What’s your relationship like with your grandparents?
My grandma passed last weeek. I’ve been thinking about my relationship with her and my other grandparents. My family and I visit them on holidays and they were nice enough. But I don’t feel like I knew my grandma or know my other grandparents.
I think my family is weird maybe? Idk it’s the only one I know lol. We’d talk about tv and movies we’ve watched recently. What they watched. Tell the grandparents what was going on in our lives. Ask about what was going in grandma and grandpas life. Mostly get answers like “same old same old”, tales of doctor visits, or NCIS.
But like who are they as people? What were dreams when they were young? what adventures have they been on? what sparks joy in their life? What struggles have been through?
Like if I had to describe my grandmother I’d say she was a nice, pleasant lady who was mostly kind and liked cats, but not enough to get her own, just fed the neighbors cat. A description a stranger could give after meeting her talking for a bit maybe.
Looking back at my relationship with my grandparents, it all feels surface level. I never shared any of the hard shit I was dealing with, never really vulnerable around them. They were never vulnerable around me.
I don’t know many details of their life beyond career, maybe the places they’ve lived, pets they’ve owned.
Maybe that’s a reflection on my parents. We were never really vulnerable with each other about stuff, when someone was it was often mocked. My parents were not good parents a lot of the time. Who knows maybe that’s a result of their parents?
But umm yeah, Lemmy what’s your relationship like with your grandparents? Are you real close? Do you know them well, or more like a coworker you enjoy occasionally small talking with? Or rotten shitbags? I wish I knew my grandma better.
It was going great until they all died years ago.
They’re dead
Doesn’t answer the question, but same.
Never met my grandparents club!
I love my now only living grandmother. She is a friend to all of her grandchildren.
When my other grandparents were alive (and I was a child/teenager) our relationships were mostly formal.
All my grandparents are dead but when they where alive we did the usual thing which was meeting few times a year. On top of that I used to call them at least once a month and we’ve talked about everything and nothing, usual small talk. The interesting part is that I got a lot of insights between the lines and I had a pretty good idea how my grandparent were in their early years.
If you want a better relationship with your grandparents, call them every now and there or visit them and have a casual conversation. After a while you will know them way better. And if you’re not comfortable with what they say, just let it slide. Old people are known for not giving a crap about political correctness.
Never met one in my life, so can’t tell ya really.
Supernatural
I’m sorry you lost your grandma. Maybe talk to your parents about who she was and ask them to share some memories? I feel like i was pretty close with mine, and i think my kids know a lot about theirs, either from conversations with them or from things we’ve shared.
Me and my Nanas were tight as fuck. I used to thrift shop with both of them a lot (separately) but yeah, lost one a year ago and that hurt quite bad
It kinda varies, for me.
My biological grandfather and step-grandmother were my closest, but it was mainly with her, and I didn’t realize it until she passed. I could tell so many stories about that woman, both from after my birth and well before it. Honestly, the further I accept myself, the more I realize she has always been my go-to for the woman I aspire to be.
My biological grandmother is a narcissistic piece of shit who I will never speak to again, if I can help it, and my step-grandfather along with her. When I was younger, I thought it was healthy, until I realized that what was happening was I was getting toys and shinies shoved at me so I’d look to her as a provider and ignore her shitty comments towards everyone else.
He’s not much better. He can’t handle not having control, but also hates showing it, so he acts like a passive-aggresive bully until he gets his way and when confronted on it shrugs and goes “Who I am. Don’t like it, go” then throws a tantrum when you do.
dead before I was born and all the stories I heard about them made them awful people who did not care about my parents. I am aware that might be or might not be the case because it was different times back then
You need to put effort in to get to know your grandparents. I was fortunate to have one grandmother who lived to 93 and had her wits about her the whole time. My other 3 grandparents died before I graduated high school, but her I knew til I was in my 30s. I had a chance to visit her quite a few times on my own so it was just the two of us, and got to know her pretty well.
It was fine until I grew up and realized how bitter and racist my grandmother was. Almost felt nothing when she passed.
Well they are long deceased, since the 1990s at least. My paternal grandparents were shy people who didn’t have much use for children, they took me as a toddler to the mall once, and because I seldom had their attention I was full of beans trying to make them laugh and like me, and they found that too much. It was like they were old before I was born really, not like these younger grandparents people have now. They were both gone by the time I was a teenager. My maternal grandparents; my grandfather was an alcoholic for most of his life, your typical Irish leprechaun type of drunk, and only quit because his doctor told him it would kill him, and my memories of him are him shuffling around the house in leather slippers listening to the radio or reading the news. My grandmother was a miserable manipulative ring-tailed bitch with no friends who lay on the couch moaning about how sick she was, which she was not, and spending most of her time trying to pit her daughters against one another, which ultimately worked as they are basically all estranged. They had few interests and did not get along and slept in separate rooms. The only time she was interesting was after she had a stroke and became hilariously demented and said some absolutely outrageous things. None of them ever attended any of my activities or did anything to help raise me or anything like other grandparents seem to do now, and seemed to expect that they were to be taken care of now that they had retired. I can’t say I missed any of them when they died because they were such a vague presence in my life. They were not particularly successful and had almost no interests.
I have one surviving grandparent. I used to reach out on occassions. He never tried calling me but I have seen pictures of him on Facebook.
My grandparents basically raised their grandchildren, so I’d say I am/was close with mine, except the one asshole. My one grandmother is basically like a second mom for me. I lived with her from when I was 13 until I was 30 (with maybe five years apart in between) and she is a pretty involved great-grandmother to all her great-grandchildren, too.
