Blog: tracker's place

Words can hurt

September 19, 2024 personal diary entry

I am the nicest, kindest person I know. Sound grandiose? Yup! But it is my opinion, my perception, and I am not ashamed to say it.

I took a stand, albeit unpopular with a grandson. He agreed to interact with his cousin, the grandson I live with. He kept his end of the bargain for a minute, then was full of excuses as to why he could not spend the time because he was “too busy.”

This went on for six months. A couple of times he played. I can count the times on two hands and have fingers left over. I was the communicator. I saw this twin not long after he was born. I fed him his first little bottle in the hospital nursery. I was responsible for having the name meant for his older twin brother. I visited every Sunday after church for the first 18 months of his life. I rode in the car with them taking them from Arizona to Georgia to help feed change and comfort them during the trip.

I would remind him of his promise to participate. He would not respond for days, even weeks. I stayed cool as a cucumber stating it would take a mere hour or less of his day and oh it would be so nice to connect with his cousin. The form of this connection, by the way, in case you were wondering, and I know you are, is playing an interactive video game. They can play and team up with other players, communicate via headset, which in itself is most of the enjoyment, and a round takes about fifteen minutes. A couple of rounds a half hour and an hour just icing on the cake.

I have been ready to blow my stack time and again. In the summer, with no school, his time was filled with what? Visits to his sister’s house to play with his niece and nephew. For hours! Where is the half hour to an hour for his cousin? Nearly a month is skipped as he had a best friend from another state spending part of the summer with his family.
What were they doing? Farting around, mostly. Going to his sister’s house or his sister coming over with her two kids “to play.” And, you guessed it, playing video games.

I discussed this with my daughter, grandson in my house’s mother. She told me to be grateful he plays at all and to not rock the boat. I suggested I call my son, grandson’s dad, to discuss what was going on. Don’t you dare call my brother, daughter says. Things between my two children have been calling a truce when their dad passed away almost 10 years ago.

I call my family almost weekly to keep in touch. I have just my two younger sisters left out of the five of siblings. They are the kind who don’t call just because they don’t. I have never questioned why, and since they take my calls and put up with my questions about what’s new, I figure it is all good.

My kids don’t do that, never have. They were thick as thieves growing up. Son even went on dates with his sister. He was included in her stuff and she in his. Both very good athletes, they supported each other.
I know what makes up the water under the bridge, and the way I raised them was to be the bigger people and get along. Let bygones lie and move on.

That is way too much to ask.

The tension and stress reaching out and waiting patiently for a reply increased over the summer months. I decided rather to involve his parents, I would handle it on my own. Older grandson needed to know that his behavior was not acceptable and caused undue pain to his younger cousin. I left the fact OUT that the little 12-year-old grandson here has autism. It does not hamper their game play.

I have texted with this grandson, as I have with ALL my 11 grandchildren for years. It is out of character for me to give constructive feedback, but yesterday the time was right for it. Not playing and interacting is one thing, but ignoring my texts is unacceptable. THAT is what I was addressing. It is not good etiquette to simply ignore texts, particularly from his grandmother.

I told him as much in a text yesterday providing a smidgeon of evidence supporting my point.

I messaged with his mom, my daughter in law who tells me how much she cares for me on the times I CONTACT HER, because she never reaches out, and I do want to know what is happening with the family. I do hear most of the news as she uses Facebook to share their lives in public. does not reach out. Until taking this action, I accepted the way things were. It was what it was. Well, if you don't start doing something different, you will get the same results as usual. Which was not acceptable in this matter. As a courtesy, I messaged her to tell her about the text and to let me know if she had any concerns.

She did. So did my son.

I received a text telling me NEVER to contact HER sons, three of them, ever again unless I apologized for my text.

Nope. I have been apologizing my whole life for the handful of times I have expressed my opinion. I was taught if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all. Well, what I said was said nicely. I have forty-four years in customer service giving feedback that people may not want to hear. Instead, they act as a victim.

Son phoned his sister. She knew not what I had done. She came to me and asked me if I was out of my mind. She had specifically asked me to understand that 18-year-old boys were busy and might not put a game with their cousin high in their priority list. She asked if I read my text. I said I had read it several times before and after sending it and I stood by it, had nothing to apologize for, and something had to be done about this ongoing problem. Her look of disapproval would have killed if it had been daggers and not just the look.

Then the inevitable phone call from son. Mind you, he phones me on Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and on my New Year’s Eve birthday. He sends flowers on Mother’s Day and my birthday. That is the sum total of contact with me. He was not happy with my text. I will let your imagination run wild with what you hate filled things he let spew from his mouth. He opened with incredulous, loud disbelief I had the balls to write it. Why did I do that. I was allowed a split second to reply which gave me time to say a word, then the tirade started. The expletives were appalling. During another brief second to ask to allow me to respond, the same and worse vile came out of his mouth. I put the phone on my nightstand, and did not listen to another word. I did not hang up, he did I suppose.

I woke up without an ounce of regret. I stand by my words, make no apology, and he, his wife, and my daughter are now united in their joint disdain for my action.

It is kind of a wake-up call for me in that I am totally at peace with having an opinion and expressing in a mature way. I reminded my daughter in law my grandson is 18 not 8, but beyond that have had nothing more to say. I opened Facebook and there she shared a high level view of what “ some person” (me) had said to him telling “My 40 Facebook friends” to comment on what she wrote. They did. My reaction is that I am glad she did not block me from Facebook. Like I said it is the only avenue of communication about what's happening. My grandsons are not allowed to have Facebook accounts. They all still live at home, the older one is 21. They have no plans of moving out nor getting jobs. Living off of dad is working out just fine for them. I have been blocked from contacting them by phone or text.

The stress of listening to disappointing feeble attempts at excuses is over. That is what this was about. I was being disrespected by being ignored. Days after a text, I might get an apology that he was "too busy" but would interact that day or the next with no results.

My daughter was extra sweet to me after dinner last night. The strain of having her nephew acting or more correctly not acting was pressing on her last nerve, I am sure. She is aware her brother is selfish and self-centered. I suspect from her actions she is kind of glad and it is now up to her to deal with her brother and her nephew. Our little guy knows nothing except his cousin has played with him about 4 times in the last 3 months.

I have friends in real life who have grandchildren who play. The grandkids have not followed through with their promises to play. Several online friends have done the same. My daughter learned how to play. She and my son-in-law play with him.

I am not giving up finding people to play with. He will not play with random strangers in a team setting, only people we know or can trust through the parents or grandparents we know to be trustworthy.

Ain’t it great being a mother and grandmother?

I have my first biological great-grandchild arriving in March. I am attending a gender reveal party in a month. I am playing along and being the last to know stuff as my new reality.

tracker

UPDATE: 9/28/24 I sent an apology text, one to my son and a separate one to his wife. Reflecting, I should have kept my feelings to myself. I knew in my heart it may cause an upheaval. I have not had a reply. I apologized for the way they feel and not for the text I sent. As of today I am not losing sleep over this mess. The ball is in their court.