The Heartbroken Granddaughters
When Emma returned home with her daughters, they burst into tears at once. The girls had just come back from their grandmother’s house and were utterly crushed.
“Mum, Gran doesn’t love us…” they sobbed in unison. “She lets Oliver and Lily do whatever they want, but we never get anything! They get presents and sweets, and we just hear, ‘Don’t touch that,’ ‘Don’t get in the way,’ ‘Go to another room.'”
Emma pressed her lips together. Her heart ached. She had felt this way herself many times before, but hearing it from her children was especially painful.
Her mother-in-law, Margaret, had never shown much affection for Emma’s daughters. But her own daughter’s children—Oliver and Lily—were adored. They got everything, while others were given scraps—if anything at all.
At first, Emma tried to ignore it. She told herself Gran had a difficult temperament, that she was set in her ways. But as years passed, it became clearer: in Margaret’s eyes, some grandchildren were “hers,” and others didn’t count—even if they shared the same blood.
The girls told how Gran scolded them for laughing too loudly, then moments later let Oliver race toy cars across the floor, making far more noise. Or how she served cake to “guests” but only offered tea to her own granddaughters.
The worst was when Margaret sent Emma’s daughters home alone. Seven years old, trembling in the cold, frightened by stray dogs—walking across the empty field. Gran hadn’t even called their parents.
When Emma found out, she couldn’t stop crying. She rang her mother-in-law, who only scoffed:
“They ought to learn independence. I was running errands at their age.”
That was when Emma’s husband, James, had his first real row with his mother. He didn’t shout. He simply said, “Mum, if you can’t be a grandma to all your grandchildren, then don’t be one at all.”
Years passed. The girls grew into kind, clever young women—and long stopped asking to visit Gran. Meanwhile, Margaret grew older. Doctors visited more often; pills replaced sweets, and the TV became her only company.
One day, she tried calling the grandchildren. Oliver was busy; Lily blamed schoolwork. Then she remembered the “other” ones.
“Tell them to come over, tidy up, bring groceries. I’m their grandmother, after all…”
Emma listened, then replied quietly, “You’re their grandmother? Then who were you to them? Remember when you said, ‘I never asked for you’? Well, they remember too—and they won’t come.”
The line went silent. And in Margaret’s house, the quiet returned—this time, for good.
Some bonds, once broken, can never be mended. Love, if not given freely, withers—and those who sow indifference reap loneliness in return.
