Was wondering if there are other people out there who have NEVER meet neither of their grandparents and if they think that it has made an impact on their life of some sort?
My dad's mother died when my dad was 3 to a cyst in her womb that was cut straight into and they couldnt save her (this was in 1940) - my Opa died just before I was born.
My mum's mum...my oma died when I was 14 and I never had the opportunity to meet her either before hand and my other opa died 10 years ago and again same as all the above..never meet him.
My parents immigrated over here int he 1960's to give their children and themselves a better way of life and to run from the tax man but I think in doing so they cut off so many things for us kids.
I have only ever meet one niece and she was NASTY. Told me I was a bad mum because I cuddled my baby to much and should let him learn on his own (he was bloody 8 months old at the time), her mother who is my mums step sister, was a piece of work...but hey I meet her and sadly she died last year to breast cancer.
I meet my beloved uncle who made the effort to fly over here twice. I lovedhim to bites and I knew the last time he was here was the last. I told him so and he laughed at me....I knew it....4 years later he died of liver and lung cancer.
I suppose it saddens me that my fmaily, my suppose village was over the other side of the world. I had an oma who was alive who could have given me cuddles, giggles with me and loved me.....never know me. I have heaps and heaps of cousins that I have never meet, aunties and uncles to boot...
yet I dont know any of them bar from pics and a few stories we hear now and then.
I often wonder what kindof influence these 4 people, let alone the rest of their ofspring would have impacted who I am today if they had the chanch. I know its not good to dwell into the past and its one of those things im never going to get an answer to...I just have to make sure I let me children know who their family is, talk about all members if their nice or not in their lights.
Ahh im rambling...blahhh...to much of an emotional week I think
My mother never knew her grandmother. Her grandmother disappeared when my nanna was only 9 years of age and they've never found any trace of her. I know still to this day it saddens my mum, her brother & sisters and also my nanna. My mum & my nanna go all out and do their very best to be there for everyone in the family as they don't want anyone to go through what they've been through.
Very different situation to yours though. That must be so hard for you.
I hear ya Maz, very similar to you, my parents also migrated here and left all their family behind. It was only me, mum and dad. I can remember when I was about 4yrs old mum knew an elderly lady and she let me call her Nan, that was just the best. I loved going over to her house, she would give me cookies and have little surprises for me. Unfortuanately my children don't have grandparents either now, my mum passed away 17yrs ago and dad passed away 18mths ago. DH's family are all overseas so we send and receive lots of family dvd's and talk on the phone.
I thin this is what you mean.........My nana never knew her real family...never knew her dad, was put in an orphange so her mother could go marry some man and having a child would ruin that...my nana was 3 She grew up in Ireland wiht her adoptive family( who adopted her as a play mate for their only girl apperantly )
anyway she moved out here wiht her children( my mum) and husband to be wiht her real mother...who ended up being awful so in the end my mum and her mum had no family but themselves....my mums dad left when my mum was 16
I never knew my mums dad, my dads dad died when i was 6 and I miss him so much...I really feel I have missed out on some bonding as I never had an older male influence...does this make sense? My mum doesnt undertsand why I feel this way as she is so tough( on the outside) and never had a grandad and she is ok *sigh*
Like you we have no real extended family and I crave it...I crave old story telling, learning about loved ones who have passed...I think thats why i want a big family so hopefully I can start my own family tree
My kids don't have access to one set of grandparents. Their other Nana & Pop like 4000kms away and they are lucky to see them once a year. It worries me for all the reasons you say, but I'm lucky I guess because they have lots of "Aunties" and "Uncles" who love them and spoil them, and hug them. It's why we try and see their godparents once a week.
My situation was similar to yours. My grandparents I remember from when I was little, but then we moved away, my parents cut contact with them at one point and I made contact myself when I was older. Didn't turn out that awesomely because I think they just didn't understand or know me. A lot of baggage and dirty water under the bridge iykwim? My other grandparents one died before my own parent could get to know them and the other was sick and quite invalid by the time I was born, and then died when I was a child.
I'll be honest and say I missed exactly what you are talking about, but at the same time I'm grateful for the few things I learnt from them and maybe if I had been around them more often I might have taken that for granted as others do. But I also look at the amount of love and support and spoiling I give my own children. Things are very different today, and when I was a child my parents didn't have that to give and I'd say I do more with my kids than my friends grandparents did with them. I think things are changing, maybe because our parents generation was very different grandparents seemed to substitute what our parents couldn't give or couldn't do. I also make a point of sharing stories about my families down the line so they will have that sense of heritage iykwim?
I feel ya! My dads mother died giving birth to him, and his father was a drunk, scared the hell out of mum so we were never exposed to him (thank god) I do feel sad though that i never got to know my grandmother, and my mum was adopted so i only know her adopted mother, who made her move out when she was 13 because it was no longer "cool" to have an adopted child in her circle of friends. So we've never been close, although we are lucky that my mum found her real mother and shes great! It has impacted me not having any real cousins that are blood related, and i wish i knew my dads mother.
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.
I never met my Opa - He died 7 years to the day before I was born (I was born 20/4/85 and he died 20/4/78) and even though I never met him, I feel he was always with me. My Oma never remarried, and I'm glad she didn't.
