Entitled attitude: grandparents must provide childcare

Defo think there are some people who think grandparents should provide childcare. There are numerous threads in here about it.

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!!

I utterly loathe this ‘don’t have children is you can’t afford childcare or can’t care them’ attitude. Childcare along with the rising costs of everything is prohibitively expensive for a lot, so that support network is more important than ever. That being said, no one should be pressured into giving up work, doing more than they are able to provide free baby sitting.

but then it goes both ways doesn’t it, if grand parents don’t want to help, that’s ok and it’s their right but then I don’t think then they can expect or demand or pressure that they are cared for in and some one gives up their job to care for them in old age.

i have no support from either set or grandparents and it is more difficult, but I’d never coerce someone into doing something they simply don’t want to do. However I am finding with both sets of grandparents (who are all mobile and drivers) that there is also 0 willingness to be involved if it requires any effort from them, they’d never visited, attend birthday parties, days out etc there’s always an excuse yet they moan and expect they children to be ferried to them. Wonder if there is a connection

So even in 1971 the majority of women worked and that's without the cash in hand jobs.

What’s really sad is how many people clearly hold the grandparents to ransom, if they won’t provide free childcare they basically don’t get to see the grandchildren. Huffy remarks about how weekends are family time, people making it clear they aren’t willing to facilitate contact with grandparents unless it benefits themselves financially. Nasty, so nasty. So a lot of the time when people are saying grandparents should stand up for themselves and not be pushed into it, I suspect they’re very aware that they will be kept at arms distance from the grandchildren unless they play along with what is expected of them.

Even worse are the posters who come out and say that they won’t do anything for parents in their old age because they didn’t agree to free full time childcare. It’s quite chilling how cold some people can be on threads about grandparent childcare. Basically wanting pensioners to work for them to earn basic compassion and family support. Vile.

My mum was telling us the other day that when my dad was in the police we never had any money so for dinner most days we would have vegetable pie made with a bag of frozen veg from Bejams and a suet crust.

She would take in typing at home as we lived a few hours from extended family so she couldn’t work outside of the house and they couldn’t afford to pay rent on his wage.

My parents do childcare for me. They're in their late 50's but both retired a few years before my son was born.

I never planned to have my parents minding him, we can afford childcare quite easily and I put his name down on crèche waiting lists as soon as he was born. They just insisted on it (it's 6 days a month because I work a lot of weekends too and my husband minds him then). My mum often calls and asks if they can take him for a few hours on my day off too if they haven't had him for a while.

I feel lucky and don't take it for granted.

Absolutely amen to this!!! My thoughts 100%

Female employment rate Q1
1971: 52.8%
1981: 56%
1991: 62.9%
2022: 72.3%
(Source: ONS)
Not all women were able to stay at home in the past by any means, but a lot more were.

That has to be the most bizarre argument I’ve heard in a long time, and there’s little to beat Mumsnet for irrational 😆

Yes but they couldn't in the 70s and 80s either! Big difference is we were left to fend for ourselves through necessity (from a young age) while our folks were working. Hence the GenX latchkey kids

Did she use grandparents or parents for childcare or did she not need if she did it's a little hypocritical.

It everyone does ‘pay it forward’ - my grandparents looked after us every school holidays for 13 years. Full six weeks in summer, they loved 2.5 hours away and we’d be there the whole time whilst my mum and SD went on holidays and got a break. My mum has never had any of her grandchildren beyond watching them while we nip to the shop. Not that I’d personally want her to for various reasons but it’s not a hard and fast rule

I think the fact that the vast vast majority of humans do make decisions that aren’t entirely based on logic and calculation of potential risks, is an explanation in and of itself for why people make less rational choices, and that even those who do make rational decisions all the time, can therefore surely understand why others don’t.

Human nature and the fact that we evolved to live in a very different world to this one is a pretty clear explanation.

I’m assuming you don’t own a car, a gas fired boiler, a gas hob, a credit card, more that two pairs of shoes and four outfits, drink alcohol, don’t eat red meat or sugar, or go on any holidays ever, and that you didn’t have any children after the 1970s when the future impacts of climate change became known@whumpthereitis? Because all of those are also irrational decisions that either expose you to some future risk, or don’t make sense in the context of how the world is very likely to change.

This is a strange thread. My parents are still working. It would be unreasonable to expect them provide child care especially as they have raised their families and now how to contend with my frail grandparents. That being said grandparents have always helped in my family but not to the extent of providing regular childcare. When I a young child; my grandparents were still working. In previous generation women may have stayed at home bu this definitely did not apply to my mum - As far as I aware she has always worked - she may have taken a year out or something. My grandmothers were working working as well.

Btw my retirement age is 67 ... my eldest is already 24 so there's a almost certainty I will still be working if she starts a family. I can't afford to retire before state pension age because my employer pension is linked to it

I mean we could start a thread called ‘why do so many elderly people refuse to pay for care and expect their adult children to be their unpaid assistants’ but that wouldn’t go down very well would it?

What ??????

So what happens if grandparent takes I’ll or, heaven forbid, dies suddenly? Or in the less extreme - decided to emigrate to Panama, or take up a Hobby Mon-Thurs? Would the parents implode? Or would they find a way to make it work?

Fully agree that it depends a lot on how they parented themselves.

We were cared for by my grandparents a lot to enable both of my parents to do shift work. School pick ups, evening meals, bedtimes, overnights: you name it. So my parents see it as paying that forward now that they are in a position to help us when we're fighting on all fronts.

I hope that by being facilitated in my career now, I can hope to retire at a reasonable age and be there for my children and grandchildren if needed. I would take that any day, over a family that I never saw from one Mother's Day to the next.

Nope it’s not an obligation, but why wouldn’t you want to? Being a parent is bloody hard and relentless, if you can’t help your kids who can you help? Would also argue if you can’t help with your grandkids do not expect help when your old and need a hand yourself.

@grey12

Perhaps in your life but my grandparents never looked after me, my mum did and returned to work pt once I was in school. I did the same with my kids. It's called living within your means. My kids were 9&10 before I learned to drive because I couldn't afford it, I got my own car for the first time when my youngest was 19! I don't recognise a world where grandparents do childcare. Parents choose to have children, they either give up work/work around each other or pay for childcare

Very few people these days look after their parents. That used to be common.

Not in my experience. There is a huge expectation that children / grandchildren will do a LOT, ie visit daily, take to appointments, do shopping, cleaning etc because many elderly people point blank refuse any outside help. That was the case with stubborn elderly relatives in my family and if you head over to the elderly parents board on here I'd say that's not actually unusual.

I wonder how much many of those have helped their adult children out with childcare while they were able?

Yep. Blitz spirit and all that…

Buit surely under your stupid theory great grandparents should be in harness too!

Grandparents have zero responsibility because, as MN is always quick to point out, have no rights, especially the paternal grandparents.

I can see this thread will provide endless laughs from posters like this one!

Yes, it is a system often built on the unpaid labour of women, though of course every family is different and there will be exceptions. I should also say that my MIL has never worked, and therefore felt obliged to provide childcare for my SIL, who is a very busy doctor. But that is not the case anymore. GPs these days in this country are likely working till their 70s.