part in their lives, and there’s a sadness in that.
To them, I’m just an old bat they have to humour once or twice a year. The distance between us all stems from my relationship with their parents, of course, which is sporadic, despite my best efforts to make it otherwise.
Rarely do my sons answer my emails. Even more rarely do they answer emails from their father. In fact, he often says ruefully that if he didn’t take the initiative and make contact, he would probably never hear from them again.
My sons aren’t likely to cut me off completely because, at the moment at l east, I’ m still too useful to them. I know that if ever I do get a call out of the blue, it will be to ask me to help out with some problem they have. In fact, whenever the phone rings and it’s one of them on the l i ne, i t will be: ‘Mum, can you . . .?’
It seems they only ever remember my existence when they want something.
Otherwise, I sometimes feel I could die and it would be days, even weeks, before it occurred to them that I’d gone even quieter than usual. They’re not being deliberately unkind; it just never occurs to them to wonder how I am.
I’m not saying that we have a bad relationship; far from it. All of us get on extremely well. But for some reason — perhaps it’s the intense pressures of modern life crowding in — there is never any space in their heads to give a second thought to their old mum.
It’s hardly a surprise that my grandchildren never seem to think of me either. When I think how their father and I did everything we could to make life pleasant for our sons, slaving away to try and give them a secure home life and good education, it does sometimes hurt that they have cast us off.
Since our children have been adults, we have helped them financially from time to time and acted as the Bank of Mum and Dad. I gave Will a five-figure sum to help buy a house, and their father and myself have helped out with a few thousand here and there to help each of them over a tight patch.
And — call me a soft touch — if my grandchildren needed help for their university registration fees, I wouldn’t hesitate to put my hand in my pocket, despite the fact contact with them is sporadic. In contrast, I dread to think of the shocked reaction I would get if I asked Tom or Will to send me any money because I couldn’t pay the electricity bill. It seems as if children these days never grow up, however old they may be, whereas in the past they would take responsibility for their aged parents. But never mind money. My deepest sadness is reserved for the fact that I’m not being allowed to get to know my five grandchildren.
So little do I seem to matter that I still haven’t had a letter, phone call or email f rom any of the grandchildren to say thank you for their Christmas presents.
As a child, I was made to sit down and write thank-you letters and I made my own children do the same. It might be nice if my sons said to their own children once in a while: ‘Why don’t you give Granny a ring? She might be on her own.’ Other grandparents have similar tales of woe. A friend who’s nearly 70 had to go into hospital last Christmas for a serious operation and has still not recovered. He told me his only daughter (admittedly living in a different country) has not once called to ask how he is.
ONE of the reasons for this modern cavalier attitude towards elderly parents is distance. But that’s not the only reason for us slipping out of sight and mind. The other week I visited my housebound 89-year-old aunt who said that her daughter-in-law never, ever visits — and she’s only 20 minutes away. Why? Well, I think we seem too boring to our children to bother with. Their lives are rich and full but we are old hat, tedious reminders of bygone days. How is it we’re annoyingly still around?
In some ways, I think I’m partly to blame. If I’m lonely because my children and grandchildren rarely visit or make contact, it’s also because I don’t whinge and whine or put emotional pressure on them to pay me more attention.
I am very independent and have my own busy life to lead. But what will happen when I’m old and frail remains to be seen.
Even so, I will not be permitting myself the sweet revenge of one old lady who recently died, leaving a €1.2million estate. In her will she left just €2,400 to her son ‘in recognition of all the attention he has paid me over the last 25 years’. The bulk of her estate has gone to charity.
My sons complain that they will be old themselves before I die, but they will still be my beneficiaries.
After all, I do love them and the grandchildren, even if the relationship is depressingly one-way — and looks as if it will remain so.