Oh, yes. Probably about the same place as we are just now actually.
I quite missed my parents while they were away. Worried about them when the earthquake happened, cherished this foolish little idea that I would not have had quite such a bad week last week if they’d been around to ‘help’ a bit. I even had this plan for approaching them for a bit more support and help than they have been giving. I had a speech planned and everything…
So when they came home on Monday night, spent time here including staying for dinner on Tuesday night and were a bit sympathetic about the stress of the previous week (I seem to recall my Mum even saying something along the lines of ‘well never mind Darling, we’re back now’) I had somehow morphed them into the sort of parents who do help and are handy to have living just a mile down the road.
So off they went into the night on Tuesday – just as Scarlett woke up at about 11pm with fast developing pox sprouting everywhere. Have I heard from them since? Have I fuck.
The first night (Wednesday) I was a bit surprised. I thought there might at least have been a phonecall to see how Tarly was? Maybe a quick check that there was nothing they could drop round. Nothing. Well, they are just back after nearly 3 weeks away, I thought. Back to work for Mum and so on. Excusable.
Yesterday I was actually fairly pissed off not to have heard from them at all.
Tonight when it reached 9pm and the phone had rung twice tonight, both times with Ady and I saying ‘oh that’ll be them’ and it not being the issue was raised between us. I said I was really upset by it – he was just cross. OK I know they don’t *know* how bad she’s been with it, I know they are rarely help at the best of times and I know I could have rung them and told them (which was actually what we were saying – I bet Mum is saying something to Dad like ‘well they havn’t rung to let us know how she is’) but, you know, I’ve been pretty busy actually, Ady has been out of the house for upwards of 12 hours each day and we have been getting little or no sleep all week so I think we have better excuses than them.
Finally at 10pm tonight the phone rang. We had just sat down to dinner (with our evening companion firmly installed on the sofa next to Ady demanding he read her Dora books aloud) so I let the answerphone pick up. I did ring back and despite recounting to both of them that she has been really quite poorly, Davies has struggled with lack of attention, Ady has had three high profile meetings determining his career future this week and I am running on no sleep the best I got from either of them really was an ‘oh dear’.
We fell out quite badly just after Scarlett was born on a similar sort of issue and I swore then I would accept them for who they are and what they are prepared to offer – guess I fell back into the trap of listening to others talk about their parents support and caring and got side tracked again eh? 🙁
Hm, well, it won’t be on my blog you’ll have read about parents being supportive. 🙁
I have a multitude of parents – my father has this habit of marrying, is on his third wife now. Mother’s not quite so bad, only the two husbands. This leads to a complicated family tree (more like a small thicket actually) and despite the throngs, I’m pretty much black sheep with all of them. Apparently my father’s phone only take incoming calls – he’s only seen his (only) grandson twice, the second time being when I dropped in when nearby for a visit. We didn’t get a Christmas card – neither the children nor myself got birthday cards. 🙁
My mother lives three miles away, and confines her support to dropping in at weekends at mealtimes, and then waiting for tea/coffee to be brought, and telling me I must drop in more often. Big asked me what drop in means, and I said it means visit while passing – she thought for a while and then said, but we only go that way when we’re going to Grandma’s so we’re never just passing. Perceptive child that one.
Yes, I know you weren’t expecting a rant about other ppl’s parents in response to your own, but hey, it’s a passworded space!
Misery loves company?
((((((Nic))))) That is pretty crap 🙁
My mum would indeed be phoning twice a day. C’s mum … well, we fell out when Matilda was 9 months old, and didn’t speak for nearly a year, and realised that we just had to accept this superficial level of involvment. We see her about once every month or two, and she’d never knwo if they were ill.
So glad Scarlett is feeling better!
on the plus side both me and Ady can only be better at this game – neither of us have a great deal to live up to!
And Jax – rant away – somehow hearing it’s not just my parents does make me feel better in a selfish sort of way 😉
I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you just how absolutely little help I get from anyone LOL as you’ve heard it all before but for the rest of you – my father and his wife and his two kids have never seen my daughter. My mother died when I was 19 and her mother and her sister have never seen LC either. A brother and sister live in Australia and the one remaining brother and sister in this country have seen LC for 20 minutes at 9 weeks old (sister and never again) and the brother saw her last year for 3 hours. No-one rings except my one brother from Australia who is desparate for us to go and visit him. I do have a very few close friends. I have two I can ask to have LC but it has to be a night out with Steve or something very important for me to ask them. So darling Nic I know where you are at – you are not alone – and we are here for you. xxxxxx ((((extra pox free hugs for Tarly))))
It’s a bummer 🙁 My brother and I haven’t spoken for years, after he told me that Hannah couldn’t sit with me at his wedding reception, as they didn’t want disruptive kids – she was to go with the other “snotty brats”, and eat chicken nuggets with a waitress. I am his only surviving sibling, and Hannah is his only niece, and she was 4 at the time, and wouldn’t move without me, so I was a bit miffed. Apparently if she’d been allowed, all the kids would have wanted in. My mum and dad live a good couple of hundred miles away, and they want to be helpful, but I think it’s suffice to say that while they obviously knew Hannah was in hospital and had a kidney out, they have a very sanitised version of what happened. She would phone a lot though if she was ill, and now that Hannah is older, she has her on holiday for about 5 days at a time, a couple of times a year. I think the problem is with me, rather than her, if I’m fair and honest 🙁
My parents and i have only fallen out badly once but then, tbh, i don’t expectm uch from them as they are both full time professionals who live 60 miles away. I wish i had more of them but i don’t. Credit to my mum though, when i was ill on sunday night, she was driving my sister back home (60 miles from theres) when i called, drove home, grabbed a bag and arrived here in warpspeed time. And dumped work the next day to look after me. So i couldn’t decently complain really.
Hugs though, i can really understand how much it must hurt.
(((Nic and Ady)))
I started out reading, thinking our parents were crap. But OK they’re not so bad, it’s (ha ha) relative. Thank fuck for friends and partners anyway.
But certainly communication could be better, and they’ve never quite taken on board that F had a stroke and that actually did happen and there are effects that have to be acknowledged and dealt with. They’re favourite thing to say is ‘maybe she’s naturally left-handed’ which just ignores the reality completely.