Since my own granddaughter’s birth almost four years ago, I’ve spent hours caring for her each week.
In this, I’m just plain lucky. We have stayed tight because I could reach her apartment in 75 minutes (in pre-pandemic times) by public transit, and because I haven’t inadvertently alienated my daughter or son-in-law.
But almost every time I write about grandparents, someone expresses anguish in the comments section about being unable to see or even call a beloved grandchild. Estrangement brings heartache I can’t truly imagine.
“You learn that you don’t have the relationship you thought you had with your children,” said a doctor in Western Massachusetts who is an estranged grandparent. Like several I spoke with, she asked for anonymity because she hoped for a future cease-fire.
She hasn’t seen her son and his seven children since 2015, except at a family funeral where they didn’t speak. He and his wife have blocked her email, she said, and sent gifts back unopened. “I feel like I’m being erased,” the doctor said.
How often this happens remains an unanswered question. In a 2012 survey of nearly 2,000 grandparents conducted for AARP, 2 percent said they never saw the grandchild who lived furthest away — but distance or illness could also account for that.
The numbers could well be higher. At heart, estrangement from grandchildren reflects estrangement from adult children, the gatekeeper middle generation that can promote or deny access. (...)
What leads to estrangement? Dr. Coleman, who works with estranged families and conducts webinars on the subject, puts divorce — in either generation — high on the list. “Children of any age can blame one parent for a divorce or feel a need to ally with one or another, or have problems with the new person the divorced parent brings into the family,” he said.
In the younger generation, divorce can create estrangement if a custodial parent no longer wants an ex’s family involved.
Sometimes, longtime grievances from adult children’s own childhoods surface when they become parents themselves. “Maybe they had an uneasy truce, but now that they have their own kids they’re anxious that their parents will hurt their children in the same way,” Dr. Coleman said.
In this, I’m just plain lucky. We have stayed tight because I could reach her apartment in 75 minutes (in pre-pandemic times) by public transit, and because I haven’t inadvertently alienated my daughter or son-in-law.
But almost every time I write about grandparents, someone expresses anguish in the comments section about being unable to see or even call a beloved grandchild. Estrangement brings heartache I can’t truly imagine.
“You learn that you don’t have the relationship you thought you had with your children,” said a doctor in Western Massachusetts who is an estranged grandparent. Like several I spoke with, she asked for anonymity because she hoped for a future cease-fire.She hasn’t seen her son and his seven children since 2015, except at a family funeral where they didn’t speak. He and his wife have blocked her email, she said, and sent gifts back unopened. “I feel like I’m being erased,” the doctor said.
How often this happens remains an unanswered question. In a 2012 survey of nearly 2,000 grandparents conducted for AARP, 2 percent said they never saw the grandchild who lived furthest away — but distance or illness could also account for that.
The numbers could well be higher. At heart, estrangement from grandchildren reflects estrangement from adult children, the gatekeeper middle generation that can promote or deny access. (...)
What leads to estrangement? Dr. Coleman, who works with estranged families and conducts webinars on the subject, puts divorce — in either generation — high on the list. “Children of any age can blame one parent for a divorce or feel a need to ally with one or another, or have problems with the new person the divorced parent brings into the family,” he said.
In the younger generation, divorce can create estrangement if a custodial parent no longer wants an ex’s family involved.
Sometimes, longtime grievances from adult children’s own childhoods surface when they become parents themselves. “Maybe they had an uneasy truce, but now that they have their own kids they’re anxious that their parents will hurt their children in the same way,” Dr. Coleman said.
by Paula Span, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Andrea Ucini
