This week we had "Grandparents and other Grand Friends" day at the school some of our kids attend. The couple who were my husband's foster parents when he was 11-14, attended for our kids. They have been an active part of hub's life since he was placed with them, and have taken on the role of loved "Grands" for our kids.

We we were married and started to have kids, I wondered if our kids would ever have any positive grandparents in their lives. Both hub and I had abusive/neglectful parents. We also have our oldest son's in-laws as honorary grand parents to our kids--they are wonderful too.

Everyone assumes with a large family you have super grandparents who spend all their time doing wonderful things. Anyone have any grandparent input to share?

GG

My husband's parents sort of gave up in some ways, though they are completely involved where birthdays and Christmas are concerned. They live several states away, and I think that this many grandkids just overwhelmed them. They had an idea that they needed to do certain things on certain days for each child, so when we didn't stop having kids when they thought we should, they felt they were locked into something unsustainable. I wish they had known that it would have been ok to do less, and that we'd rather have them just know the kids. But there wasn't any way to say that without sounding catty.

My father is gone, died several years ago, and my mom lives nearby. They really only see her on Sundays at church right now though. She's as involved as she knows how to be. When she is here, she teaches the kids useful things (sewing and other self-sufficiency skills), but she is somewhat distant in other ways. She'll be moving in next door to us again, and we hope to get her involved more - more for her than for us, though we can benefit from having her there.

Laura
Mom to Eight