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I do have this idea for your grandchildren. I worked with a lady one time who was estranged from one set of her grandchildren. The ex-daughterinlaw would send back mail addressed to the grandchildren and her own son was a unresponsible guy.
What she did was to set up savings accounts for each kid & deposit what she spent on her other grandkids for birthdays, holidays, & Christmas...and she wrote letters & cards to each (just as she did all her grands) & kept the estranged ones in her safe deposit box. Her plan was to give each their account when they turned 18 with the letters& cards.
And she had all this in her will also, so in case she passed they would get the letters & cards & accounts and know she loved them all the while.
I think I clarified that I only responded to that once or twice at best that way - because actually I am a pretty active advocate AGAINST racism, and in fact made my position on various cases (in defense of the person of color) very clear many times over. But I am not going to pretend that racism only goes one way. I'm going to call it when I see it, and I see it coming from many different directions.
I have in fact, been very vocal and supportive of (and am speaking at) a local movement and meetings to change the name of the local high school from Robert E Lee High School to some name that is not divisive. I have marched in local MLK Day parades, arm in arm with people of all different skin tones, I've been a part of a multicultural, multireligious, multiracial unity group locally for many many years. I am not "singing from the Fox News Hymn Book" though if you wanted to characterize me in that manner, I guess you could since I did say once or twice, before I even knew it was a divisive phrase, that "all lives matter." BECAUSE THEY DO. Sorry that phrase has been misused, but to say that it's along the same lines of denying the racism of the Nazi party is going a bit too far for me. That being said, I don't use that phrase anymore because I am not into even unintentionally offending other people.
It's all about skin color for my daughter. All about skin color. You should hear her dad rant and rave against white people. It's disgusting. She completely ignores that whole part of her ancestry, and that of her kids. The ironic thing is, her kids do not look "black." They look multiracial - in fact, they look Hispanic and Italian, much like their dad if you want to know the truth. She only focuses on African American issues, culture, etc. I don't understand it. It's like she's trying to purge "white influence" from their lives.
I did not raise my kids this way - I taught them to study and appreciate all different sorts of cultures and not give any one culture any sort of "superior" status. It's appalling to me.
But did you talk to her about the “all lives matter” incident, and acknowledge that you weren’t aware of the connotations when you said it? Because the phrase is purposefully used by whites to marginalize the BLM movement, and attempt to shut down discussion; I believe that wasn’t your intention, but it did just that.
I guess I just wish she was more empathetic - in the past four years I've lost both my inlaws, my husband had a very serious health set back, then my dad got terminally ill and then died, and my mom fell and broke her hip in the middle of all this, and developed vascular dementia too, and an eating disorder, and one of my brothers was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital and then a program, and I had surgery on one of my ankles, and we also moved - and I've probably left some stressors out. Oh, right - then I had to bury my dad, settle his estate in two states, including shutting down a business, sell property in two states, move my mom TWICE into assisted living and then memory care, take her elderly, unhousebroken dogs to be put down, file for guardianship of my MIL so that her dead husband's sister and brother wouldn't be able to steal TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars from her...let me think...yeah, it's been a really, really tough four years. The toughest of my life. Was I at my best this entire time? No, sometimes I was weak, I cried, I drank three glasses of wine in the evening, I panicked, I worried, I overthought options, etc. I am only one human being, not Superwoman, not a goddess, not a divine entity, not a hero, just a regular woman with a helluva lot of emotional stuff going on. The last thing I needed was for one of my kids to go off the deep end, cut me out of her life, and take four of my grandkids away from my mother and me.
We really, really, really could use some grandbaby and daughter love in our lives. It would have been wonderful to be able to curl up in the evening and just talk with my daughter on the phone, or spend a fun weekend with a grandbaby or two, spoiling them, taking them to the hibachi grill, out shopping, to the dinosaur exhibit, or the zoo or whatever. Nope. White lady is not allowed to influence the children!
OK, so back to you and your needs and wants. I am in no way disregarding all that you have been through, but you want to lean on your daughter who can barely handle herself. This is not reasonable in her circumstances. I am unclear what you want within the realm of what is possible.
OK, so back to you and your needs and wants. I am in no way disregarding all that you have been through, but you want to lean on your daughter who can barely handle herself. This is not reasonable in her circumstances. I am unclear what you want within the realm of what is possible.
THe OP also fails to take into account that many of these people mentioned were/are also her daughter’s family members, so she undoubtedly felt much of the stress of this prior to stopping speaking to the OP. In fact, if the daughter has her own issues and the OP is trying to lean on the daughter or got annoyed with her daughter for trying to discover her cultural heritage, this could very well have been part of the reason for the estrangement two years ago. My guess is that all this drama is just too much for her and she just wants some peace and quiet in her life to get some distance from everything, which has turned out to be physical distance in addition to distancing herself in other ways.
But did you talk to her about the “all lives matter” incident, and acknowledge that you weren’t aware of the connotations when you said it? Because the phrase is purposefully used by whites to marginalize the BLM movement, and attempt to shut down discussion; I believe that wasn’t your intention, but it did just that.
