If your DC’s GPs didn’t help with childcare…were you inclined to help with elderly care…?

Did they care for you when you were a child and at the life stage where you required it? If so why wouldn't uou do the same?

They don’t have to do any care, but as they chose to have children, yes they do have a legal obligation to care for them. Then fulfilling their legal obligation doesn’t entitle them to physical support from their children who are not inclined to give it. Some people feel inclined to support elderly parents after they have done the bare minimum in raising them, but I would argue that an adult raised in a supportive environment by parents who continue to support them into adulthood by taking an interest in their grandchildren and babysitting them is more likely to want to support their parents in old age. No one is saying elderly people who refused to take their grandkids to Hoseasons in the summer break should be ground up and fed to the dogs, just that their children might be less inclined to invite them to move in so they can care for them in their old age, and they might have to go into assisted living instead.

I’m not a raving antinatalist or anything - I love kids and want to have lots of my own. However, the reasons I want to have children are entirely for myself and my husband, I don’t delude myself into thinking I’m going to doing some amazing altruistic thing in birthing and raising children that I decided to have. You don’t bank any credits as a parent for raising your own children.

Of course I wouldn’t say you shouldn’t care for your own parents if you want to, even if they’ve never helped you with your own children, but the social contract doesn’t go Have kids > raise them until 18 > ignore their needs in adulthood > move in when you’re 80 and need help. I would argue for the entirety of human history it has been have kids > raise them to independence with the support of your own parents > support them in adulthood by helping with the raising of their children while providing support to your elderly parents > be supported by your children in your infirmity. And before anyone says about expecting grandparents to do nothing but childcare and elder care, I don’t mean that grandparents should have their grandkids 8-6 like a nursery to be entitled to elder care. But frequent babysitting, a week in the summer holidays, taking them on days out, is the bare minimum I would do as a grandparent.

Yes, and usually if you've done it right they in turn will reciprocate. I don't think they should have to do it twice though.

Sorry haven't RTFT, so are you going to be proving childcare to your kids OP? I feel if your parents do a good job for you, then you look after them. That's fair.

That is what all parents owe their children.

I wouldn't expect childcare, I think if you choose to have kids they're your responsibility.

But the lack of basic interest in your life and family, lack of supportive behaviour, suggests a bigger problem, and I'm not surprised you now don't feel a desire to now help out in their life.

I used to know a matron of a nursing home and we were talking about how lonely some of her patients were. She said that in her experience it was often a case of the types of parent they had been. You can’t treat your kids with distain when they’re young and expect them to look after you when you’re old and lonely.

"Privileged"? Not at all. They deprived you of some basics: feeling loved. It all boils down to this. And it's awful being in foster care and being sent away to boarding school so young! They can wipe their own arses or pay someone to do it

Your parents appear to have been abusive towards you as well. Which is quite the drip feed. And you don't appear to be looking for childcare as much as some interest in your DC.
So no, you don't need to give them care.

Generally, though, I find the views on this thread odd. Seems like parents need to give two sets of care to qualify for any reciprocal care.Though some say they just need to show interest in GC, but interest not defined. Personally I am tired, given parenting these days continues until DC are 30, and I will sort out my own care rather than offer any regular childcare. I have earned my rest.

Id refuse to help too
They havent shown an interest in both you and your kids life, so why should you show an interest in caring for them

Not to mention, they live in another country, what do they expect, you to move to that country?

Did you even read the OP, never mind her replies? These are not loving parents that OP describes.

Hey, I’ll throw my 10c in. It’s about family caring. Parent, child, grand parent. You get what you sow. Your return is generally commensurate with the investment. My children/grand children will/are my top priority - in life. Period.

Your parents brought you up. OPs parents didn't so there's a slight difference! I think it is OP's parents with the moral compass out of whack!!

This. The horrid transactionalism on MN deeply depresses me. My parents were too old and far away to provide childcare (and both smoked) but they had brought me up, so of course when I could help I did.

I don't know about "monster" OP, but your moral compass is well out of whack.

Do you think good parents have their child put in foster care for several years before shoving them in boarding school as soon as they are allowed? Because that is what the OP's parents did. Personally, it's their parenting I find despicable.

If you decide that you're going to spend your middle years living your own life, doing as you please and paying little time or attention to your DCs and their family, why do you then get to comandeer exactly those same years of your DCs life to care for you? Why shouldn't it be the adult DCs turn to live their own life just as you did?

It's about demanding that your DCs give up what you were not prepared to give up.

This is quite a complex situation emotionally.
from your last update, assuming they are your bio parents, it seems you spent 5 years with them full time out of your entire childhood. That is a big thing to unpack in itself, without the need to throw grandchildren into the emotional equation.

You have to do what is right for you emotionally. If it’s having a boundary where you don’t, won’t or can’t help them or if it’s to help them as they didn’t help you or anything in between so long as you can sit comfortably with it then that is a good decision.
Don’t allow what you feel other people would judge influence what you need to do: they didn’t live your life, have the relationship you have with your parents and frankly if they’re that quick to judge they certainly don’t care about what informed your approach to them.

First of all, they're not abandoned, they live in a different country so how much support could you provide realistically from afar? And there's a difference between not helping out with kids which some people can't do because of work/ age/ health issues etc and not showing any interest at all. Of course you're not going to be close to them if they don't even bother to remember their grandchildren's birthdays! They've checked out of family life so obviously you've done the same. You get out what you put in/ karma and all that jazz!

My parents didn’t provide any babysitting other than two occasions, one overnight, during my son‘s whole childhood,, but they always provided enormous amounts of support, including financial, but the most important thing was the emotional support, and then absolute joy in my child, and that meant more to me than any kind of free childcare that I might have got from them. I completely understand what you’re saying, and it’s not about childcare, it’s about emotional investment, which goes both ways.

My parents did help a lot with my eldest two but then we moved further away and they couldn't help anywhere near as much with my younger ones. I was happy to care for my elderly parents because I love them dearly, not because they did or didn't provide childcare. You don't sound like you have a close relationship with your parents and if you don't want to care for them in old age, then don't.

If you don't like your parents and don't want to support them when they are elderly, your conscience allows it, then don't. It is a choice you are allowed to to make and bear the consequences of.

Using childcare as the only reason is disingenuous.

Just don't do anything you might regret. Once they are gone they are gone forever.

Gosh OP, they hardly raised you at all. I'm surprised you're in contact as much as you are.

Please don't listen to any guilt trips. Tell them care homes are the adult equivalent of foster care and boarding school and you feel no guilt.

I'm glad you have your in-laws.

You are not a monster!
My own DM never really helped out (went through the motions, but was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, really!)
I did look after her when she got dementia, but not necessarily in the way she would have wanted to be helped (E.g. I got her shopping for her, and had her over to visit when in assisted living and initially in Care Home, but never had her live with us).
It’s possible to be compassionate without being a doormat - knowing your own limits is important!

It's not about making them pay for it. But if your parents lived in another country would you uproot your children to move abroad to care for them when they've never given a damn about your children and have no relationship with them?