You gave them life

To be estranged from a grandchild is heartbreaking, add the fact that you are estranged/alienated from a son or daughter as well, and as a result not able to see your grandchild, it’s horrendous.

Of course many people will say stuff like, “Well you must have done something,” or “Just give them a ring and sort it out.”

These people have absolutely no idea at all of what it means to have contact stopped by your own children.

I spend hours, literally hours talking to grandparents on the phone who are being accused of the most dreadful things, which they fiercely deny.

I think I am unshakeable, until the next call or email.

In the last 11 years I have heard the most distressing and disturbing things.

We all know about the stories of harassment and police heavy handed follow ups, they are well publicised and documented, but recently the stories are getting more and more unbelievable.

What makes a son slam the door in his mums face, what makes a daughter spit at her mum in the street, what makes sons/daughters behave with utter contempt.

Yes, of course if there is a proven reason for this, that is quite a different story, but I am talking about something quite different.

It feels as though some adult children are out to destroy their parents, for whatever reason, and when I say destroy that is exactly what they do.

What occurs without fail in all of these stories is that, however hard they try, the adult children refuse to communicate in any way, so the request to talk, the plea to work through whatever is causing this, is refused.

How can I put things right if I don’t know what I have done?

So often parents have no idea what they are supposed to have done wrong, what action they did to cause this hatred, and yes, it is hatred.

Is there some sort of cult that these people belong to?

That may sound over dramatic but having seem the disgusting websites that exist out there, telling adult children how to cut family members out of their lives, it feels as though there is a following of some sort.

Each and every one of these alienators, were once innocent babies, appearing into this world in exactly the same way as everyone else. Hopefully they were nurtured, cared for and loved as young children and young people, so what on earth happens to make them go into to this destruction mode?

They blame their parents for everything.

I have yet to meet a parent who says they were or are perfect parents, none of us are perfect. We make mistakes, having children is the hardest job in the world and we make mistakes, but does that mean we somehow have become the devil incarnate?

Maybe some of you who are the alienators, no doubt are saying yes.

If you are children who have suffered abuse at the hands of a parent/grandparent then of course you are going to cut contact, but what about those who haven’t?

Money is a regular topic that comes up in conversation.

Parents who have given their adult children, in some cases, considerable amounts of money, say that when the money runs out or they can’t help their adult children financially anymore, the alienation starts.

I know of a case where the parent bought the adult child and partner a house, they were all supposed to be living together, the adult child and partner made life so unpleasant for the parent that they had to move out, leaving the adult child in the house and the parent with no home and no money. The house sadly had been put in the name of the adult child, as it seemed a good thing to do at the time.

There are many stories just like this.

It is possible that it is not actually the adult child that is  behaving the way they want to towards their parents, but it is in fact the partner who is controlling the whole situation and the adult child has no way out.

They are being controlled themselves.

Coercive control is illegal and if you are being controlled this way, report it, don’t suffer in silence.

I have no way of knowing how grandparents find themselves in this intolerable situation, but what I do know is the devastation this is causing.

Grandparents have taken their own lives as a result, others are only just hanging on to life, some don’t even call it life.

In my personal life I had a father that was not what he appeared, he was by no means the pillar of society he portrayed to others, but even for all the distress and hurt he caused, I would never, ever have treated him the way hear on a daily basis.

Neither do I blame him for my shortcomings, I am master of my own destiny, I won’t allow him to have left a legacy of hate, a legacy of poison.

If anything his betrayal has empowered me.

You can not go on blaming the generation before, you have to make things right.

Slamming doors, spitting, wishing a parent dead is the lowest of the low.

Not only do we all enter this world in exactly the same way but we leave it the same way, with nothing.

It is how we life our lives, how we treat others, how we agree to disagree that is important.

Think of the children who are witnessing this, children seeing their grandparents thrown out, children hearing the abuse on the phone, children frightened because of the shouting and confusion.

No child should be party to any of this, their childhood is being destroyed by the actions of those around them.

To anyone who is alienating will one day have to face those searching questions from their own children.

Will you still lie to them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Jane

Jane setup Bristol Grandparent Support Group in 2007 after a string of incidents led to the loss of contact with her Grand Daughter.

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