Amy 5-13-12

[PEllen]

Amy: My son and his family live nearby.

Before their children started school, my wife and I kept the kids each weekday while my son and his wife worked.

Our daughter-in-law's family lived several hundred miles away.

Now that the children are older and the in-laws have retired and located nearby, they are in town often and have trips planned for both families on school holidays and during the summer.

Our son and daughter-in-law have stressful jobs, and we try to be understanding when the family is hardly ever available when we suggest doing things together.

However, they always seem to have time to spend with the other side of the family.

We find less and less time to spend with our grandchildren as they are busy with school and sports. School holidays are spent on vacations with the other grandparents, and we miss out being with them at these times too.

This one-sided relationship is causing us to be depressed and hurt.

We feel that it's up to our son to include his parents, but as is often the case, he leaves the planning up to his wife.

These are our only grandchildren, and we feel that we are slowly losing them.

Unhappy Grandfather

Dear Unhappy: This stings — because you were there when this couple needed you for child care.

Don't wait for your son to advocate for you; he simply won't do it. Call your daughter-in-law to get on the schedule, and if you have a vacation idea, run it past her.

Stress that you would like to attend school and sporting events and have the kids for overnights (if this is possible).

Your grandchildren's school has a website that will list their activities calendar. Communicate directly with your grandchildren (if they are old enough) about events you can attend.

Caring for these children at the start of their lives is a big, important and lifelong gift to them. You should be proud of the job you did, and this couple should work harder to celebrate this relationship and help it grow.

Amy: A while back you published a letter from a pregnant stepmother who was worried that her teenage stepdaughter seemed thrown off and upset by her pregnancy.

When my daughter was about 15, her wonderful stepmother had a baby.

I was concerned that my daughter's very close relationship with her stepmother and her father might suffer, especially since we lived far away from them.

However, my own anxiety was put to rest when my daughter's stepmom called my daughter from the hospital to say, "You have a new baby brother. Now it'll be more important than ever that you come to see us a lot so he can get to know his big sister!"

We all rejoiced in the news of that baby's birth.

Grateful Mother

Dear Mother: Your open attitude and emotional support of your daughter and her father and stepmother no doubt paved the way for this happy result.

I hope that you (along with all the mothers, grandmothers, stepmoms and all those who care for and about children) have a very happy, joyful and gratitude-filledMother's Day.

Amy: "Fed Up" expressed frustration about people who request to be "friends" on Facebook and then ignore attempts to communicate.

I experienced the same situation and then decided that the best policy was to simply "friend" only those I'm actually interested in (i.e. real friends or family members).

Ex-friends and partners are exes for a reason (few of us actually have 300 friends anyway).

I went through my Facebook account and "unfriended" a lot of people. Now I maintain a slim friend count on Facebook, just as in my real life.

When I see a potential Facebook friend with an unusually high number of "friends," I click the other way. Since I've "trimmed the fat," it has worked out great.

Not Friendless

Dear Not: I believe that more and more people are doing exactly what you have done — trimming the Facebook "friend" list and not accepting friend requests from people they barely know.

When your friendships start to exhaust you (on Facebook or in real life), it's time to make a change.

[RACE]

1 Those ungrateful kids! Get Rocco to put a hurting on the other grandparents, then their all yours.

2 Your point makes no sense, was your daughter acting out?? No? Then you offer nothing, go read your mothersday card.

3 Unfriended...It even sounds stupid.

[liner]

1: When your son gets married, he marries her family. Get used to it.
3: This facebook crap is boring. You people need a life.

[Kuuipo]

LW1: You are choosing to be depressed and hurt. You can make a choice to be happy that your grandchildren have two sets of grandparents to love that live close to them. You could choose to fill your life with other rewarding activities. You could choose to be more pro-active about planning activities and outings with your grandchildren.

LW2 is a nice change from all of the letters about stepfamilies whose members don't get along and parents who fight over their children.

LW3: The only reason that I even have a facebook account is because so many of my friends have them and use it to communicate. I much prefer phone calls, emails, or texts. I try not to spend much time on facebook, but I have never unfriended anyone. You can hide posts from people who live on FB.