Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 5:00
#Ask Swell Should a father's family be kept from the child because the mother and father don't get along?
Because I think it's wrong. I think that my relationship with my grandson and with her should be separate from my son's because I love my grandson and my grandson loves me, and I want to be in his life, and he wants me in his life. He loves to spend time with me. The last time I saw him, I picked him up one time and he was like, granny, I thought I lost you
Robert Jenkins
@Guruball1 · 4:02
Because of the hatred or the anger or the, I'm going to get you back, so I'm going to take it out on your parents. It's really foolish. We should be able to be mature enough, and I know that I am. I don't care who a woman is seeing. My son's mother has three other children from two different guys since my son was born. I don't care. I go see them. They come to my house. We spend time
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 2:08
Hi Robert. Thank you for commenting. And like I say is, I agree. Amen. You know, I'm sorry that your mother passed away before that situation got resolved. But now that mom has to deal with the fact that that grandson, you know, that your child didn't get that love. And a mother's love is good, a father's love is good. But a grandparent's love is so different. It's so different
Kitha Larie
@chitchatwithkk · 1:56
Whether they get along or not, that's not your fault. That's not your fault. And I believe that you should see those babies. You should see your grandson. It's good you have a relationship with your daughter and her children. But it's not fair for your grandson to not be able to have a relationship with you or his father because she's bitter. I hate when people do that. And that's one thing I said I would never do. I would never do that
Natasha Nurse
@DressingRoom8 · 4:45
And if people want to have different experiences then they're welcome to do that with their children. But every parent is in charge of figuring out who gets to spend time with their child. And I think whenever, and I don't necessarily get on with everyone in my partner's family, but at the end of the day we just make kind of concessions around how the time is spent because I didn't grow up with my grandparents
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 4:56
And so I just don't understand it. And me coming from being a product of adoption family means that much more to me. And so I know how I felt not knowing my biological family. So I would never want my children to feel like that. And I never want my grandchildren to feel like I felt about my grandparent, about my mom's stepmom, never want my children to my grandchildren to feel like that
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 4:48
So even if you're upset with my son, if he comes to my house, he won't even see my son because he's at my house. Was so. Yeah, I disagree. And, you know, jeez
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 4:59
And this is why, too, we can even talk about on a larger scale about divorce and breaking up families, because it's never just mom and dad breaking up. It does involve the grandparents. It does involve the aunties, one of my nieces, because, again, my brother's child, when he broke up with the mother, and they both got married pretty much after that to other people
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 4:59
Plus the fact that those men are the fathers to my nieces and nephews, I'm not going to just dis them because you all not together. No, those are my brothers. I told them I didn't appreciate what they did to you and I didn't appreciate the relationship with you, but that had nothing to do with my relationship with them. And I know everybody isn't able to separate the two. I get that
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 4:59
So they're always going to tell you negative, but you got to be able to realize that what I'm doing, my situation ain't your situation. Like, okay, maybe your daddy for your kid ain't doing for your kid, and maybe the mother is taking up for that dad. And like, well, my son is good dad and whatever, you know what I mean? If that's the case for you, then that's for you
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 3:50
I understand it, and I know that that's another layer that she's dealing with, but I hope in time she'll be able to tell them, like, look, if you all don't have good relationships with your son's people on his daddy's side, that's you all. My son's granny is a good granny, and she does her best for her grandson, and she loves him, so I'm not going to take him from her
Angela Kaye
@AnngieKaye · 5:00
She's the parents of the mother of my four cousins. And that's what it is. And that's why I tried to get into people's stuff, because, like you said, if your daughter and her husband want to come to you with a dispute, as a seasoned saint, as a woman of God, they can come to you without you taking sides. I mean, there's a side of. Right, right
Natasha Nurse
@DressingRoom8 · 4:16
I know that that is contrary to the norm of most people saying, like, family is family, and you always make space for family. I'm not of that breed. Breed. I think that people, Larie, people and people should always be assessed the same way that we don't just decide to continue to work somewhere if we're not enjoying the environment or we're feeling abused or we go into spaces and we don't like how we're being treated
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 4:31
And I don't say nothing to them about calling me that. I think it's an honor and a privilege that me and their fathers, me and the men are not together, but the families still think highly of me. To call me that and to still include me as family, that's an honor and a privilege, and I don't take it for granted
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 4:41
And so my mom went and said something to her about it, but, yeah, so I grew up with that. I grew up with her making a difference, and I know how I felt. And I vowed to myself that I would never let my children feel like that. On the flip side, I saw how my dad was with my children and how my mom was with my children, and I vowed that that's how I was going to be with my grandchildren
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 2:44
Also, regardless of what happened between the mother and father, the grandparents don't need to be falling into that same trap of using the child as a bargaining tool, as a control mechanism, as a pawn. I believe there needs to be an understanding with everybody involved in this child's life. There needs to be an understanding that this is how we're going to do it, because we have to see past ourselves and see what's in the best interest of the child
Andrea Piggue
@Andrea_Speaks · 5:00
I just have to pray that the love that I've given him these last seven, almost eight years, that he just realizes that if Granny isn't around, it's not because she doesn't love me, it's for something else. And I would never say anything to him against his mother because I'm just not that type of person. I don't believe in doing that. I don't believe you should down, talk a parent to their child
Shundrea Trotty
@ShundreaS · 4:43
And even telling my son, like, you have been fortunate that even though you all have had spats and you get into it, that even when she's pissed, she doesn't keep you from your daughter, she doesn't stop us from seeing her. Because there are situations like yours and others have described where it can be so toxic and only the child suffers. Because to have more love is to have more exposure, to have more growth, to have more support
And when I went to the funeral, turns out that I have more siblings than I thought. And at first, no one really kind of knew who I was, but then my older sister knew because she was around. She was, I think, twelve or 13 when my mother and my father were engaged in a relationship. I don't know. It's a difficult thing to navigate. It really is. And it just depends on how you want your life to go