Entitled attitude: grandparents must provide childcare

I don't have any help from grandparents because we live too far away/they're not well enough. But I must admit I find it strange when I read stories on here about grandparents who are local, healthy and not working and refuse to do even occasional childcare. I would be hurt in that position as it makes such a huge difference practically and financially.

I think entitlement works both ways. Some adult children think they're entitled to insist their parents give up their lives to look after their kids, yes. But equally some grandparents can't seem to understand that most families need two full time incomes now and that childcare can cost the equivalent of one of those wages.

It's the world grandparents have created. Most families will require 2 working parents to have any chance of putting a roof over the kids head.
Grandparents could avoid this by giving back to the system that has given them so much. However, I don't see this happening anytime soon, so maybe chin up and help out

On the off chance that you actually have a point and aren't just trying to wind people up, maybe you could explain?

It is really sad that it seems the generation of grandparents that actually felt some responsibility for their grandchildren are dying out. When I was a kid me, my cousins and friends would spend hours over the weekends with our grandparents. My nan would pick me up from school a few days a week. My fondest memories are being with them. But now it's "your kids, your responsibility" coming from the parents who would leave their own kids with grandparents. Maybe it's due to parents having to work later in life or feeling less obliged to help with their grand children. It is sad. My children aren't bothered with their grandparents because they don't bother with them.

There's some strange replies on this thread.
My parents are still working so we couldn't use them for childcare, even if we wanted to. They won't be retiring any time soon, not with the cost of things nowadays. Both nearly 70 aswell.

It takes a village to raise a child. Why is it so terrible that grandparents should help a bit ? Back in the day children were raised by big families. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbours, great grandparents etc.

We were happier then. It's not natural to only be raised by mum and dad ( or mainly mum as is the case today ). Children grow up with unmet emotional needs.

The more time they can have with extended family, like grandparents, the better. They'll learn so much from the inter generational dynamic too.

So, yes, I will help with the grandchildren. Just as was the case in my home. It's what Family is all about. I can't understand why you'd not want to do that. Of course, help needs to be sought in a respectful way that suits all parties.

Life is undoubtedly now tougher for younger generations than it has been in recent history. Many families are in really tough situations where they need two incomes to have a reasonable quality of life and yet childcare is cripplingly expensive. Like it or not, many people that are grandparents now did have an easier time of things at a similar age and have benefited hugely from the relatively low house prices and generous pension schemes that are no longer an option for parents today.

To be honest in this context, I do think it's hugely selfish for grandparents to wash their hands of their children's struggles when they try to raise their own families. If they can reasonably offer some help with childcare then of course they should, in the same way that I believe that adult children should assist their elderly and vulnerable parents when the time comes. Obviously there are reasonable limits and expectations, but to think that you have no obligation to your family places a lot of burden on a struggling and underfunded state system and will leave some people in really terrible situations.

Are you having a fucking laugh?
Most grandparents of young grandchildren will be under 67 years old and likely still working themselves.
At that age, most of them have brought up their own children while working.
I'm a grandma of 6. I've always worked full time as have all my friends my age.

For current grandparents it was possible to feed and house a family on a single income back when they had children themselves. And they usually had some grandparent childcare as well as lots of women were sah.

The current parents (millennials are pushing forty, so last minute for having kids) have encountered one economic crisis after another, they cannot afford houses like their parents could.

Fully agree with PP that this is the world grandparents helped create and have benefitted from. Don't blame governments, they didn't repeatedly vote for themselves, did they?

Both mine & my husbands parents both work full time jobs so there's no chance of childcare and because I can't afford to pay for childcare for my children I am a stay at home parent.

I don't have much of a choice. Our parents don't offer to have our children, we have asked a few times but the only night we have had to ourselves was our wedding night last year and our anniversary this year.

So while I do agree that there seems to be "some generational entitled attitude" it's not everyone. And for you to simply say don't have kids if you can't afford childcare etc is actually insulting considering the financial climate we're currently in!

What a strange philosophy. I raised my DC to be independent, fully-functioning adults. I am not responsible for their decisions.

