Imagine growing up as an only child with young parents who barely do any parenting at all. They don’t even make sure you eat or sleep at a reasonable time.

If you later decided to cut contact with them, would you ever want to introduce them to your spouse and kids, or would you stay no contact for the rest of your life?

In this story, one man grew up with parents like that, and he’s wondering if he was wrong to refuse to introduce his parents to his family.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not letting my parents join us for Mother’s Day so they could meet and get to know my kids?

I (39m) have four children with my wife (37f).

My wife nor my kids have ever met my parents or my siblings.

I have been no contact for about 20 years now and while that was technically broken by my parents reaching out and me responding. I sent three replies to their messages and that was it.

So this was by no means intended to be a return to contact.

Asking over and over again isn’t likely to get him to change his mind.

However they wanted a relationship with me and with my children. And they asked if we could spend Mother’s Day together.

They offered to host or come to mine and my wife’s house if we didn’t want to travel with the kids.

I said no, but they held onto the hope or expectation that I would say yes.

I did not.

They were contacting me all day yesterday until I went and blocked them.

He found out how his parents got his contact information.

A relative had passed on my contact info to them and I spoke to the same relative last night and she came down hard on me for denying the chance for a reunion and for refusing to let them come meet my kids and get to know them. She said it’s not thinking of my kids.

I don’t agree but I’ll explain background now and see if you agree with the relative and my parents.

He didn’t have a very good childhood.

BG for those who need to know more info in order to give a verdict.

I was born to younger parents. They were 19 and 20 when I was born.

They were not good parents to me. I can’t even say they were okay. They weren’t very warm, weren’t affectionate or caring and I was made to feel like a burden.

The reality was I existed in the same house as them but they could ignore me for days at a time without saying a word to me.

He’s not kidding when he says they ignored him!

They didn’t make sure I was eating and sleeping.

It was only kinda common for them to make sure I made it to the bus stop. And that stopped once I was considered big enough to get myself out the door.

Homework problem? Better go somewhere else for help or say forget it and let the teacher yell.

I learned how to forge their signatures on homework and stuff from school that needed a parents signature because they weren’t about to do it for me.

It was different when his siblings were born.

I was 14 before they had more kids. And my siblings were kids they wanted.

They turned into completely different people.

They were loving parents who were far more involved, far more supportive and affectionate and caring.

They did speak to me more after this shift in their personalities BUT they did not step up as my parents.

Things didn’t change very much for him.

I still couldn’t go to them with any problems, they didn’t know or care if I ate or went to sleep at a good time.

They still didn’t involve themselves in my education.

They never talked post-high school with me and my guidance counselor tried to bring them in on the discussion but their go to excuse was they had two small children at home.

It had to hurt to see the parents care so much for the siblings but not him.

There were no more days at a time of not speaking to me but really they didn’t have conversations with me.

They’d say some things and occasionally I’d be asked a question about how things were going or whatever.

And during all that I got to see them being parents to my siblings that they were never willing to be for me.

Back then it hurt a lot and for a few years after I went no contact it hurt too.

He also found out why his parents contacted him.

My decision to go no contact happened as a result of me realizing I’d need to accept them as they are or go no contact and I couldn’t do the former.

From what I can gather, the reason my parents reached out is because both of my siblings have stated they do not want children and one or both has been sterilized to prevent themselves having children so my parents were depressed about it and learned from the relative who gave them my details that I had children.

AITA?

So his parents now want to be grandparents. Since they were horrible parents, I can only assume they’d also be horrible grandparents.

He’s protecting his family by staying away from them.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is a good point.

Here’s a vote to block them.

They probably won’t stop contacting him.

This person emphasizes the importance of boundaries.

His parents don’t deserve to be in his life.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.