Grandma buys peace for herself at kids’ expense

Dear Carolyn: I have been caretaker of my granddaughter and her siblings since birth, since both parents work.

My daughter-in-law and son are newly divorced. It came (fell) out of my mouth: “Mommy doesn’t love Daddy, that’s why she bought another house.”

You can guess what happened next. Yes, I am to blame for the strife to our son, but deep down, I don’t regret it. I feel liberated. It came out when I was explaining why she shouldn’t be calling her father bad names and why she needed to be nice to him.

Background: My daughter-inlaw has always been aloof and disengaged. She and a brother are estranged from their mother.

Our son, very much in love, wasn’t bothered by the lack of her family info. He clearly loved her, and they began their family immediately. We were thrilled to have four grandchildren.

We adapted to this marital situation by performing daily household tasks. Our daughter-in-law did “fun” kid things. But we were always there to supply background support, filling in as cook, housekeeper, chauffeur, laundry woman, teacher, playmate, babysitter and grandparent at a moment’s notice. Maybe that was wrong. All we could see was how happy our son was in the beginning. Making her happy was his goal. We enjoyed the grandkids and thought we were giving them freedom from household tasks. They traveled and we also took family vacations.

She became more aloof and interacted very little with family and friends in the later years. Our son encouraged counseling, which she rejected, blaming him. He is in therapy and actively involved with his kids.

Now my son and daughter-in-law are furious at me, since their 6-yearold refuses to go to her new house. My daughter-in-law is threatening to keep the grandkids from me. He’s still in love with her and clearly hurting.

Despite this “event” and the strife it caused, I feel at peace. I feel free, not “blanketed” and not living a lie.

Will this cost me my grandchildren? I don’t think so, but maybe I should do something here?

Grandma Answer: It might cost you your grandchildren, yes, and rightly so if you continue to be unrepentant. Your self-satisfied treachery has harmed a small child’s view of her parents — both of them — and therefore of herself, since seeing their parents as lovable is integral to small children’s sense of their own lovability.

So you bought “peace” for yourself at your grandchild’s expense.

I find that horrifying, and, operating only from the facts you gave me, I wouldn’t trust you to be around my children anymore without supervision. Not unless you acknowledged to me without equivocation 1. that you put your own vindication above their mental health, and 2. that you’d never do that again.

It “(fell)” out? You can claim that only if you’re trying to pick it back up.

Which means, technically, that your “peace” has come at all the children’s expense, since not recognizing your error means you can’t be trusted around them after having been such a significant part of their lives — just as they most urgently need the kind of loving stability you used to represent.

Obviously you love your son and these children and have invested untold hours of unpaid labor in their well-being. They have been lucky to have you.

But that luck ran out when you let your animosity for your daughter-inlaw overtake whatever loving or generous motives you had. It appears to have been gradual, since you start with your early suspicion of her, then you describe doing all those chores as a way to help your son please her instead of the value-neutral version: helping to lighten their shared parental burdens. You seem to see it as doing her work for him, not their work for them. Subtle, but quite possibly everything.

Whatever the tipping point was, you lost your balance, your perspective, your control over your tongue and, as a consequence, your place in this family.

So, yes, you “should do something here”: See this. Understand it, for yourself. And make heartfelt, lifelong amends for it.

Understand that you don’t have to like your daughter-in-law, you can even be right about everything you distrust or dislike about her. (Note, I am neither condemning nor defending her.) But you can’t can’t can’t badmouth even the worst parents in front of their kids.

Can’t.

Ever.

Not if you want to make any claim to being a force for good in their lives.

If you can’t find a way to have your peace and hold it, too, then your rightful place is on the outside wanting in. There’s simply no other way.

Email Carolyn at tellmewashpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at 9 a.m. Pacific time each Friday at www.washingtonpost. com.

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