Long post warning, my friends.

My DIL is a CEO and extremely successful. it is really her temperament to be successful at business and is the most important thing to her - it is what she focuses on all the time, and when she is not she is focused on applying business type skills (achieving goals, business coaching and counseling) to all life issues as a business coach. She even wants to parent like a CEO, in the belief it will help her daughters grow up to be like her, which is the highest success in her book because of the amount of money she makes and goals she achieves. My DS is by nature the more nurturing person - she said he "taught her how to love." He has created and cultivated a business that has experienced some success, quite a bit for a local company in many ways. However, it has never been particularly lucrative financially. In the last couple of years he had a terrible experience with a business partner who he fired for incompetence and greed, and then this person and his family, "pillars" of the local community, spread vicious lies about him that really hurt DS's reputation and broke his heart (it has been hard on DH and me too - we didn't believe that it was even happening until it was a kind of small town firestorm that is hard to put out, particularly for part timers like us). He is heart sick and depressed, while DIL continues to experience success and make money hand over fist. DH and I are hard working and make decent money, but we have never focused on business values over other values. In fact, we hold how people treat each other to be the most important value - kindness and compassion - and raised DS like this. My husband has a small business in which he treats his employees exceptionally well, and I work in public service. We are several years away from retiring, and definitely feeling older and tired these days as retirement hopefully gets closer.

All of this is preamble to the heartbreaking thing, which is my two adorable grand daughters, 5 and 2, who are grief stricken and subject to the parenting of people who do not understand or really want to focus on parenting. The latest example was last month. My son arranged to be gone on a fun birthday trip across the country for a week, then to meet his wife on a special company sponsored luxury vacation she wins yearly for being a big producer. He was gone for 11 days. During the time he was gone, which was particularly hard on the youngest, his wife took an overnight trip, came back, then left again for the last four days for their trip. They have a nanny who takes care of the kids, but although the kids adore her, she is not family and they know it and miss their parents when they are gone. I was on a work trip but came home the day DIL left and immediately took care of the kids, who clung to me like limpets for the following four days (at my age, I find I need a couple days to recover from work travel but in this situation obviously chose to take care of the children). They were brave, and we do everything we can to make it special and fun for them, but it is always a strain when the parents are gone. The littlest one got a virus on the day they were coming back. They got home at 7 that night, then both went off to their regular work the following day, with DIL missing her regular time with the oldest (they try to have a date one afternoon a week for a couple of hours) and having several late nights that week that meant very little time with the daughters. The nanny kept texting me about how upset the kids were from missing their Mom and Dad. I came back at the end of the week because their Mom was leaving again to go to their weekend home for a business retreat she was hosting - the kids weren't well enough to go - and had to hold my oldest granddaughter while she sobbed "I miss my Mommy" on the porch for ten minutes while her Mom drove away. DS stayed with the kids that day, but frankly seems spaced out and checked out, spending lots of time staring at his phone. They are of course both working all week again and DIL is out of town again next weekend.

What kind of parent does not schedule even one day at home with her children after she's gone on a luxury vacation without them? I know she knows better, and she has been open to working on achieving goals and growth through parenting coaching. But I also know that she isn't really willing or possibly able to change because making huge amounts of money and experiencing big success to "make an impact" is by far the most important thing. That automatic empathy for her children most people have is weaker than in anyone I've ever known. She loves them, but doesn't really know how to focus on them and create a life for them. And to be fair to her, it may not be her temperament and is definitely not something her parents did for her. I believe DS knows better than this, given how we raised him, but also believe he has been subsumed by this materialistic culture and is depressed and floundering so has shut down emotionally. I also think he may be smoking pot (they don't drink) as his BIL has some aspect of that business. He is learning disabled and had very painful experiences in school growing up, and I wonder if there is some deep inner lack of confidence that has allowed this to happen rather than taking on the role of being a "love leader" for the family, although from previous nanny's perspective's no-one other than DIL is really allowed to be the leader in the family. But none of that, in my mind, excuses his behavior.

I do step in and offer both solicited and unsolicited advice, and have many times before, which has made a difference in mitigating some of the worst behavior (which is frankly too upsetting to describe here). They know how I feel and I did bring it up on Friday to my DS, who was defensive and said he knew but didn't want to talk about it. I feel the only possible response is to be there as much as we can for the little girls, and it is a great privilege to have this amount of closeness with these delightful beings. We built a house next door so the girls can come over as they need to in order to feel emotionally supported. But chronic worry about them, and the need to throw ourselves on the railroad tracks to be there for them on a schedule that is not of our choosing, means my DH and I are chronically exhausted. We have both been having stress migraines and gaining weight (ironically, while my DS and DIL find time to work out either because they just care less or have more control over the schedule). My DS and DIL are not financially or emotionally generous with us, which has also been a painful surprise to us, although after some earlier intervention on my part they now say thank you and express appreciation. After a weekend of taking care of the children that is the extent of their appreciation, and it feels grudging (perhaps because they feel defensive). They have never offered to do anything for us, although I hear stories of how others treat their parents/in laws (dinners, vacations, gifts of appreciation), and I remember how much we did for our parents - just thinking about their needs and not imposing, picking generous and thoughtful gifts. They do offer to have the nanny include us in the dinners she cooks for the family at times, which I appreciate greatly. And they are generous in allowing us so much access to our grand daughters, who are the most important thing. It just means it is a little harder to make sure we are going to be around to keep doing this for the long haul as our health is really starting to suffer. I know we need to be there for these girls.

My question is how to deal with this situation without blowing up my relationships with DIL and DS by yelling at them "what the hell is wrong with you!" I have asked us to go to family therapy or parenting coaching together, which DIL refused. I am afraid they would, worst case scenario, put DIL's manipulative and mentally ill mother in charge of the kids again, which DIL did until child protective services almost had to get involved. (I am not exaggerating. Her mother is the one relationship she cares most about in the world - she's that kind of manipulative, but it gets worse) I just do not know what to do, other than be there for the kids as much as we can while they are so young and vulnerable. But I feel so sad, afraid, and tired.