Earlier this year, I totally lit into my grandfather for saying, when hearing our cat was blind and death-“Well, if you want, I could take her to the Vets and he could put her out of her misery.”
JERK! You fucking BASTARD. (Fluffy has since died and not a DAY goes by that I don’t think of her…It’s been almost three months and I’m still not quite over it…)
Guinastasia, it seems to me that there must be more to that story.
Keep defending your children against the grandparents. I also would not let them go to see them alone, or without a responsible adult present. Because something you wrote bothered me:
Now that’s really bad. Who knows what other behaviors are worthy of a wallop, when you are not around. Don’t leave them alone.
Tell the grandparents exactly why you don’t want them around, and what they need to do to be allowed to see them again.
Family unity is bullshit if the family is fucked up, dysfunctional, or family members are cruel, manipulative, and/or dangerous and threatening.
It still baffles me why so many people feel that crazed, evil, fucked-up family members still deserve some sort of “respect”. Respect is earned, not granted as a title. I still am amazed when I go to family reunions, and everybody acts with such “reverence” around my evil, racist, fucked-up grandpa. I am the “black ewe” of the family now because I laid down the law to my grandpa at the last family reunion, and to a couple uncles who tried to jump in to defend him (talk about sock-puppets).
The topic? Oh, there were many choice ones in the past, about how all gays and lesbians should be taken to the middle of the Nevada desert and “nuked”, about how women should receive the death penalty for abortion, about how the “negroes” and “Jews” are taking over the world, etc. But this time it was something far less important when I finally did decide to buck the crowd and stand up. It was simply “he thought it was funny to cut off cats tails” - seriously. Nothing even close to the other fucked-up stuff, or screwing with your kids minds and self-esteem. I dressed him down like a female drill sergeant, and told him he was a sick old bastard. So now my some of my family hates me? Who cares. Sick, racist, homophobes hate me. We should all be so lucky.
Another frequent worry is “ohh…just go along with what they say, after all, you want to inherit something, right?” Bullshit. I got where I am today by myself, and I don’t need any fucking handouts from evil, racist, homophobe family members, thank you.
Oh wait…this thread wasn’t about me, was it? 
But I just wanted to throw in a couple examples, since others were doing so as well.
Isn’t it lovely having family members who make you want to poke them in the ears with chopsticks?
Pardon me. Just having a moment of projection there.
My sister married a guy like this, subjecting her 9 year old son to an inbred who thought teasing the kid mercilessly was a sign of affection, who thinks of women as servants and non-whites as field hands with pretentions. The last time I saw him was a couple of years ago at my sister’s birthday. She was speaking about going shopping in a city about 2 hours away; he said “only if I let you, heh heh heh”. My response- “hey needledick, she’s your wife, not your coolie”, put a slight chill on the evening.
And I thought ignorant racial comments would be so welcomed!
So now nephew is 16 and after years of belittlement and scorn he is starting to develop some of the same ignorances. I do what I can to reinforce to him that just because one is born with a white penis one is not superior to other mortals, but they live 300 miles away (needledick was unable to find a job in his field of tavern management in our urban area, probably because he’s a human rights lawsuit in the making). My greatest regret was that I wasn’t telling this guy off from the get go, because I and everyone else in my family wanted to preserve the peace.
Go with your gut. Your letter is great-you list things they have done, not things that they are. Unless they are delusional, they can’t deny their actions, whereas if you said ‘you are cruel and mean to my kids’ they can justify themselves by telling themselves you’re nuts. And you are not.
Additional: teaching bright kids that some people make fun of intellect because they are scared of it, without turning the kid into an egotistical little shite, is rough. They should always be polite, but they should never play stupid.
Message ends…
(wiping spittle off my Jupiter Mining Corporation Tshirt)
Elvis-that’s what he said. My grandfather is not an animal lover, and he meant well, but it pissed me off, because I would NEVER do that and he bloody well knows it. My grandmother totally yelled at him for that. When her dog was getting old, he said the same thing and my gramma wouldn’t let thim then.
What do you mean, there’s more to the story. I didn’t call him that, what I said was, “Don’t you ever, ever, EVER, DARE to say such a thing again.” And that’s when everyone else jumped in and yelled at him too.