We read your comment and have a great deal of sympathy for your position. Yours is a problem that affects so many famillies including our own and those of our friends. There are no simple solutions other than advice along the lines of …. patience and compromise etc … which I am sure you have already tried without positive result so far.

We, and our web site, unfortunately are neither qualified nor best suited to offer advice in these distressing matters. There are sites aimed at providing advice, such as “http://www.gloriousgrandchildren.co.uk/” which may prove to be helpful to you.

All we can add is, we feel you should trust your son to handle it the best way he can for him and for his child. While there is hope in his eyes, you may have to continue to walk “on egg shells” as long as it takes to break the ice with your grandson’s mother. It may never happen but if you precipitate the fallout, you may blame yourselves ever after for driving the mother and your grandchild away. Sadly this may be unavoidable.

Hopefully, other readers may be able to add the benefit of their own experiences.

Our prayers go with you

The Grandparents.

After the birth, before they got their own apartment, she was rotating spending every few nights at our house and her parents house with the baby and my son. I helped her bathe, dress, change, hold the baby and other things when they stayed here. Since they got their own apartment this spring she stopped spending the night here and is coming to visit only rarely now.
She says she wants her parents to be close to him despite her problems with them. And now she “only feels comfortable w/her own parents watching the baby & spending time with him”. We often invite my son, her & the baby over for dinner, and to all holidays, etc. My son usually comes over alone, and when his girlfriend does come w/the baby we are not allowed to hold him or play with him, even though she is in the same room or sitting on the same couch right next to us. She says she is not comfortable with it yet and isn’t used to anyone else but her parents holding or watching the baby.
My son agrees that she is mistreating us and not being reasonable. My son, my husband and I try to talk to her about it and she always threatens my son with breaking up or other things. Now she is threatening my son if I ask her about it any more she will end their relationship for good. It also took her until the baby was 8 months old to let my son (the baby’s father) watch him alone, without her. I rarely see my grandson and when I do it is usually once or twice a month for very short periods of time during her visits and I usually am not even allowed to hold him at all.
Is this grounds to file for grandparents rights for visitation? I do not want this to come between my son and her, or jeopardize my relationship with my son. He agrees with us, but always gives in to her threats. She is controlling him and the entire relationship with threats and unfair behavior. They are also supposed to get married June 2010 and I am worried that step will just create more problems for him, especially if they don’t learn how to fairly resolve things that arise now.
I am tired of walking on eggshells around her and worrying if I blink the wrong way she will have a tantrum. She is now threatening that I never get to see my grandson at all because I have asked too many times to see him or hold him, always getting told no, to wait because she is not comfortable with it yet. So I would wait a week or two and ask again. I didn’t mean to hound, and I always gently asked the question once and accepted her answer – for nine months…until today.
Today I asked, she said again to wait, and this time I continued by asking ‘until when’. She said the current situation (her parents only) is fine and does not ever need to be changed. I cried and said that is not fair and I should get the same rights as her parents to see and interact with the baby. I asked her to tell me her fears and try to talk about whatever is bothering her and she said no and refused to talk to us or say another word and grabbed the baby and left the house (leaving my son there) and threw her engagement ring in his lap on the way out.
He left later to talk to her and she won’t come up with any valid reasons for her feelings of holding the baby from us. Some are; “if I watch him I will have to take him to the bus stop ( I have younger school age children) and he isn’t allowed to leave the house with us”, OR she doesn’t like my 6 1/2 year old daughter around him because “we aren’t raising her right because she tries to play with the baby and kissed him on the cheek 2 times on their last visit and she is afraid of swine flu and I should have yelled at my daughter to leave the baby alone and never kiss him”. “She doesn’t want anyone but herself feeding him and I might try to feed him something while she is out”. I don’t know what else to do and now she is trying to create problems between my son and me with her threats. I wish he realized what she is doing, but sadly, he doesn’t or refuses to. Do I give up on seeing my grandson and just see my son when he can get away or try to persue also seeing my grandson?

Thanks
Laura

Thanks, Grandpa Shayne