Cut off culture

What grandparent alienation does to the grandchild

When a grandparent is cut off, the grandchild is cut off too. Nobody asks the child. Nobody explains it to them. And because a young child cannot name what has been taken, the world decides nothing was taken at all.

It shows up later. It shows up in their thirties, in a counsellor’s room, when they finally find words for the thing that went missing.

Two women wrote to us about it. Both are grown now. Both were separated from a grandmother they loved. They asked us to publish what they wrote, in their own words, so that another grandchild does not have to carry it.

Letter one

“I was pulled from my grandmother’s arms at the train station”

A journal entry from a grown woman, reflecting on being separated from her grandmother.

Today is the day I start living again. It is so peaceful where I am at this moment. I haven’t felt that stillness or peace for more than 30 years. My life was, and is, complicated.

There is so much I don’t remember. There was the trauma and my inability to cope with it. My earliest memory was being in the crib at 6 to 8 months, feeling terrible with a fever. I was crying out for hours and shaking the crib in the hope someone would know I hurt and come and get me. My Mom was very sick with lupus and at that time the doctors did not know how to help her.

My Nonna Lina came to pick me up and bring me to Italy to be babysat by her until Mom felt strong enough to care for me.

My Nonna Lina and Nonno Antonio were everything to me growing up. I remember my small bike that would fold when I was too tired to ride. Nonna was always kind to me and took care of me. Sometimes when I visited I played with the kids next door too. The house was a small apartment with an outhouse. Even though she was half blind she was paid $20 to work. Although this information may seem insignificant, it is one of my happy memories that I don’t want to forget. One time when we were walking by the lake there was a cute man, and she licked her eyebrows and fixed her face. I remember thinking that is so funny.

I was so happy with my grandmother, and I remember going to pre-school with the nuns. I had a small black dress with a white collar. My last memory was being pulled from my grandmother’s arms at the train station. I was screaming and kicking and desperate to stay with my grandma. The stranger who pulled me from my grandmother was my mom.

My life went dark for me after that. I’ve seen pictures of my first communion, going to Disney and other events I can’t remember. That trauma of leaving my grandmother was devastating to me. I’ve tried many times to remember life after my grandmother was pulled away from me, but it’s all black.

At 7 I was allowed to go back and see my grandmother each summer until I was 16. We played on the beach and I just loved being with her.

Looking back now, I was taken from my happiest place in the world, my Nonna’s. I was angry with my mom for a time. But my heart softened toward my mother. I still had to get help to deal with the pain.

I am just writing to help other grandchildren who are taken away from their grandparents, so they do not suffer the trauma I did. I did not even realise how much this affected me until I was older.

Please do not cheat your children out of spending time alone with their grandparents. We — the grandchild and the grandparent — have a relationship, and this time with my grandmother was the most precious time of my childhood that I remember. The rest is now black.

— M. D.

Letter two

“I did feel cheated out of time with my grandmother Maria”

I love my mother and father, but I did feel cheated out of time with my grandmother Maria. My mother kept pushing her own mom on me, and I loved her, but I saw her all the time and did not have the same connection I had with my father’s mother, my grandmother Maria. I loved my maternal grandmother too, but there was some kind of imprinting my grandmother and me had on each other.

I only got to see her once a year, with my parents and family. My grandmother and me would play tennis, swim, play bocce ball and croquet. Grandma would take me on hikes in the woods and teach me which plants were edible and which weren’t.

I would have loved to spend time alone in the summer with my grandmother, but my mom would not allow it. I loved my mom, but she could be controlling, and she cheated me out of time with my grandmother. My grandma Maria died when I was 8, and I was not allowed to go to the funeral. I went to my mom’s mother’s funeral, but not my grandma Maria’s.

As I grew I resented my mother, and I was angry that she would not let me spend time in the summer with my grandmother Maria, but instead sat in the house.

This grew in my teen years into resentment towards my mom. It wasn’t until later that I realised what I was cheated out of. I made up with my mom and loved her very much, but what she did was selfish, controlling and wrong. I had to go through the pain of forgiving my mom, which was painful, and I will never understand why she did that.

I do not want another grandchild to go through this trauma. If you have an involved grandparent, let them have time with your child, their grandchild. Because it will come back to bite you later.

— K. G.

If you are reading this in the middle of it

Both sides of this are carrying something

If you are the grandparent, these letters are not here to make the waiting harder. They are here because you have probably been told the child is fine, that they have forgotten you, that it is better this way. These two women are the answer to that.

If you are the parent making the decision, you are not the villain in this. You may have reasons nobody else can see. But the child is a third person in it, and one day they will be old enough to tell you what it cost them.

Kathryn walks this with people every week. Nobody there will tell you to get over it, and nobody will ask you to take sides.

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Were you kept from a grandparent, or from a grandchild? Kathryn would like to hear it. Write to her and say whether you would want it shared here one day. Nothing is published without your say-so, and initials only unless you ask otherwise.