This is not an argument. We're not here to tell you that you're wrong, or that you should reconsider, or that your reasons aren't valid. We've heard enough of those stories to know that sometimes estrangement is the right thing — the only thing — and that the people who make that choice usually don't make it lightly.
We just want to say a few things you may not have considered.
Your children will be curious someday
Not necessarily now. Maybe not for years. But children who grow up without knowing a grandparent almost always become adults who wonder about them. The curiosity tends to arrive right around the time they have children of their own.
They'll want to know where they come from. They'll want to understand the people in their family tree. They'll have questions about who they are and where they got certain things — their humor, their temper, their particular way of moving through the world.
And they'll ask you. And you'll have to tell them something.
You are the gatekeeper of that story
Right now, you control the narrative. You decide what your children know about the grandparent they don't see. You decide how that person is described, whether with warmth or neutrality or contempt.
That's a lot of power, and it's not always comfortable to hold.
We're not suggesting you owe your parent a positive portrayal. We're suggesting that the story your children receive now will shape how they feel about the relationship later — and that they may, eventually, want to form their own opinion.
What Dear Grandchild is — and isn't
Dear Grandchild is a preservation platform. The grandparent writes letters, records their voice, saves recipes and photographs — and those things stay private until a trusted person accesses them, or until the grandparent chooses to share.
We don't deliver anything without the grandparent's direction. We don't contact your children. We don't insert ourselves into your family's story in any way you haven't sanctioned.
If a grandparent is using Dear Grandchild, they are building something for a possible future — not forcing contact in the present. Whatever boundaries you've set remain yours to maintain.
A thought you're free to discard
You might, at some point, consider telling the grandparent that you're open to them saving something for your children — something to be shared when the children are old enough to make their own decision about the relationship.
Not for the grandparent's sake. For your children's.
They may grow up and decide they want nothing to do with that person. That's a choice they get to make. But they'll make it with more information than you had — and that seems like the fairer gift.
That's all. We're not asking you to forgive, or reconcile, or do anything that doesn't feel safe and right. We just wanted you to know that we see you too — and that this platform exists for the whole complicated family, not just one side of it.