Entitled attitude: grandparents must provide childcare

@Dotjones

oh right so if you went out and murdered someone tomorrow or would be your parents fault?

dont be so ridiculous

the only person accountable for an adult’s actions is themselves.

Seems to me it’s different in your case, you DO help out and you’re still working!

id love it if my kids GP were as involved, or even offered. They won’t even attend days out for birthdays

Yes. My MIL said she hopes we don't have to take her in and look after her in old age. I left the room. She does nothing for her grandson. Visits maybe once a quarter, expects to be waited on, will watch him alone for an hour max (reluctantly) etc. We will of course ensure she's cared for in a home etc if she needs it and that she's not in danger. If she has to sell her house to pay for it so be it, but the presumption that we would do thia when she has nothing to give. Oh my days. I'm ranting off topic of main thread here. 😫

Some entitled posts on here. Im a grandmother of 5 . Aged 55. I work full time and have at least another 12 yrs to work to pay off my mortgage to get my pension.. By the time i retire my grandkids wont need childcare. My kids understand this. I do occasionally have one or two of them on an odd Sat night stayover but thats all.

Sending you hugs. It is hard bloody going. We don't bother much now. It is their loss and whilst I can fill the gp void, I can try and give my son as many happy memories with me and dad as possible x

exactly and in my first comment I said, that Grandparents that don’t want to provide childcare (which is their right) can’t really demand/ want/ expect care in old age, not because it’s a tit for tat but it’s reciprocity.

my mother took care of her MIL and it was an exhaustive burden. She took care of her mum too but when she was much older and whilst my grandparents did some limited baby sitting here and there, but not much the resentment grew and grew with my mother that it destroyed their relationship. My grandmother expected care and wouldn’t apply for caters allowance, fuel allowance, grants for her own home or even a disabled badge (despite being eligible for all) because she felt it was my mothers responsibility to do it all, as she raised her. Entitlement does no one any favours

That’s appalling. Expecting parents to commit to regular childcare in lieu of nursery or whatever is a big ask and no one should expect it. But to refuse to help with occasional one off requests, especially something as important as this, is really shit.

The set of grandparents that are physically able to help us with childcare don’t want to do regular days, and we completely respect this. If they said no to helping with the small number of ad hoc requests we make just because they didn’t want to, then there’s no question that would affect our relationship with them.

i hope I am lucky enough to be a grandmother one day, and a reasonable level of helping my kids with childcare is part of still being their mum. I don’t want to be doing full time childcare as a grandmother but I won’t stop being my kids’ mother, or wanting to provide help to them with childcare as I would with any aspect of their lives.

@Bumpitybumper Tougher now??? This is simply not true! Folk keep banging on about how lucky people were in the recent past with low mortgages and good pension schemes (and yes, it was for some of the low middle/upper working class) but you are completely failing to take into account the EXCRUCIATING levels of unemployment, which lasted from the 70s well into the mid 90s.

I also think a lot of it is to do with what parents say.

I’ve had quite a few friends whose parents have gone on about how much they’d help out, how they’d pitch in to reduce the childcare bill and how much they were looking forward to doing so, only to then change that to “well I might babysit for the odd hour here and then if I must”.

One friend’s mother actually insisted she wanted to do 3 days a week, chucked a strop when friend suggested 2 was fairer/better, and then bailed out last minute constantly leaving friend to find last minute childcare or missing work.

There are some real twats on this thread. My mother is in her mid-90’s, she never did any childcare so that I could work. We paid.

We are old enough to be grandparents at late 50’s/mid 60’s, we certainly weren’t able to run a one income house in the dark ages when everything was supposedly so cheap. Not in the London area, and we both had/have good salaries. But please, feel free to blame our generation for absolutely everything 🙄

I think a lot of us spent holidays with grandparents who helped with drop offs, parents going away for the weekends and leaving us with grandparents. Grandparents who looked after us while we were poorly. Now we have kids our parents won’t help out for an afternoon on an emergency. I’ve had four days of babysitting in seven years. It’s always caused a drama so I don’t ask. My mum however had me to stay for four weeks when she was bereaved. I will always look after my mum as it’s the right thing to do. But I do feel a bit cross if I think about it.

