Setting Boundaries With Grandparents

As time progresses, family dynamics have shifted. The Millennial generation is now becoming parents, and they are dead set on breaking generational trauma cycles. Grandparents are becoming less and less involved in their grandchildren’s lives due to older Generation X and Boomers' lack of respect for their adult children’s boundaries for the grandchildren. These boundaries are set to protect the children as times have changed and new information emerges on the psychological effects of former punishments and behaviors Millennials grew up with. These grandparents have strong psychological and attitudinal barriers to communication with their adult children and grandchildren regarding respecting these boundaries.

            As a new mom to a baby girl who was born 11 weeks early with severe immunodeficiency issues, the NICU stay was a tumultuous journey. The added challenge of dealing with parents who do not respect boundaries for the compromised child made this situation even more arduous. When the baby was only a few weeks old, she contracted a staph infection that necessitated minimal physical contact from staff and no physical contact from family. As the doting grandparents visited, the first thing addressed by the nursing staff and the parents was not to open the incubator and touch the baby as she was very sick. This boundary was established to protect the child’s life from other harmful germs that could weaken her already compromised immune system. The grandparents disregarded the staff’s request and refused to listen to the mom’s pleas and cries as she attempted to protect her baby. As the grandparents stated, the staff and mom are just “overdramatic,” and nothing bad could come from touching the baby. After a few more weeks, the baby’s health kept declining, leading to spinal meningitis, causing the baby to have to go through excruciating procedures and be put on life support. If the grandparents had followed the boundaries put in place, would this incident have even happened? Could these struggles have been avoided? Even today, as this significant struggle that has altered this mom forever gets brought up to these grandparents, they use the excuse that the baby is a teenager now, so everything worked out fine while also blaming the mom for the incident, saying that she is a liar so they did not believe her and that she probably got staff to lie to them for her as well. Simply put, this is the false narrative the grandparents created to excuse their behaviors. This incident caused the mother to cut ties with her parents until the baby was almost nine months old, but this was only the start of crossing many boundaries, which ultimately led to the demise of the adult child and grandchild’s relationship with these grandparents.

            Grandparents' psychological/attitudinal barriers often lead them to believe they know better than their adult children regarding parenting. This can cause severe distrust in the grandparents around their grandchildren, especially when they endanger their grandchildren's lives. Although this may be unintentional, the child's parents have to reevaluate and set harsher boundaries to ensure the kid’s safety. According to Kernicky (1996), grandparents should respect that they already had their shot at raising children and respect the role of the parents by not criticizing and undermining their authority. Grandparents need to realize that times have changed, which has provided more resources in diagnoses and assistance in understanding children today. It is becoming increasingly common for Millennials to relinquish relationships with grandparents as they are causing more harm than good by walking all over the parents, crossing boundaries that have been set, and fighting often with the parents. Connecting with a child is now believed to create a stronger bond than the previous views of parent-child bonds solely based on authority (Ridley, 2023). Relinquishing the relationship with the grandparents is not a form of punishment as they seem to believe. It is to protect the peace and safety of not only the children but the family as a whole. Savage (2012) states that parents should stand firm on their boundaries to protect their family as their loyalties are to the family they created, not the family they came from.

References

Kernicky, K. (1996, Sep 08). Keeping in touch with grandkids: [All edition]. Sun Sentinel. https://ezproxy.library.astate.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fnewspapers%2Fkeeping-touch-with-grandkids%2Fdocview%2F388535629%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8363 

Ridley, J. (2023, Dec 14). I wanted my boomer parents and in-laws to respect my parenting choices, so I set boundaries with them. Other millennials should do the same thing. Business Insider https://ezproxy.library.astate.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fnewspapers%2Fi-wanted-my-boomer-parents-laws-respect-parenting%2Fdocview%2F2901497547%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8363 

Savage, J. (2012, Sep 29). Grandparents need to learn expectations first. Pantagraph https://ezproxy.library.astate.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fnewspapers%2Fgrandparents-need-learn-expectations-first%2Fdocview%2F1086328301%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D8363