I am far from My parents. I was once close to them, but after having my son, I could no longer justify their poor and injuring behavior and I made the difficult decision to cut Contact with them. They always said that they had no interest in having grandchildren and they clearly indicated that they did not want any relationship with my son. I am especially in peace with my decision, as sad as it is, as I Feel that protecting my child is an act of love.
What I am fighting is how I’m going to explain it To my son as they get older. He is five years old now and does not question their absence, but I know that could change. How to say that “my parents are cruel and egocentric people who have no interest in our lives” in a more palpable way and in a way that, above all, does it Clear that it is by no means to blame?
Eleanor says:: I’m really sorry that you had to make this decision. By telling him, I think you can be led by what he wants to know. It’s incredible what we don’t think we are questioning when we know nothing else. Children grow up in all kinds of configurations – three dads, two mothers, raised by brothers and sisters, unknown parents – they do not always have the same meaning as adults in terms of remarkable or what calls for the explanation.
A strategy could be to level the explanations in an age suitable for age as it ages. “Many families have a lot of different relationships, and grandmother and grandfather are not in ours” could be a starting response which gradually becomes more in-depth as it seeks to know more. In this way, he does not have the impression that there is a big day with a great revelation.
When we manage the facts with care, we indicate that they are frightening or that they could blow at any time. If there is no sense of a great dark revelation, we can ensure that the opposite seems true: we can demonstrate that these are facts that do not have to fear. People sometimes do it when they tell children that they are adopted, for example. No big moment “seated we have to talk”, it’s always part of the wallpaper.
A similar thing may be possible for you. He already has a loving and emotionally intelligent family near him, there was no sudden change in his relationship with his grandparents – even once he learns more about distance, he might not happen to wonder about the details or think that it could be his fault.
In addition, when you explain to him that they are not in your life, you do not have to add the moral decision of the reason why no. I do not know how incomplete the explanation would have just said “we are not very friendly with each other, so we decided not to spend time”. The concept of “bad people” and especially “bad people in your family” can be delicate for children, and making your parents bad or evil personalities could make them more fascinating than they would be otherwise.
The difficulty of giving complete moral explanations of interpersonal conflicts – even if you are totally on the right – is that this heats them up and therefore more accomplices to curiosity, and it raises an imagined right of response. If it’s just “we don’t get along”, there is not much to say. If it is “they are bad and we are better without them”, the curious listener might want to know more. They could even wonder how reliable the narrator is.
You must have made a difficult decision for you and your child. You do not need to submit all the inner functioning of this decision to make it meaning. You can be led by honesty adapted to age and its own questions.
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