Feeling used, feeling guilty

Why feel guilty. You are not in the best of health and find having them too much. Children that age should be safe enough to be expected to manage on their own at home for one night and within a year should be old enough and ugly enough not to need to be looked after at all.

If you think their father isn't doing enough, their mother is not exactly accepting all her responsibilities either. She and her ex brought these children into the world. They are responsible for their care. Grandparents are there to respond in an emergency, not provide her with a convenient dumping ground whenever she has to travel away for work or fancies time out without them..

CrazyH, I can quite understand how you feel. I am getting to dislike texts as they can be interpreted wrongly, but it seems these days if you want to keep in touch you have to do it. Why don't you ring your daughter and say, sorry if my text came over as if I telling you what to do but when I got yours I was feeling a bit tired and say why.
You don't come over as dictatorial at all and she and your grandchildren know how much you love them, you show them all the time.

I'd agree with agnurse - ex husbands rarely step up , in my experience, and your daughter doesn't need to be told that he should do more. Your "suggestion" would have been like a red rag to a bull. It's not your call to say what he should and shouldn't be doing.

You can certainly lay down a few ground rules about how often you can have the children, but text messages are not the way to approach such a topic. You'd have been better to have the girls this time, and then at a later date (when she isn't asking for anything) you could have coffee with her and explain how you are feeling too old to have them so often.

My only other thought , is that if you do refuse to have them, you may find that you'll see them less and less now. Is it worth the price you'll pay ? I often see posts on here about how grandparents never see their older grandchildren any more - refusing to look after them may lead to them thinking you don't want to see them at all. And whoosh they are gone and your relationship with them changes forever. Also your relationship with your DD. Weigh everything up - it's so easy to lose that relationship and so hard to get it back.

OP while I understand you want to protect your daughter you CANNOT get involved in her relationship with her ex. That's between the two of them. In most divorces there is fault on both sides. You also can't dictate how much time his parents should be spending with the children. That's up to them.

You CAN state that you aren't able to take the children all of the time. That's reasonable. Then it's on their mother to determine with whom to leave them.

This is a hard one and it unfortunately may look to the children that they are a nuisance to you, It would have been better to explain before the knee jerk text that you want to have the children but no longer feel up to long periods as you are getting older
I ve recently had a 15 year old for ten days and it isn’t easy, as delightful as she is and she couldn’t really ‘ misbehave’ as she was away from all her peers and her known freedom I presume yours live nearby so you ll have all the going out, mates round etc
I think you need a heart to heart (NOT a text) saying I want you to share some of this child sitting with others (perhaps you are the only one she trusts) as I feel I m getting too old to do it all alone If you can’t face her to talk to then write a well thought out letter, but hasty texts can lead to huge misunderstandings and bad feeling
I think 13 to 18 are really, really hard ages to parent or grandparent and come with massive problems as they feel their feet, their freedom, their angst, their peer pressure but set the ‘rules’ BEFORE you get asked

Yes MissA.....she most likely will....safer to text ha?

Yes, she does tend to fly off the handle, but in this instance I don't think she will, because she knows I help out a lot and very, very rarely say "no"

And btw Agnurse, I think I have every right to tell her that her ex needs to do more ......he is their Father. And, I do know, he and his parents are in a better position to look after them. As I said, there are two of them, and there's just one of me.

Well, I suppose it depends on how your daughter will react to the text?
Is she likely to be angered by it, or can you get together or talk on the phone about it more?
In short, will she fly off the handle?

I think it's reasonable to say you can't take her children. It's not reasonable to say "Well, their dad needs to step up to the plate". That's not your call. You can't dictate who should be staying with them. For all you know their dad is not in a position to take them. His parents might not be either.

Bottom line: nothing wrong with saying no. VERY wrong to dictate who she should ask.

Texting is the new way of communication in our family.....we see each other and have chats, but somehow these short, quick "conversations" are always by text.

Agree with MissAdventure.....15 year olds need "watching"?

I found my daughter needed more supervision at 15 than she had at 12.
She was likely to get up to all sorts of things if nobody was around.

I also think a face to face conversation would have been better. You're certainly not being unreasonable but if she has he reasons she could tell you what they are. Do 15 and 16 year olds need much looking after? I think they should be looking after you.

Well, I don't think you've done anything unreasonable, but maybe a text wasn't the best way to get the message across?
Its just that texts can come across differently than we meant them.