As the title implies sometimes we need to look a bit deeper and question, estrangement is obviously a three way situation, there are the grandparents who find themselves in this awful position, there are the grandchildren who are denied a loving and caring relationship with their grandparents through no fault of their own and then there are those who make the decision to break contact with their parents.
I realise that thinking about those who have made this decision is and can be very difficult.
What happens when an adult child who has experienced a bad childhood, maybe has been treated very badly by their parents, says that their children can not have a relationship with their parents?
Who is right?
I know there will be those who will respond saying that just because they had a bad relationship doesn’t give them the ‘right’ to deny a relationship with their own children.
There is that awful word ‘right’ again.
As I have said before, as a parent of course you make that choice, and if there is a genuine reason, then of course you must put the safety and well-being of the children first.
I have no way of knowing, of course, those that have a genuine reason or not, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge that it may well be genuine.
I have no doubt that my now adult grandchild has very good reason to not have any contact with any of our family, can’t say if those reasons are genuine or not, as she has never told us what those reasons are, but as I have said before, I have to respect her decision, you can’t force a relationship with anyone who doesn’t want one.
Can we move past the past?
I suppose that depends on what the cause of the breakdown is.
As the grandchildren grow older and start to ask the question why they don’t see their grandparents, the conversation has to be had, an open and honest discussion. Giving the older children the facts, as you see them, to enable them to make an informed choice.
They need to be allowed to find out for themselves, they need to see if they want a relationship with their grandparents for themselves.
We all have history, good and bad within our families, but should the past behaviour of others define our present and future and that of our children?