Yes. My MIL said she hopes we don't have to take her in and look after her in old age. I left the room. She does nothing for her grandson. Visits maybe once a quarter, expects to be waited on, will watch him alone for an hour max (reluctantly) etc. We will of course ensure she's cared for in a home etc if she needs it and that she's not in danger. If she has to sell her house to pay for it so be it, but the presumption that we would do thuz when she has nothing to give. Oh my days. I'm ranting off topic here. 😫

Some people are utterly unrealistic.

My ex SIL is in a massive huff because my MIL “won’t” offer her the same amount of childcare for her DS as she gave DH for DS1 when DS1 was a similar age.

I mean, DS1 is now 24 so it was a long time ago. FIL was still alive, was retired, and was very hands on. MIL didn’t have arthritis. MIL now lives with us and ex-SIL doesn’t want any childcare done in her home. And that situation only occurred years ago because DH was widowed very young - MIL gave up her part time voluntary job to help out when his wife was dying and then did paid for childcare for him shortly after. This apparently is no excuse and MIL shouldn’t have offered that level of help to one if she had no intention of offering it to all.

This is pretty much the same as me @StillMissV although they do have my son one day a week since he was 1. My other son they barely even see!

But yes, they really used my grandparents a lot for me and my brother and a lot of it was for them to go away and have fun and holidays without us. So it does smart a bit!

I left school in 1986. My mother started working part time when my youngest sibling started secondary school. When I was at primary school in the 70s none of my friends mothers worked except one who was a school dinner lady so only worked while her children were at school.

my parents live locally and I try not to take the piss. They babysit on the rare occasion that we go out socially (only a few times
a year) and do the odd day during the holidays. Actually my parents asked if they could look after the kids a bit during the holidays. They basically don’t do any regular child care for us which means when they do it’s a bit more of an occasion and they plan something fun to do.

Grandparents have had jobs in a profitable economic era when decent secure jobs were available and zero hour contracts hadn’t been invented yet. Many of them have been able to buy houses at an age their children can only dream about, and retire at an age their children can only dream about.

So when faced with their children struggling to pay a mortgage on a stupidly expensive house and working two jobs whilst raising children, it’s not surprising that grandparents offer to help. Especially maternal grandparents, who see their beloved daughter’s job prospects and pension being destroyed by a lack of affordable childcare. If I was in a position to help my daughter I would too.

Having said that, I don’t think people can expect grandparents to help. They need and wants that help, and not having that help is disastrous for many families - especially mums who end up being unable to work. But it shouldn’t be an expectation.

However isn't it a very sad situation that we now have 2 parents working because the cost of living is so high, and they still need to rely on grandparents because childcare is so expensive! How have we come from 1 parent providing for the entire family, to 2 parents working to provide and still barely getting by / not getting by? It's wrong!!
Dreadful isn’t it. Especially when so many mums find themselves unable to work because they can’t afford childcare. But childcare isn’t too expensive - salaries are too low.

I know a few people who had to give up their jobs to look after elderly parents too - it goes both ways.

Tougher now?! What are you basing this on, house prices? Each generation has their own struggles, but over all people are far more privileged than they used to be. I mean for a start, the idea of teenagers is new, its a luxury that previous generations weren’t granted.

blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2020/03/30/birth-of-the-teenager/

Tougher now?! What are you basing this on, house prices? Each generation has their own struggles, but over all people are far more privileged than they used to be. I mean for a start, the idea of teenagers is relatively new, its a luxury that previous generations weren’t granted.

blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2020/03/30/birth-of-the-teenager/

That is very sad and so different from people wanting fulltime childcare. I hope everything went OK.

When my brother and his wife had kids, he didn't ask our parents if they'd look after them, he told them exactly which days they'd be doing the babysitting! I couldn't believe it. 😮

Yes. Amen.

My parents had a lot of support with me and my siblings from their parents, my grandparents. Whole weeks of the holidays spent with them, weekend upon weekend spent with them. We loved it, and I guess it allowed my parents to both work.

I in turn have little to no support from my parents. They feel they worked all their lives and now they are enjoying retirement. They are also highly critical that we don't save more which is hilarious when we spend £1.2k per month on childcare. I do feel a bit cross about it as they were able to save, pay more of their mortgage etc in part because of my grandparents!

I feel this too! Ours aren’t arsed either, yet expect the kids to be ferried to them in their front rooms so they can see them whilst they watch tv :/