Must I play grandma to four young children I can’t stand?

DEAR BEL,

MY SON lives 100 miles away with his fiancee and her two daughters — and I have a loving relationship with them all.

I see very little of his own three as they live with their mother and her second husband.

My daughter Louise split from her long-term partner, intended to stay single, but met John a year ago and they fell in love. He has four children by two different women.

Louise sold her house, moved into his rented place, changed her car (to have room for kids) and manages all their finances. They plan to marry.

Never wanting her own children, Louise has fully embraced having four stepchildren. She and John are planning to buy a house together and all the deposit will come from her, although he’ll share the mortgage repayments. They both earn about the same.

She and I have always been very close, but this new relationship demands a great deal of her time and as she lives a distance away, I see much less of her, although we talk on the phone once a week.

I could cope if I felt John was right for her. But while he appears to love my daughter as much as she loves him, he really has landed himself a very nice meal ticket. I can’t warm to him and unfortunately I don’t care for young children either — particularly those I’ve no connection with.

However, she expects me to embrace his kids as ‘ stepgrandchildren’ — which is the last thing on this earth I can face having to do. A visit en masse the other weekend was far from enjoyable.

I don’t feel comfortable with John, don’t know what to talk about and generally find him repellent, although I could probably tolerate him as long as his children weren’t with them.

He’s always polite and pleasant, but I can’t find anything to like about him. I felt Louise’s last partner wasn’t good enough for her and feel the same way now.

Telling her how I feel will hurt and alienate her completely and she may feel forced to cut me out of her life. I can’t tell you how unhappy I am about all this.

I’ve tried to like him if only because she loves him so much, but my gut is shouting he’s a wrong ’un. I may well also alienate my son at the same time, as he likes John, is very close to his sister and glad she’s so happy. Can you give me impartial advice? JEAN

As I read your letter, every fibre of my being was crying: ‘ Oh be careful!’ There is much within your general tone I find disturbing.

In a sense this family story is a paradigm of our times: a saga of broken relationships, children living with men who are not their fathers, grandparents cut off from the young blood relatives they hoped would bring delight to their old age.

We call them ‘melded families’, but nothing alters the fact that this pleasant term can disguise real stresses and disappointments.

As we see in your letter, you have three biological grandchildren you never see — a fact which must have caused you much pain over the years.

Now your son lives with two stepchildren, whom you say you get on with. Yet you have little intention (it seems) of even trying to accommodate the four children John has fathered and whom your brave (in my opinion) daughter has welcomed into her life.

Trust me, I understand children can be disruptive; there have been times when a visit from my own beloved grandchildren has left me grumpy and frazzled.

so your response to the visit ‘en masse’ may be understandable — but it is hardly generous flatly to state that accepting John’s children ‘is the last thing on this earth I can face having to do’.

Oh dear. I have to warn you that if you persist with that hard line, you will run the very real danger of seeing ‘the last’ of

your hitherto good relationship with your daughter.

But you know this because you state the danger clearly in your letter. You also acknowledge that your son would not be on your side. So why are you even wondering whether to say anything to your daughter? Never mind what your ‘gut’ is telling you about this man — if you are correct and he really is ‘a wrong ’un’ (not a pleasant phrase, in the circumstances) you will surely take no pleasure in being proved right, and if your prejudice is unjust you will potentially do great damage to your family.

You tell me a man who is ‘always polite and pleasant’ is ‘repellent’. It makes me suspect that in truth you haven’t really ‘tried’ at all.

You have no choice but to keep schtum and keep trying. It’s very telling that you admit thinking her first partner not ‘good enough’ — and now it’s the same.

Many parents find themselves in that situation — and agonise to witness precious sons and daughters fall for people they don’t like. Will they listen if you tell them? Of course not. People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes — even if it breaks your parental heart to witness it.

You say this is making you unhappy. Well, if you keep rejecting the man Louise loves, the one who will suffer in the end is you.