0 comment Friday, May 16, 2014 | admin
I'm having some trust issues. And not just with the children. Although I don't trust them one bit. Their minds are wired-up with a thousand ways to detour around what is expected of them.
No, it's the grandparents in my life I don't trust. My own mother, after having been a drag all summer, has turned into loving mother of the year. The other week I took her supermarket shopping as usual and she genuinely asked after me, picking up on the fact that I was a bit out of kilter and when I told her the problem she listened and was sympathetic. This was a shock. Now she wants me to take the kids over during half term. Suggests we go out for lunch with them. And I could tell that she really wanted it to happen. What's going on there, then? What's the motive?
Then there's my parents-in-law. Husband and I thought we had his parents trained up pretty good. Then they went away for a couple of months and came back apparently having had some sort of grandparent lobotomy. They were right back to directly undermining us in front of the kids, interfering, and mocking our parenting decisions. I was full-blown angry for the full five days following that last visit.
This is a blow because Husband and I are just at the point where we want to go out more as a couple. We miss each other. We miss being able to do what we used to do. And quite frankly the kids don't (yet) make up for our losses. So, as his parents are healthy and are eager to appear as dedicated and enthusiastic grandparents the plan had been to ask them babysit on a regular basis. Say once a month.
Now we don't feel like we can trust them again. Like in the first year when our advice to them over the kids was flicked away as if a piece of annoying fluff and we stopped them sitting, even though we were often desperate for a break. Just like with the kids, we don't trust that as soon as our backs are turned they won't assert their own will, because they know best and because they can and because getting their own way is the most important thing in the world and trumps all other considerations.
Our Social Worker, once described to me as a 'wise old bird' said once, let the grandparents have them so you get your break, then accept they'll be damage repair to do afterwards. Much sense in that. But, for goodness sake, why can't some people just be trusted?
No, it's the grandparents in my life I don't trust. My own mother, after having been a drag all summer, has turned into loving mother of the year. The other week I took her supermarket shopping as usual and she genuinely asked after me, picking up on the fact that I was a bit out of kilter and when I told her the problem she listened and was sympathetic. This was a shock. Now she wants me to take the kids over during half term. Suggests we go out for lunch with them. And I could tell that she really wanted it to happen. What's going on there, then? What's the motive?
Then there's my parents-in-law. Husband and I thought we had his parents trained up pretty good. Then they went away for a couple of months and came back apparently having had some sort of grandparent lobotomy. They were right back to directly undermining us in front of the kids, interfering, and mocking our parenting decisions. I was full-blown angry for the full five days following that last visit.
This is a blow because Husband and I are just at the point where we want to go out more as a couple. We miss each other. We miss being able to do what we used to do. And quite frankly the kids don't (yet) make up for our losses. So, as his parents are healthy and are eager to appear as dedicated and enthusiastic grandparents the plan had been to ask them babysit on a regular basis. Say once a month.
Now we don't feel like we can trust them again. Like in the first year when our advice to them over the kids was flicked away as if a piece of annoying fluff and we stopped them sitting, even though we were often desperate for a break. Just like with the kids, we don't trust that as soon as our backs are turned they won't assert their own will, because they know best and because they can and because getting their own way is the most important thing in the world and trumps all other considerations.
Our Social Worker, once described to me as a 'wise old bird' said once, let the grandparents have them so you get your break, then accept they'll be damage repair to do afterwards. Much sense in that. But, for goodness sake, why can't some people just be trusted?
Labels: Adoption, Friends And Family