Do you love your grandchildren as much or more than your own children?

I feel the same as Grammaretto. I love my GC and I am extremely proud of them but as I am not the one who is nurturing them so it is a different love from the one I felt for my children.
The absolute joy with GC is that you can enjoy them without being responsible for them which is maybe why some feel they may love them more.
I love all my family but as someone said they are not the centre of my world fortunately. I am careful to make sure I have other interests as well.

It’s a no brainier to me. I love my children more. With the grandchildren, there’s other people in the mix. I do love them dearly, but I still have that overwhelming need to support my children first.

I hope I love all my GC equally, but I probably love my AC more. My love for my DSs has grown immeasurably as I see what wonderful parents and partners they have become, and I love my DILs as if they were my own daughters. I find my GC far more interesting as they grow older. Babies are cute and adorable but I seem to prefer them when I can have a conversation with them. There are times when I don't like the way they behave and I will tell them so but it was the same with my own boys, it's just the way kids are. No doubt my GC will be more challenging as they get into their teens, but it won't change my love for them, just another stage of growing up that has to be weathered, and it will be much harder for their parents!

I've got a feeling we might just love the most recent children in our lives because nature has programmed us to protect our own gene pool, and the younger they are the more they need protecting.

Overthinking? Probably.

Perhaps when great-grandchildren come along we will find we love them the most.

Personally, no I don’t love them as much. I do when they’re babies but once they get older I have to admit that, whilst I undoubtedly do love them, and I suppose spoil them, I don’t have that all consuming love that I had for my own children. I think that’s natural and I don’t understand why some grans love their gc more than their own children.

Like many others I love them all but I think it's probably natural to be one step removed, so to speak, regarding love of the grandchildren.

I'm surprised when posters say things like, besotted, they're my life, etc. Sounds mawkish and suffocating.

My mum had two lots of grandchildren, two of them disabled, before my two came
along. I remember her looking at my lovely 16 month old with what seemed like distaste and saying “They say that you love your grandchildren more than your children but for me that isn’t true”. I was upset at the time because I felt it as a rejection of my child. It probably was, but now I see it as the weary response of a worn-out soul.

I love my grandchildren so very much but recently surprised myself. My 5 year old GD was being very rude and disobedient to my son and I found myself jumping to his defence and feeling angry with her for making things so difficult for him when he’s such a good father.

Framilode

I was wondering how I’ll feel about great grandchildren, and honestly, I can’t see myself being overly interested. For one thing, I doubt I’ll hardly ever see them, and I feel it will be time to take a step back.

I love my children but they are grown and have their own lives, I love my grandchildren but they will eventually grow and have their own lives, in fact the grandchild that I am closest to already has. I love his son my great grandson but it is not an overwhelming thing. I love them all dearly but they are not the centre of my life, that position belongs to my husband

I have 3 dgc, I love them dearly but my eldest gd is the most horrible person when shes around her siblings and parents, I dread her visiting with them, shes fine on her own, sometimes I think I love the others much more and feel a bit guilty for that but she makes it do hard and as you say i find myself defending my daughter against a 13 year old, but in reality they allow her to treat them and siblings like muck

I think I love my children and grandchildren equally. Of course they get on my nerves sometimes. But somtunes my own children tested my patience a lot! Loving doesn't mean the same as liking.

I love my own children more. I love my grandchildren but if anything happened to one of them my grief would be more for my daughter than for the child. I have some great grandchildren that I hardly see and don't feel the same for them at all. I can look at them and think they are lovely children but they don't feel part of me in the same way my own children, and to a lesser extent my grandchildren, do.

I’m interested that the OP feels that telling her GD off for being rude to her mother might mean she loves her less? On the contrary - children who are not loved at all grow up with nobody setting them straight. Grandmother helping her to see she’s being obnoxious is doing her a big favour

NNannyG123 I'm with you, I would do anything for any of them children and grandchildren but there are times when they annoy me and could lovingly 'bang their heads together' as my grandad used to say.

I see myself in my oldest granddaughter, my oldest grandson is just like his dad, my son in law, next one is just herself, very beautiful and rather spoilt, but lovely with a lovely sense of humour. Next one is just like her auntie when she was a child, next possibly like his dad who we’ve never met, and finally the youngest is just like her mum at that age.

I find it all fascinating, but wonder if it affects how you feel about each child.

i love them equally as i do my close friends,why the hierarchy?
When my son andfamily moved to ireland 2 years ago ,my knee jerk reaction was to follow ,i didn't want to miss out on them growing up.Now i see they are important but so are other people in my life.I love them but don't always love what they do. I haven't moved to ireland yet......

It's different type of love. I would do anything for them and my children. But perhaps I'm lucky and have got the best grandchildren I could hope for, but that's not saying they don't sometimes annoy me. As do my own children.

Surely as rights and obligations are linked it depends how much of these you have with you grandchildren. With your children it is entire. Unconditional and you are very responsible for how they are, you feel that. Grandchildren hardly the same you are not in the front line it is best you hold some emotion back because you have very limited control. But then I only see mine in the flesh two or three times a year and I’m very motivated to see how wondrous they are because they are the adored children of my son....perhaps it also matters how much regard, affection, love or loathing you might have for their other parent...

I love all my grandchildren but at times I don’t particularly like my 11 year old GS who can be surly, rude and tells lies, sometimes about me. My DH always says ‘ you like someone because of what they do, you love someone inspite of everything’.

I love my grandson dearly, but in a different way to my daughter/own mum/husband. The love is different. Would I give him a kidney if required, yes no question, would I give financially to improve his life, yes if it was needed. And that love is unconditional. I have more time to spend with him than I ever did with my daughter when she was little but I have less energy now and seek a little respite from time to time.

You can still love them, even if you don’t love the way they behave. Frankly, my eldest GC is a spoilt brat a lot of the time. But I love her to pieces....as I do, my other GC and my own children. Love can’t be measured and quantified. I don’t believe that you love someone ‘more’ or ‘less’ than another, just in a different way.

I never wanted to be a grandmother ,it never entered my mind. Yet when they were born they stole my heart. Everyone is right its a very different kind of love, beyond explaining. I can honestly say I love them all equally, children and grandchildren. My heart smiles whenever I see any of them.

I love all my children & grandchildren but if you asked me if I like them all I have completely different answers for each of them which change throughout the years.

I'm not sure love is the most importance question - perhaps is more about accepting them just as they are & not expecting them to be one way or another.

Do I love myself though? Maybe that's the more important question because if I don't love me then I don't really know how to love anyone else either.

Tedber I was one of the few who said on the older thread that I loved my children more than my grandchildren. I don't honestly think this is surprising. I love my grandchildren dearly but as others have said, it is not the same.