At What Age do Children Have the Right to Pursue a Relationship With Grandparents

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: No court order

My daughter has chosen not to let me know my grandchildren because she is mad at me. She has cut me out her life at least 6 times in the last 15 years and this last time has been 5 years without speaking. She now has two beautiful girls and is currently pregnant. I have offered to go to mediation to work on this issue but she is un-willing.

At what age can they choose to meet me if they want to?
Or do I have to sue for Grand parents rights?

1.) 18
2.) Your state does not have specific provision for grandparent visitation.

Stand by for another regular poster to tell you that suing for grandparent rights automatically and by definition makes you a bad and toxic grandparent. (Please note - I do not agree with her)

Quote:

---

Quoting Donnielle Geer

---

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: No court order

My daughter has chosen not to let me know my grandchildren because she is mad at me. She has cut me out her life at least 6 times in the last 15 years and this last time has been 5 years without speaking. She now has two beautiful girls and is currently pregnant. I have offered to go to mediation to work on this issue but she is un-willing.

At what age can they choose to meet me if they want to?
Or do I have to sue for Grand parents rights?

---

As you were already told, when they are legal adults.

I disagree with the previous poster that Oregon has no provision for grandparent visitation. There is some very limited provision. However, you do not meet that criteria because you do not have an established relationship with the children where it could be proven, with hard evidence, that it would damage the children to sever that relationship.

Your daughter has the constitutional right to refuse to allow you access to her children. Just as you had the constitutional right to refuse your parents access to your daughter.

You know why your daughter is mad at you. We do not. Since you know that you also know or should know what it would take to repair your relationship with your daughter. You do not get to skip a generation using the courts to make it happen...at least not since the year 2000 when the USSC weighed in on the issue.

OP should read this

Since she does not meet the limited provisions I saw no reason to mention it.

You need to make amends for whatever rift occurred between you and your daughter. Even if you could successfully sue for gpv in Oregon, all you would do is make things worse between the two of you and that tension would be felt by the children.

Children form their patterns for relating to others early in life. One guaranteed way of setting children up for later problems in life is to introduce a lot of drama early on. Take it from me- work it out with your daughter any way you can, even if you must do a lot of apologizing.

I disagree to some extent that the mother should do whatever it takes to get back into the daughter and grandchildren's lives right away, based on years of working with dysfunctional family dynamics. The game of "grandchild hostage" is almost guaranteed to start when you have an overinvolved parent and a troubled child who has children of their own. Sometimes this is just what you said, a lot of drama early on. Sometimes it is the grandparent who is the drama specialist.

The mother and the daughter may both discover that it is much more peaceful and they function better if there is no contact than if there is even limited contact. If the mother/daughter relationship is such that the mother's association with the children would be a constant "You're doing it wrong!" then the daughter may just have chosen to parent without the mother's input. I've known of toxic grandparents who offered children big bribes to "come live with Granny," tried to pry evidence of wrongdoing or poor parenting out of the child so they could gain control, or who tried to dominate the relationship to the extent that they made the whole second family totally miserable and drove away in laws.

The grandparent in this situation needs more to move forward and live her own life. It would be fine to let the daughter know she is available to help if she is needed, but otherwise let her raise her own children. There may be perfectly valid reasons why this daughter has cut the parent out of her life, and in this circumstance, it may be that letting her have her own space to parent is the best thing for this mother, who may be very controlling, to do.