When you had a baby out of wedlock, the father and his family cut you off. Later, the father died in an accident and now his mother wants to know her grandchild. Do you allow it?
Was this a one night stand situation where I barely knew the guy, or someone I’d been involved with for a while who bailed at the thought of fatherhood?
How many years have gone by? How old were we?
Who was the driving force in pushing me out of the picture? If Mom’s part or most of the reason the guy did a runner, I’d be pretty reluctant to create a relationship with her. If I wasn’t good enough for your baby, what makes you think you’re good enough for my baby? And that sort of thing. Callous, maybe, but seriously. Unless they’re rich.. Kids cost money… but wealth shouldn’t excuse bad behaviour.
If the kid’s 10 by now or something, I’d sit her down and explain what’s what. Your dad had his reasons for leaving before he met you, and his mom seems to feel bad about that now, do you want to meet her? And yes or no we’d go with her feelings about it. She wouldn’t meet the woman by herself, though.
Family medical history is a good reason to get to know the mother, though. Get a heads up on any chronic or known risks of depression or heart disease and other things that can be problematic.
If it’s genuine interest in wanting to be a grandma, that’s mostly fine, but maybe I’d want to lay some ground rules down about visiting frequency and what they can and can’t do, depending on the age of said kid here. No, you can’t fly her to your condo off the coast of Mexico for two weeks, yes you can go to a movie downtown on Saturday and then buy her some jeans… but what’s wrong with the jeans I .. oh whatever…
And if she’s going to lay down a bunch of “You should”s and “Well, I never”s and criticize every parenting move I make, I’ll be tempted to rescind her invitation to be part of her granddaughter’s life. But, I suppose it would not be unexpected.. it’s a thing some parents do to their kids.
I guess that’s my answer to this one.
One Minion's Opinion 