Pd mom with no interest in being a grandma only calls for granchild's birthday

[truthseeker4life]

My PD mom who I had a major falling out with in 2016 (read: I stood up to her abuse and she discarded me) lives 5 miles away and has nothing to do with my 2 young daughters (well nothing to do with me either). No visits, phone calls, attempts to see them.

Yet she calls them on their birthdays. 

I let the lady phone call yesterday go to voicemail.

Is this her attempt at seeing herself as a good grandma?

Or perhaps supply to tell everyone how horrible that she calls on their birthdays but we just don't answer. 

Just wondering if any one can identify and if this is common.

These phone calls disgust me the more I am removed from her. (Um can you say 3 years without acknowledgement or apology for her behavior - total silent treatment and discard of me).

Feels like a checkbox duty thing or a supply booster???

[Amadahy]

Hi truthseeker!

I'm sorry for the crazy making! Being discarded hurts and this once yearly phone call is bizarre. My guess would be that she does it so one day she can say that "I tried, but truthseeker kept my grandchildren from me!" But whatever her narrative, I don't blame you one bit!

[candy]

What is it with those PD moms and birthdays, especially NPD as I read from your other posts?

My MIL who is giving DH the silent treatment lashes out at our FOC on our birthdays and other special days. She has been sending cards addressed to our toddler - but full of ambiguous passive-aggressive, even clearly mean remarks for DH and me. She has sent a cheap present packed in pre-used wrapping paper. Everything about these gifts says ,,I don't care about you. Look how little I care."

My take of this behavior, and of those one-time per year calls you receive, is that PD moms (or parents) just cannot stand occasions that are not about them. It is attention-seeking behavior. They cannot have it their way? Well, they'll try to get into your head, make you think about them, get you to wonder what their motives might be... it's about control and manipulation, I guess. I would make a vote for supply booster 

A call once a year is definitely NOT about one of your daughters. It is about the adult who should know better. Eventually that grandma is a stranger to your young kids, IMO a healthy adult would respect that and restrain herself from confusing the kids.
You are right to not answer that calls! You are protecting your daughters and yourself! You are doing the responsible, motherly, caring work despite your own hurt. I understand that these calls disgust you.

Hang in there!

[all4peace]

I'm not sure we can ever know why someone else does what they do, and they themselves are likely not aware of their motivations. We can only manage how we respond.

We have the same situation on both sides of our family. We do the same thing every year: Ask our kids (one an adult now) how they would like to spend their birthday, then do that, joyfully and as connectedly as possible. I used to agonize over all the rest, but I realized my kids weren't agonizing. They were simply enjoying the thing they had chosen for their bday. So now that's what I do, too--make the best of the day and time together and try to let go of the rest.

In our families, bdays mean strange behavior like one PD gma sending our kids loads of photos from their childhoods with their grandparents.
On the other side, we have 1-3 family members using DD's bday as a way to try (yet again, going on 5 years now) to get direct access to DD via her email or phone. It gets old.

We very briefly process with our DD (Do you want to talk about this? How are you feeling?) and then move on and treat it as a very faint blip on our otherwise great life.

The PDs in our family may treat us in ways that accidentally or purposefully harm us, but we can choose how much time and head space we allow them. Let it hurt, acknowledge it to yourself, do whatever it takes to process those feelings, and then let it move on through to make room for more lovely things in your life.