Have paternal grans always been less involved with their grandchildren than maternal grans?

it's not about the grans.
that's the wrong way of looking at it.
nothing to do with being worthy, or fairness; just what suits the family, what feels right, is convenient, and life-enhancing.
any hint of competitive grannying, and they've ruled themselves out, red card. ditto for pushiness.

I didn't want my mother around and didn't need her help postpartum when my babies were born. She was welcome to visit though, as was MIL. I was quite capable.

The main difference in my MIL and mother's involvement with my children was that my mother was also interested in being involved with me. My mother also called and asked if she could come visit and had suggestions like, let's take the kids to the zoo together. My mother invited me to visit her at her home. My MIL never did any of those things which led to less involvement.

I did take the initiative thinking my MIL would like to be more involved, and invited her to have a regular visit monthly. She came the first month. Then she didn't. I thought it was going to be a standing arrangement but wasn't going to chase her each month. She either took me up on it or didn't. So that never happened.

I'm not interested in working out what is fair and making things even. I'm more interested in a natural relationship. I'm not going to count. If it worked out that I had a closer relationship with my MIL in the end, that's just how it would have happened.

I think yes, a more natural relationship does exist with your own mother, most of the time. That is why your son should organise time with his family. This is not on the DIL.

You wrote: "isn't the son also worthy of his family's support at this momentous time?" Well, of course. If he wants it. Though his role is really to support his wife as she establishes nursing and recovers physically from the birth. You can support him in how to do that best. A lot of the time my impression is that the MIL isn't so much interested in supporting her son as she is in having access to the baby. My MIL should feel free to come over and support her son. Me and baby will go catch a nap while she does that, after a quick catch up to say hello, of course.

My older grandsons nan has been much more involved with him than I have.
She was beside herself with joy when she knew he was expected, and obsessed with him.
They are very close.
I'm sure she facilitated a lot of the time my grandson spent with his dad, so that she could get her hands on him.

I think it's lovely that they hang out together.

As a paternal grandmother, I have always been as much part of my grandchildren's lives as the maternal grandmother, given our circumstances and distance. DS and DDiL, together, go to great lengths to see us, usually staying a week every school holiday plus us visiting them at least once every term. We used always to stay with DDiL's mother, although her age and infirmity means that is no longer possible.

When our DC were small, we were meticulous about being even handed between both sets of grandparents and, towards the end of their lives we spent more time with DH's parents because they were older, ill and were non drivers, and support and care and both predeceased my parents by over 10 years.

The same applied to my grandparents, they lived close to each other and we saw both of them equally. Not that my paternal grandmother, who had 18 grandchildren showed much interest in me.

In fact until I joined GN I didn't realise that this disparity even existed.

Sadly, we are the only grandparents our little ones have. We try to be the best we can and we both feel so fortunate for the opportunity to spend time as a family, circumstances permitting. We are the maternal grandparents. That said I know in my heart I’d never haven been a competitive grandma as I just think the more people who love and care about these two gorgeous children, the better.
?❤️

I met my paternal grandmother twice and my maternal grandmother once in my childhood. I guess that's fairly equal.

I think it is a complete myth. I also don’t get this business of new mothers being so reliant on their mother? Honestly having a new baby isn’t that much of a deal is it ?

I'm a paternal grandmother and I see as much of my GC as the other GP. We both have days of school pick ups, sleepovers and adventure days with them and we often meet up and do things all together. There's never been any rivalry between us at all thank goodness.

It’s not my experience, at all. I also think it depends on how you define help and support. In the early days mum and dad often need different things. Any emotional support my dil may have needed, came mainly from being hormonal, sore, exhausted from breastfeeding and, (once his 2 weeks paternity leave had finished) alone with the baby for 12+ hours when my son was at work. These factors just didn’t apply to my son. It wasn’t that he wasn’t ‘worthy’ of support, he simply didn’t need it.