Also, I never met my nana (my granddads 1st wife - and the one I consider my nana) because she died when my mum was 12/13 - again, I'm so very sure she has always been with me, watching over me and I feel that they have impacted me through guidance... I could really do with them right now
And sorry if this has nothing to do with what your saying!
My kids only have one set of living grandparents and they are a little confused about where Daddy's parents are??? To add to it, one of his brothers has a wife who for some reason seems to dislike me, why?? I have only met her twice!!! so needless to say we don't see them..so thats kind of taking out one side of the family for them which is sad as they have cousins not too much older than them.. The other brother we do see.. but his kids are older and are living overseas etc so we don't see or hear from them at all.
What can you do??? Maybe you have to make sure there is a family history/tree to pass on... if nothing else it is interesting to see family groups and names etc. Plus it is very easy to lose that over a short time frame.
It could be one of those situations where it might just be better to imagine it would have been a great life having had them in it...but like a lot of people say you can choose your friends but not your family.. and they choose to do just that, becasuse they have big conflicts amongst themselves, and it easier/better for everyone to stay away.
Goodluck Maz, I can imagine it would be difficult always wondering.
Interesting subject. Both my mother's parents died before I was 5. I saw my Grandad die at 3 and remember it clearly as he just passed out on the side of the road whilst my sister and I were waiting for him to come home. He died there from a heart issue. My Nan died when I was 5 of ovarian cancer. I never met my Dad's parents they had died well before I was born. I think because of this I don't really know my Dad's family have no relationship with them and my mum has one brother. When I hear people talk about first cousins and second cousins and grandparents I sometimes think it would be nice to have the big family party. Enough family that if people don't turn up you still have a party lol. I never had that.
The other side of the coin which is why I find this subject inetresting is that I have done the same to my DS and bubba 2. I moved from England nearly 8yrs ago. All my family are in England I have no relatives out here. My DS sees DH's parents at least every week sometimes more and they have a fantastic relationship. But then even though DH has got a big family a brother and sister, aunts uncles, a granny (he hasn't seen since he was 21..long story) we never see them that much there is a rift between his parents and sister so there are never any big fmaily get togethers and his brother lives in ADL so christmas is the only time we see his brother and family.
Sorry this has become really long, but I do think it's important for them to see grandparents and family. It breaks my heart every weekend when my mum skypes us and DS just wants to play or sometimes won't even say hi or have a chat. Even with the new technology the bond is just not there. DS has only ever met my mum, he has never met my dad, sister, niece or nephew nor my uncle and his family.
Again sorry for how log it is this is just a subject close to my heart.
for me personally, I dont think I would have been better off knowing my grandparents!
my dads father committed suicide, the year after I was born. He had remarried and had 2 children to another woman, my dads sisters (there are 5 of them) were concerned that he may have been sexually molesting the daughter as he had with all of them, so they all decided to take him to court, he took the cowards way out.
My nana, dads mum, is a bit loopy, always has been aparantley, she wouldnt know who I was if she fell over me (she didnt even know who her own son was, he tried to give her a lift one day and she freaked out!). After hearing quite a bit about how my father grew up, Im actually glad that neither were a part of my life.
My mums father was an alcoholic, who divorced my grandmother in the 70's, and shacked up with one of his "floozies" ( I always thought that was funny, as to me she was that old, she was ancient!!) only ever saw him at xmas and easter, he died when I was 14, I always regret not having made more of an effort to get to know him, as he lived just down the road from us, but he was always at the pub anyway.
my mums mum, grandma, is still around, she is a dear, I love her to bits, but she is a bit loopy too. There is bad blood in the family towards her and I still carry a little guilt (even though I know I shouldnt ) about it, her second husband was a bit of a pedophile, he had parkinsons disease and would always "accidently" fall on top of me or (girl) cousins and then start humping us, we always thought it was funny until we grew up and were told the truth many years later.
anyway, his nephew had just been released from prison for rape or some thing similar and was staying at their house, mum desperately needed someone to look after me (I was 2) after being assured by my GMA that HE wasnt there, she left me there, when I was picked up I told mum about how "ricky" put his hands in my knickers, and told me not to tell anyone....
needless to say no one spoke to my GMa for years, some of my aunties and uncles still dont. She only lives around the corner from my mums place, and now that the 2nd husband is dead, I do acyually try to make an effort with her, man, she has some interesting things to say!
so, yeah, sorry for the ramble, but, like I said for me, not a biggie!
My parents are a big part of Js life, sadly the same cant be said for DPs parents, his father is ATM living in a commune in the phillipines, he is a big hippie and doesnt really believe in "emotional" attacthments...
His mother has BIPolar and everything is always about her, we try to see as little of her as possible, due to her drug addict, abusive boyfriend, and their attitudes to life, not something I want J exposed to. In the 18 months since we had J, she has been to our place once, the other 2 (!) times she has seen him, we were somewhere else she was at the same time. oh well.
Grandparents????
but I think in doing so they cut off so many things for us kids.
She grew up in Ireland wiht her adoptive family( who adopted her as a play mate for their only girl apperantly )
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