Did your Grandparents love you?

Sassycakes

Sassycakes

SF VIP
Location
Pennsylvania
My Dad's parents hated my Mom, Me, My Sister, and my Brother. Even though they hated us my Mom insisted we visit them every week. She didn't want my Dad not to see his parents. None of our cousins were even allowed to talk to us. My Mom's Mother passed away when I was 5yrs old and she had been bedridden all my life. I was close to my Mom's Dad until he was in his 90's and got lost. Search party after search party trying to find him for a month when finally a young boy tripped over my Grandfathers body. Now that I am a grandparent I am very close to my grandchildren.I would never want them to go through what I did.
 

Yes, very much. That would be my maternal grandmother.
I didn't spend as much time w/my paternal grandmother. I don't know why. She did seem really really old.

They both passed when I was young, like in grade school.

ETA: I never knew either of my grandfathers, they both passed before I was born. I wish I had.
My mother always told us how her father lost part of his index finger fighting the Turks.
 

Last edited:
They adored me which later proved to be my salvation because my mom was a career oriented women, not a stay at home, bake cookies for the kids, and ask them how their day was. :cry: I felt like an unwanted latchkey kid, which I was, for a very long time.
 
Paternal Grandmother yes..she even had me live with her for 2 years pre-school.. before returning me a year late for school registration, to my parents who lived in another city .. Paternal Grandfather who lived seprately from above Grandma, didn't love anyone I don't think.. but he enjoyed having us at his place every other week.. as he did the rest of his huge family

My maternal grandparents wanted nothing to do with children.. or grandchildren for that matter . They treated their own children, my mother and her siblings badly.... so we had nothing to do with them, despite living literally around the corner for a good few years
 
Wow, your mother really rose above those in-laws in having you go over every week for your dad. That must have been rather hard on you and any siblings. Can't say what their issue was but I have found, with my mother being a borderline, that behavior like this is common with them. And perhaps other personality disorders also. It almost sounds like a jealousy thing. They hated your mother for the reason that she married their son.

My mother hated my stepfather's mother as I mentioned in a post I started and she was the only grandparent figure I ever had. What she thought of us really, I'll never know. She was nice to me as was my stepfather's entire side of the family. My mother isolated us kids and the stepfather from his own family. Looking back I realize how damaging and diabolical this was.
 
My mother couldn't stand my paternal grandfather, because he was a drunk, so she would go and visit with us kids, under duress. I can't actually remember if she ever had a conversation with him at his house because there was always such a packed house with aunts, cousins, and uncles, I never noticed if they avoided each other. However I do know she wouldn't have him in our house... the one time he came uninvited, he was drunk, and fell over smashing a precious glass table she owned, she never forgave him
 
My father's parents loved me and their 16 other grandchildren, but only doted on their first GC (my oldest sister). Truth be told, she was very dote-worthy, so nobody resented it.

My relationship with my grands is different in some ways from what I had with those grandparents but similar in others. Softer, more patient, more indulgent than parents.

My mother's mother had a very difficult life and was brought up by immigrant hard-hearted parents who'd themselves had extraordinarily difficult upbringings . She wasn't cruel and I realize she loved us, but she was far from the warm, cookie-baking grandmas depicted in story books. She wasn't the soft place to land that hubby and I try to be for our grands.

Every generation learns from the ones that came before.
 
I don't remember my dad's mother because she died when I was 3 or 4.
I loved my dad's father more than I liked my parents because he was nice to everyone. In fact, my parents would send me to his place when I was bad. I'd be bad on purpose so I'd be sent there. He died when I was 16.
I never met my mom's parents. They were from somewhere in Europe. My mom never mentioned them.
 
StarSong said:
My father's parents loved me and their 16 other grandchildren, but only doted on their first GC (my oldest sister). Truth be told, she was very dote-worthy, so nobody resented it.

My relationship with my grands is different in some ways from what I had with those grandparents but similar in others. Softer, more patient, more indulgent than parents.

My mother's mother had a very difficult life and was brought up by immigrant hard-hearted parents who'd themselves had extraordinarily difficult upbringings . She wasn't cruel and I realize she loved us, but she was far from the warm, cookie-baking grandmas depicted in story books. She wasn't the soft place to land that hubby and I try to be for our grands.

Every generation learns from the ones that came before.
Click to expand...
Swap that for my paternal grandmother. There was no soft knee to sit on, she'd come from the school of hard knocks where no-one showed their love by hugging .. but she showed her love in other ways ...

