#13 Should we keep sending grandchild money? / Should I keep setting up grandchild to fail in life?
Dear Annie: Our granddaughter’s 21st birthday is coming up this month. My husband thinks we should not send "Julie" the usual birthday check. Since she graduated high school, she has not held a decent job and has no motivation to go to college or pursue any kind of a career.
Julie is also extremely overweight and has approximately 19 body piercings above the neck. She expects to be able to find a job that will accept her appearance and won’t bother applying anywhere if she knows they have a dress code.
Julie never sends a thank you note when we give her a birthday check. Her parents inform us when it arrives so we know it hasn’t been lost. The girl has a lovely personality, but we have never met a person with such a lack of ambition. We don’t know what to do. GRANDPARENTS IN KENTUCKY
Dear Grandparents: The fact that Julie doesn’t send thank-you notes is reason enough to stop sending gifts, but don’t expect it to make any difference in her attitude. As long as Julie‘s parents are willing to support her, there is no great urgency for her to find steady employment. Withholding the annual birthday check could create some ill will and certainly won't make Julie more ambitious, but if it makes you feel less frustrated, go right ahead. Gifts are not obligatory. It’s your money. Do with it as you wish. —Annie
Gabby's Reply
Hi Grandparents: Confusion is a great place to start from. It’s exciting because you now have a choice, to continue doing more of the same or to do something different. Now is the time to acknowledged the results of the way you have been communicating with your granddaughter. The way in which you have been relating with her has trained her to be inconsiderate, unappreciative, unmotivated, and abusive. It’s abusive to invalidate (not acknowledge) another’s support and generosity. You have an opportunity to see that no matter what you believe it has been your unconscious intention to sabotage her so as to be right. How do we know? We need only look at the results. Most every reader will sympathize with you and judge her to be inconsiderate, wrong, lazy, etc. In other words, you've managed to turn everyone against her. You've stated the problem from blame. Let's begin by dropping the "our" and "we" else you'll never get to the source of the problem. Millions of adults will attest to the fact that it was a grandparent, not their mother or father, who inspired them to succeed. We already know that her mother and father need therapy.
First, it would work for you to acknowledge that your "gifts" have not been gifts. They have been given with expectations, strings if you will. "Thank me or eventually I won’t send you any more." It just works to be clear about the difference between gifts and what you have been doing. You have been exchanging presents. Present for present, or, present for a thank you. A gift should please you no matter the response; it’s given with no strings. It's complete. For example: "Here's a check. I know how busy you are so there's no need to thank me. Your continued happiness and success in school is your thanks." Or, "Here's a check, enclosed is a self addressed stamped envelope to let me know you got it."
We see now that you have been using her to discover something about yourself and your leadership-communication model. You have been operating from what’s called an adversarial communication model. You set her up to do what some grandchildren do and then blame her and make her wrong for not thanking you. You don’t get that her nonverbal communications have been covert cries for help. In truth she's stuck, growth-wise, back at the first unacknowledged check (communication). It's called a number one incomplete. In this case it has determined her motivation, her prosperity, and in truth all results she's been producing. Which is the way it is. Grandparents are powerfully influential. Without a mutually supportive relationship with ones grandparents one is not whole and complete.
Had you been operating from a supportive communication model you would have contacted her the very first time and asked, "Did you get my gift?" That would have created space for her to thank you. That you didn’t reveals that you are unconscious about the effects of perpetrations. It could be said that you conducted a sting operation. Had you not given her gifts we could be absolutely sure that her apathy and health problems have nothing to do with her abuse of her grandparents. It appears that first gift was the turning point in her life. Nothing has worked since and she has no adult to support her in seeing when life started to not work.
If she "forgot" to thank you a second time that would have been the time to communicate, again, "Did you get my gift?" and, "You know that it doesn’t feel good to have to ask for your acknowledgment? It's uncomfortable. It’s abusive to treat others that way. Can you tell me what it’s about? What is it about me that you don’t respect? There has to be something because people who respect and love each other don’t treat each other the way you have been treating me and your grandfather. Would you prefer that I not send you any more gifts? Tell you what, if it happens again, I’ll just take that to be a communication from you that you would rather not have me in your life. OK?"
It’s important that you know that the way you handled her, from the start, set it up for her to accumulate her perpetrations with you year after year, for which she has been paying herself back. She can’t let herself win big after the way she has treated her grandparents. She has no idea that she has been set up, that you have been unconsciously contributing to (training and rewarding) her apathy.
Also, her parents have incompletes (thoughts/judgments/perpetrations) they have been withholding from both you and your husband. They have supported their daughter in treating you abusively. It’s a covert communication of disrespect from them. I'm wondering where she's been getting the money for the piercings?
My advice is for you to share your considerations and judgments about her to her. She’s not getting the wisdom of your experience. Withholding judgments as you have been will produce even more disastrous results, for everyone. And, get some counseling to see what this unconscious thwarting of your grandchild has been about. Don’t be misled by thinking it has something to do with your husband. In this matter you are the leader. You are addicted to abusing and being abused and to being used.
BTW: I'm concerned about her priorities—given the low inventory of most food banks and the fact that she has 19 body piercings. I think a far more valuable gift than money would be a couple of sit-down dinner conversations with her. That, or send her the receipt of a donation to a shelter made in her behalf.
This is a great letter because lots of people are stuck in the same victim/blame pattern. Check out Grandparenting—a primer
Thank you, Gabby
Last edited 8/30/21