Let it go.

You are not going to get your parents to admit how they harmed you. You are not going to get them to admit to anything that they did, much less take responsibilitly for the consequences of those actions. They are in denial, and in denial they will stay. You have two choices now: cut them w holly out of you and your family's life, or find a place where you can relate to them on an occasional, unemotional, surface-y sort of way that allows your kids to have a relationship with them as well.

Your parents' way of being with their children is not their way of being with their grandchildren. It's a different cauldron altogether. Your kids are safe; if your parents have views, etc. you don't agree with what of it? You can't protect your kids from views that disagree with your own - they will encounter that all their lives. They are encountering it now, in the schoolyard - rich kids snubbing poor kids, bullies making life miserable for an unlucky few. Your kids are not going to harm being spoiled and coddled and loved and oohed and ahhhed over by your parents.

Your kids can and will make up their own minds about your parents. Don't deny them two more loving people rooting them on in their early years. You didn't have it. Don't deny them this opportunity for extra love and attention and support, even though you don't really care for/trust the source.

I saw exactly what kind of people my grandparents were. they loved me and spoiled me, but I was all of 8 or 9 by the time I sussed out how cruel my grandmother was to my mom, how she belittled and humiliated her, how my dad, usually so mean and unpredictable, was reduced to anxious servility around her. I pulled away from grandma slowly over the years; it was my decision. By then there was no love lost between me and my parents, yet being able to make up my own mind about my grandparents did give me some insight to my parents, which had benefited me greatly as I have tried to find a relationship with them in my adulthood.

It is the most difficult thing to accept, that someone (your parents) who has caused great harm to you can be loved by others (your kids). It is no less difficult to watch them be the benefactors of what can seem like wholly undeserved love.

Don't go there. Your parents relationshp with your kids has nothing to do wtih you and your history with your parents. Let your kids enjoy the attention of their grandparents. Let them make up their own minds about these people - as they grow older, they will.

I have never confronted my parents about the harm they've done me. I have been in therapy for a few years, trying to unravel some of my more twisted ways of thinking/responding to life/others. I am freeing myself from their influence. I do it for me, not for them. Knowing they willl never change, and are constitutionally incapable of admitting to all they've done, I've decided finally that being happy will be the best revenge. For me being happy has entailed moving all the way across the country, and limiting my visits to one or two per year. I don't respond to provocation, I don't engage when I witness my father being abusive. I just leave, with a smile on my face and a 'see you next time'. This has, amazingly, gotten through - they rarely fight around me now, and almost all of the snide little asides have ceased. I keep my distance: we never touch - there's never been any hugging or kissing. We talk about surface-y things. They have mellowed considerably over the years and often I detect a kind of yearning in my mother, a gruff reaching out by my father. I am not receptive but nor do I reject them. I am simply nice, polite, dutiful. I help out here and there. I have surrendered, but on my own terms. I am happy with this solution. I have let go of a lot of anger and resentment. This has been freeing, and allowed me to find love and friendship for the first time in my life.

My advice to you: don't mention the letter again. Resume a relationship with them, but on your own terms. If you want to see them three times a year - say, kids birthdays and Christmas, make that happen. Let your kids see them more. Trust your parenting - your kids aren't going to be turned against you and your husband by your parents. Your kids will sense all is not hunky dory, ask questions, listen to answers, pay attention to all the little things that are said and not said, done and not done. They will make up their own minds, in their own time, about their grandparents (and, of course, their parents ;-) ). Your kids are not an extension of you - they are their own people, their own selves, and they have a right to interact with family members that you don't like (assuming, of course, they are not in danger of out-and-out abuse)

Forgive your parents - not for their sakes, but your own. It's not an easy process, forgiveness. But it starts simply enough: with the decision to let go. Get some peace with your past, and leave it behind you. Life is too short and precious to waste any on bitterness and resentment.