And my dad helps out too - he has her during my weekly driving lesson!

but I do agree that the burden is placed on older women, many who are still working themselves.

That's just bullshit.

That's ridiculous. A childish and incredibly entitled attitude. Your parents aren't responsible for everything you do when you're an adult.

All families are different. I think people are allowed to vent if their parents don’t help them out- it really is a great help and life is so hard for working parents.

GPs have always provided childcare for the younger generation in my family and I will do the same for DD if she chooses to have grandchildren. It’s just what we do in our family.

I’m a SAHM now but my parents frequently offer to have baby for date nights, and has had her overnight already (staying at ours). My mum has already had the conversation about when I want to go back to work as she wants to go part-time to help me.

Not every family can afford to do this, but it’s very odd to my ears when GPs can help out a bit, but won’t.

People just can't get the heads around the idea of older women still working.

The dutch system is (or at least was) that you paid daycarw and received a rebate per month from the government depenadant on how many days and your income. So for 2 kids I paid approximately 500 euro per month in total ( 900 per month and 400 rebate). For my second child I paid 50 euro in total. It was a good system becuae it was affordable for women and also employed (mainly) women in the childcare functions. They paid tax and women also paid tax and didnt have to stop working.

Unfortunately the right wing government started pulling this back. But women here are still a lot better off. The same system also for after school care.

What about working grandparents? What are they supposed to do when they’re still working full time to pay the mortgage? Sell the house and give up work to look after the grandkids?

@grey12 no idea why you've addressed me like that, but if you mean I just get on with it instead of whining that the world and its grandmother owes me a favour, then you're right, I am truly blessed 😇

Just to add two things - I personally cannot wait to be a grandparent 😂 I can think of nothing nicer so maybe I'm biased.

Also my parents have friends who's children take the piss - turn up at 6.30am with their kids and dog for the grandparents to look after until 7pm at night. They're like "well it's lovely to spend time with the grandkids, but we are exhausted!)

Another family friend, her daughter in law dropped off her 7 week old baby son at 7am one morning and after 12 hours the grandma was like "is everything ok? Where are you?" She was like "yeah I'm just sat having dinner. We'll come and get him at 9" !!! (To add she didn't have PND - she did this regularly and very much saw that the grandparents were there so she could watch the TV in peace all day 😂😂)

I think the title should be changed to 'grandmothers' because let's face you are talking about women here. As usual expected to step up, out others first and help out all the time.

Perhaps people shouldn't have children if they can't look after them or, shock horror, men also step up to help more.

DM made it clear her baby days were over - and I agree with her. She's actually never minded our DS - he's ten now so unlikely to ever happen. She's enjoying her child free retirement. We still visit with DS of course.

OTOH, the other granny loved to have a pile of kids in, the more the merrier. And she always used to offer to mind DS, and a couple of times we did ask for an hour or so in an emergency. We never took the piss and in fact, she got quite upset when her ill health meant that she wasn't able to do that any more.

Family as an emergency to dash to nursery when you are stuck in roadworks or whatever - yeah fine. Having a baby with the assumption that others in the family will step in to mind them without discussing it with them - not fine.

My mum was quite clear before any of us had kids that she didn't want to get sucked into regular childcare and I totally respect that. She's still a great gran and my kids love her. She'll always help out i I ask and if my dh goes away, she'll always try and come down to me so I'm not alone. So she's supportive, but she just doesn't want to be tied into a commitment of doing certain days and us relying on her, which is fair enough.

My in-laws have offered some part time childcare and insist it's what they want, but while I think that's probably true to a degree, we all know that looking after kids can be a hard slog sometimes so I find it hard to believe they love every minute of it, all the time. If it were up to me, I'd just pay for childcare but my dh insists they'd be devastated if we did...

Are you in a cult?

This sounds like the sort of nonsense a cult would come out with.

This makes no sense? And having had children of their own might be the reason they don’t want to do it all over again!!

I can't even begin to address how wrong I think this is but it's sadly something a lot of people think.