hmmm, my situations a bit different in that I had 3 living granparents at birth but all sadly passed away before I was 6. SO I remember their image but their person IYKWIM?
I don't know if I missed out because I have no experience with them, but my parents always talk of them fondly.
As for my own kids, we have lived quite a distance from their grandparents (our parents) since DD was really little. We make sure we talk about them and the kids talk on the phone often. Now we have Skype etc it's much easier and they and we visit as often as we can. I do worry that our next move will be detrimental to the kids for the reasons you mentioned, modern technology does bridge the gap a bit.
My Mum lost her Dad when she was 15 so i never met him ... and her Mum died when she was 32 (i was only 5 and have only couple of memories of her).
Both Dad's parents were alive until i was in my mid 20's but they chose to not have much to do with us, felt like being with strangers if i ever saw them.
All i can say is i hang on to and cherish my only two memories of my Nan when i was 4 or 5, and only wished i had her longer ...
I would love to have had Grandparents in my life and i still do wish that even at my age, there is something special about it and that's the reason i go to so much effort to make sure my DD's visits her Grandparents & has a warm relationship with them and thankfully which she does
............ Heaps of cuddles from an old lady that was my relative oh geez i would have LOVED that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My "village" is very scattered. Dad is Canadian born to a NZ mum and Canuck dad, and travelled between the two his whole life. I met my grandfather twice (I was 1 and 8) before he died. My grandmother lived in NZ and I saw her about once a year until I was 13, when she and my mum had a fight, then I saw her again when I was 18, and then I went over for her funeral when I was 25.
On mum's side, her dad died when she was 11. Her mum is still alive. She lives in rural NSW, and we used to see her 2-3 times a year, I think more when we were younger. Since I've moved away from Sydney, though, I'm lucky to see her once a year. But having her there is so important - I'd give up the world for her.
Aunties and uncles, same deal. They're all over the place and we didn't get to see them a lot. I have four cousins. I now live two hours away from two of them and so now I see them at least twice a year, which is an improvement ont he previous once every five years.
Detrimental? Maybe a little. But I watch my ILs, who all live within three seconds of each other p!ss and moan about someone suggesting someone else's ceiling fan was too dusty, and then stop speaking over it for two years!
And then I think how our family get-togethers are so so so precious, because they happen so rarely, and we don't have time to fight or carry on about rubbish, and there's no BS. And I think maybe it's not so bad.
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Maz. I reckon you turned out all right.
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