She'd had 16 children... 9 had survived.. all bar her eldest son and his wife.. had children..yet my siblings and I were favoured.. and me especially.
 
My maternal grandfather loved me as a young child in the inappropriate way until his wife (my mother's stepmother) caught him. Said stepmother ignored me. My father's mother didn't speak English and my Hungarian was limited to mostly cursed phrases that my mother would shout at my father and me, so we didn't connect. She was not the warm, cuddly type. My paternal grandfather was much like my dad - just something about them both that exuded warmth, compassion, and love.
 
Em in Ohio said:
My maternal grandfather loved me as a young child in the inappropriate way until his wife (my mother's stepmother) caught him. Said stepmother ignored me. My father's mother didn't speak English and my Hungarian was limited to mostly cursed phrases that my mother would shout at my father and me, so we didn't connect. She was not the warm, cuddly type. My paternal grandfather was much like my dad - just something about them both that exuded warmth, compassion, and love.
Click to expand...
Wow. Talk about a very mixed bag.
 
Murrmurr said:
I feel exceptionally fortunate. Oh, there was drama and riffs now and then, and with Irish on one side and Italians on the other, you can safely bet, there was always noise, but it mostly felt like good noise. Celebratory.

I strive to be as grand a grandparent as my grandparents.
Click to expand...
This brought back a memory to me. My husband is Irish and I am Italian his Mom was a sweetheart and she would say "God save me from the Dago's but not you Barbara I love you anyway.
 
Sassycakes said:
This brought back a memory to me. My husband is Irish and I am Italian his Mom was a sweetheart and she would say "God save me from the Dago's but not you Barbara I love you anyway.
Click to expand...
Oh, there was also Catholics on one side and Jews on the other. That got interesting to say the least. But the love was always there, and lots of it, as you can probably imagine. No end of passion on both sides.
 
Maternal Grandmother would send me $5.00 every birthday when I was a child.
When she stayed with us and was around me, she would always shake her head and say, "Oof Ta Fa Sautun!" (Norse)
I never knew what that meant, only I thought she was disgusted with me.
She rode to Montana, homesteaded her own farm, built her own cabin and dug a fifty foot well, all by herself.
I remember she loved my Fleetwood records.

My Dad's Mother saw me once when I was about eight. She took her watch off her wrist and gave it to me
as a gift. She gave birth to my Dad in a covered wagon traveling across Indian territory in what is now the Dakotas.
They were both incredible, lovely, strong women (pioneer women) who lived hard, remarkable lives.
 
My paternal grandmother was the only one still alive when I was born. She died when I was about 4. I guess she liked me well enough.
She lived across the street and used to watch me play in my front yard. I was a bit afraid of her because she spoke little English..
My mom said she wished I could have known her mom as we had similar personalities and would have gotten along well,
 
My Dad died when I was only three. After my Mom was widowed, she moved back to the area where she grew up. She remarried but she and my stepdad went to great lengths to make sure I had a great relationship with my grandparents. We travelled there every year to visit. Where they lived was a paradise for a child. They loved me very much, we sent letters and cards to each other all year long. I lost them both before I was about 22.

My mother's parents passed when she was very young, way before I was born so I never knew them.
 
I was raised by my paternal grandparents after my mom and dad died when I was 9. My grandparents lived in NE Ohio and most of our relatives lived in Southern Ohio. I think they did a great job providing me with everything I needed and making sure that I received a very good education. When it came to me doing things that younger parents did with their kids, my grandpa would have my uncle, or his son, come up to NE Ohio and take me camping with the Boy Scouts or whatever activity required a younger parent. Our family got along well. My uncle wanted to adopt me, but my grandparents insisted they they be the people to raise me.
 
Both my grandmothers were deceased before I was born so, unfortunately, we had no relationship. I wish I had known my mom's mother because by all accounts she was a wonderful lady and my mom was quite close to her.

My dad's father passed away when I was only two, yet I have a faint memory of sitting on his lap. I have no reason to believe he didn't love little me!

I knew my mom's dad pretty well (he died when I was 12) and his wife (my step-grandmother) was very sweet to me. They lived in California and we took 3 trips to visit them, and I remember them coming to Chicago a couple of times.

He had been a union organizer and a socialist activist in his younger days and I admire him for that.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top