My mother and I were not divided on politics, but one of my really vivid memories was her calling, sounding excited about something, but she wasn't really excited for herself. She didn't really 'get' my thing with Ron Paul, but there was something significant that was coming on regarding him and she didn't want me to miss it, but she was also connecting with me. What was important to me became important to her for my sake.
I see a real lack of that here. If I were into BLM my mother would have paid attention to anything she heard about it, specifically tuned in TO hear about it, so that she could always understand where I was coming from.
Part of my point is that she would have learned NOT to say 'all lives matter' on the quick. I mean, that was said by a politician and look at the reaction it got. Overwhelming. This was at the very start, pretty impossible to miss.
We're going to be in the weeds trying to talk about specifics though, KA always has a defense and multiple counter points about the details, Missing the forest for the trees. Misunderstanding the greater idea of the tree in question at every turn.
THe OP also fails to take into account that many of these people mentioned were/are also her daughter’s family members, so she undoubtedly felt much of the stress of this prior to stopping speaking to the OP. In fact, if the daughter has her own issues and the OP is trying to lean on the daughter or got annoyed with her daughter for trying to discover her cultural heritage, this could very well have been part of the reason for the estrangement two years ago. My guess is that all this drama is just too much for her and she just wants some peace and quiet in her life to get some distance from everything, which has turned out to be physical distance in addition to distancing herself in other ways.
In the other thread about this daughter that very thing was said. All of this stuff happening is what sent the daughter over the deed end. Things went from bad to worse quickly.
I don't think it's at all surprising that the daughter would identify primarily as black and identify with African-American people, despite being mixed. Heck, almost all African-American people have white genes. But when most people see African features they put you in the box labeled "Black" and most of them also make a lot of assumptions along with it. She's black in the eyes of US society and it sounds like she had limited opportunity to explore that heritage as a young person (and that her white family was well-intentioned but rather tone-deaf about it) so it's not a big surprise to me that she'd double-down on it as an adult. That's a pretty common dynamic with lots of aspects of identity...heritage, interests, religion, etc.
I do have this idea for your grandchildren. I worked with a lady one time who was estranged from one set of her grandchildren. The ex-daughterinlaw would send back mail addressed to the grandchildren and her own son was a unresponsible guy.
What she did was to set up savings accounts for each kid & deposit what she spent on her other grandkids for birthdays, holidays, & Christmas...and she wrote letters & cards to each (just as she did all her grands) & kept the estranged ones in her safe deposit box. Her plan was to give each their account when they turned 18 with the letters& cards.
And she had all this in her will also, so in case she passed they would get the letters & cards & accounts and know she loved them all the while.
That is a good idea about putting money that you would normally spend on gifts into a saving account. And, I would think using some type of ledger for each grandchildren would be especially nice. So, instead of a grandchild just receiving a check for (let's say) $2,000 or $5,000 or whatever on their 18 th birthday, they get a ledger, too, listing some of the times that you were thinking about them. Or all the cards and letters that you would have normally sent.
July 22, 2018, Darling Mary, Happy 10th birthday. This is in place of a gift and gigantic birthday cake with ten candles. Deposit $35
October 31, 2018, Mary, I saw some scary books in a book store that I thought that you would enjoy. Happy Halloween! Deposit $25
December 25, 2018. Merry Christmas to my wonderful granddaughter Mary! I love you! Deposit $100
etc. etc.
^^^This. Although I've just skimmed this thread, if she is identifying as being black and you want to get along with her, you should get beyond the politics and go along with her ideas. Don't argue with her ideas.
If she says black lives matter, you agree that black lives matter. She's having a hard time. She's confused and trying to find her identity. Don't apologize about her father, especially if she kind of idolizes him. Just go along with what she believes, or at least as much as you can. Black lives matter means that black lives matter TOO. That's all she's trying to say. Don't argue with that if you want to get along with her.
You may never get the chance but if you do, get the politics out of the way and sympathize with her, take her side. For the time being until she matures and gets a more neutral understanding. So sorry that you are dealing with everything lately. It's really overwhelming. But maybe someday this daughter will come back, grandchildren too. However, you will probably have to push your own beliefs to one side and just listen to her and try to (or pretend to) agree with her, as hard as that may be.
I agree with you totally and I don't even want to talk about politics with her. This is a new bent of hers, though - a new direction she's going (well it was two years ago) and I never would have said anything to offend her if I had known she was starting to go down this road. Up till a few months before she cut me off, we could openly discuss all sorts of topics and I didn't realize she was in disagreement with me, if she even was at that point.
I think if she ever does come back to me, I am just going to have to say "I love you for who you are, every bit of you, and I think we shouldn't talk about politics - let's just focus on things we both love, like art and history and that sort of thing."
The thing is, she has blatantly and outright rejected me - me, who I am, my personality, my race, my background, my parents (her grandparents), everything about me. That's hard to swallow. Her complete cut off makes me feel like she must actually and actively dislike me - a lot. Well, wait, she's told me she doesn't like me at all! Honestly, that really hurts. It's hard to get past because it makes me feel awkward and constrained around her, self conscious and weird.
Oh well, I may never even have to worry about that again anyway. I just hope that the grandkids will contact me one day.
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