Boomer parents who are now the grandparents

Posted by Visual_Definition174@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 52 comments

I have a teen who is struggling with mental illness. For the last three months, I have essentially been running a one to one mental hospital because none of the main stream treatment suggestions have been helpful. Therapy, group therapy, IOP, PHP, RTC and everything except for a therapeutic boarding school has been tried. And I would never send my kid to one of those so it's been done. What I am doing now is listening to my teen. Every day I check in multiple times a day. If he is depressed, we talk about it and I ask him what can I do, what can I help him try next. He usually has an idea and we try it. Online school was making him sad so I signed him up for a new school. Learning is hard so I signed him up for psycho/ed evals. Anxiety was crushing him. I signed him up for ketamine through a psychiatrist, I signed him up for traditional meds through another psychiatrist, he has a good therapist and he is slowly but surely making his way through this. Every day it gets a smidge better overall but there are setbacks. What I struggle the most with is the peanut gallery that is "the family". Due to divorce in the boomer generation, I have SEVEN baby boomers offering their endless and useless .02. They don't call their grandkid - they call and text ME because they are "concerned". And I am having to politely bite my tongue so as not to ruin the good part of their relationship with my kid but man, they are driving me crazy. When I was a troubled teen, that generation offered the worst kind of help ever ranging from "suck it up" to complete neglect and abandonment. Now these people are asking after him through ME like they care. I have heard criticism for the way I'm doing things, I have heard book suggestions when my kid has expressed he hates reading, I have heard suggestions like "move to a new town" but what I never hear is "I spoke to him or I am coming to see him". They are so out of touch with his life and his feelings yet so quick to reach out to me.

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Throw8976m@reddit

My second daughter went through some difficulties a few years ago (ADHD, neurodivergence and, at the time, gender dysphoria) and it was a difficult a traumatizing time for us all. I quickly noticed how judgmental and ignorant my mother's response was. It didn't surprise me, because I was also a troubled teen and not in small part due to her maltreatment of me during my childhood. That was when I started to severely limit contact with her. She is unsupportive, so why involve her in anything?

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marge7777@reddit

Mine was the same. She is now back to her original gender… My parents absolutely had no compassion. I keep exposure to them limited.

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wevebeentired@reddit

My oldest struggled with gender identity, as well. And we had zero compassion from all but one grandparent. One even wrote me a letter about how he could not acknowledge a different gender or name for his grandchild, regardless of mental health concerns. And now the grandparent that lives closest is holding it all over our heads, with comments like, “thank goodness she is over all of that nonsense. I knew it wouldn’t last. She’s just too pretty to be a boy. Aren’t you so relieved!” And just last week, “ I may not agree with all of (youngest’s) fashion choices, but at least she knows she’s a girl.” I am indeed relieved my kid didn’t off herself for lack of support, yes. In the meantime, freedom to express the gender she felt at the time was what was needed, even with a**hole grandparents. As soon as she vocalized her struggle and found support from peers and parents she started healing, regardless of boomer ’s close mindedness. As far as relationships with grandparents now? - That ship has sailed. It’s all surface and arm’s length stuff. Very sad.

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