My dil has always said that the thing she appreciated most in the those first few weeks was adult company. My son was out of the house for over 12 hours, she was alone. She and I were close before she had dgs, so I used to pop round for an hour or so, have a cuppa with dil. That was only ‘possible’ because we had an easy relationship. Quite often dgs would be asleep or feeding the whole time I was there. It would have been a very uncomfortable 90 minutes if dil hadn’t got on well. Where that been the case, I can understand why mil isn’t the one dil ‘chooses’ for company. My son simply didn’t have the same ’need’ for adult conversation/company. He was getting it at work.

As far as ‘help’ goes, I’m not sure what you mean? When it came to dropping round food, making a cup of tea etc all help was appreciated and accepted equally. If you mean specific baby care, my son and dil didn’t ask or seem to require any help. I (and I’m assuming others) occasionally ‘watched’ gs for 10 minutes while dil had a quick shower. But son and dil were both capable and keen to take the lead with their own child. I think sometimes as grandparents we underestimate our adult children’s ability, and overestimate their reliance on us.

As my gs got older, I saw him most, simply because I was the only retired grandparent. This was largely facilitated by my dil, who invited me to spend time with her and dgs. My own son is very protective of his family time, and if left to him, I’d see my gs a lot less.

Sadly, my DM’s health meant she couldn’t be in my girls’ lives as much as she wanted to be. MIL - least said!
Unfortunately I’m the only GP my DDs can rely on - so I do as much as I can for them, as I know how much I needed the odd hour or two to get a task done quickly and didn’t get it. It also means I get one to one time with my little DGSs.
A friend had her DS, DinL and baby living with her for 6 months after delivery - DinL is from Thailand and says that’s normal and other than feeding, left everything else to her.

You’re always going to get people for whom this experience isn’t the case, but I think you’re right, generally, in my experience, and it is only my experience.....paternal grandparents take second place.

I’m blessed enough to see it from both sides, having two daughters and two DIL’s. One of my DIL’s always looked upon me as her mum, because her own wasn’t great. The other one, although clearly loves us...puts her family first.

You read it on here, and I’ve encountered it through friends. It doesn’t mean the paternal grandparents have nothing, just that they don’t get called first. Understandably I would think.

For the record...I didn’t want either mum or MIL.Both were not real help, and I didn’t particularly need it.

Nurseryrhyme, my MIL was brilliant, although in her eighties, she'd sit on the floor and play Lego with the kids. She was great company.

My own mother was not welcome, apart from the odd, brief, accompanied visit - when she'd feel compelled to tell us we were doing everything wrong. Thankfully, she didn't like babies or kids so didn't stay long.

So, it all depends on family dynamics, but I never felt the need for extra help - or that it was a 'momentous' time - even with the fourth.

What a lovely relationship you have with your DIL, SpanielNanny. I wish I'd been able to have the same with my MIL but it couldn't be.

My granddaughter has only one set of grandparents, me and OH. My son’s partner’s father died years ago. Her mother was still alive when my granddaughter was born, but sadly had dementia. Extra sad as I live more than an hour away and the other grandmother 10 minutes. Obviously she could never look after a baby - my son said five minutes was the longest she could be left alone with a child, let alone a newborn. Now it’s just OH and I. It would be lovely if we lived nearer but that’s how it is. We do our best to help out and just a couple of weeks ago I stayed over for half term and took my granddaughter out.

As paternal grandparents we were able to give far more practical support to the whole family, in many different ways. This was not the norm in our circle of friends. The payback was a really close relationship with our grandson. We overheard him once saying to his friend “They’re my sort of second parents”. Now he is in his first year at Uni and we are glad that we had that relationship.

My mother was in a different country and my mother in law, who had trained as an infant nurse, lived about 30 mins away. She was well over 70 however, so we didn't take advantage of her much.

When my 4th DGC was due, I sat down with my DiL and her mother and asked if she would like one of us to come and be with her (they lived in California but she was home for a bit). We amicably agreed that I should go over as the other grandmother had no more holiday from work that year. Also she didn't feel confident enough to do it on her own because her English isn't very good.

Actually, the other grandmother isn't a very maternal type - she didn't really want children, by her own admittance. Now she is retired, she does enjoy the little ones, though. The maternal grandfather is a picture book granddad; so is my DH - they are very lucky kids! My daughters in law have always been very fair and I have never felt any rivalry.

Neither of my grandmothers ever had anything to do with our upbringing. My maternal grandmother taught me to play cribbage - that was about it.

I've not a clue as to how often my GC see their other GPs. Don't care either. I'll just happily take as much as I'm offered.

It depends on individual family set ups and how grandparents view their role in their grandchildren's lives. There are those who are hell bent on becoming a "professional grandparent" before the baby arrives. Many of us have read the testaments of both daughters and daughters in law to know that some grandparents will not take a back seat. hence all the "time alone with grandchild" threads we see on here and many more of that nature over on MN. We did have those times from babyhood but at the parents request for babysitting which we were happy to do. Similarly there are those grandparents who have a far greater input thrust upon them for various reasons and possibly play a far greater role than they feel they would like or feel able to do.

As a paternal grandparent, I do feel part of the B team at times, but on the other hand we would not for example have wanted to take our grandchildren on a two week holiday, which is what the other side have done on several occasions. Good grief having done that once as parents, when children grow up and no longer want to be taken away, that was our time to have the adult holidays we wanted. I'm glad to see our grandchildren as often as we are able to which has and still is fairly regular, for example they will be coming to us this week end from Friday afternoon through till Sunday early evening, we saw them for that duration about a month ago. I'm happy for the input we have with them my heart goes out to those grandparents who for whatever reason don't see their grandchildren it is a very special relationship, in some ways a lot less stressful than the ones we may experience with our own children.

When I was growing up we saw both sets of grandparents fairly regularly, but they belonged to a generation who didn't really do "hands on grandparenting" I remember we were sent to our maternal grandparents occasionally for overnight stays . We also stayed with them, along with our parents in the summer holidays in our early childhood as they retired to the Sussex coast. Later on when we were in our teens we went to stay with our paternal grandparents when our parents buggered off went to America on holiday and didn't want to take us clearly done with the expense of dragging not very interested children with them, annoyed at the time, but years later came to appreciate that stance!

Unfortunately I am my dgs only grandmother as his other dgm died 3 months after he was born even though she was much younger than me. She was very close to her dds children and did a lot with them until she died at the age of 57.

My sil does not have much in common with his df but dgs sees him about every 6 weeks. Dh and I live 4 minutes walk from our dd and we look after dgs up to 3 mornings and evenings a week (sil works shifts) and we hope that we make up for the lack of his other dgm. My dh is called silly papa by dgs which shows the kind of relationship they have!

Doesn’t a lot depend on the mother in law/daughter in law relationship, distance and other circumstances? My paternal grandmother openly admitted she didn’t like babies and small children - they had a nanny - and I probably saw her once a year though she didn’t live far away and I know my mum did her best with a very difficult and tactless mother in law. My maternal grandmother was the exact opposite. I don’t think things should become a ‘who’s the best granny’ competition but it often seems that way on GN, with grandparents complaining they don’t get their fair share. I guess I don’t understand this whole dependency on grandchildren thing, full stop.

Not this one (me!). I was very much involved with all my grandchildren and never had any problems with the other grandparents.

No, it is not true.
Several things have to be taken into account - all generally speaking and of course not every family works this way

1. The education in the west generally promotes more closeness with daughters than sons, therefore when they grow up, the sons dont call for mom as often as daughters

2. Adults now are much more independent than previous generations, getting the information needed from docs, internet, peers, etc., not relying on the family elders

3. Families now do think "accepting help" isn't choice and can say no

4. Past relationship with parents will lead the relationship when kids come - not where the dna comes from (paternal or maternal side)

5. Women now reject the concept of social secretary, so the paternal side gets left behind if the son does not take care of that.

6. The concept of family has also changed. Core family is protected and grandparents are extended
Family events such as weddings, birth of children, where to live, etc.- are private for input only in the core family

7. Having a child is now rightly seen as a medical event, so the mother and child need to heal and rest.
Their needs become primary and everybody else's wants do not matter.

It's different for every family, because every family is different.

Mine, all but one, lived 150 miles away. The first GD lived close by so I saw a lot of her. After graduation, she moved to live with her dad and step family. The other GPs were all at a distance too. In my opinion, their parents all did a great job with little Grandparent input. Believe it or not, that is possible!