To think the role of grandparents has changed in a generation?

I’m 64. As a youngster, my grandparents were really involved because we had one family car and they live too far away.
I don’t remember any of my friends’ grandparents being involved with them either.
I was late to be a mother, but my friend had children in the late 80s/early 90s and it was still common for Mums not to work. So her parents were not involved in bringing up her children either.
From what I have observed, it is only now that it is the norm for mums to work full-time just as dads, coupled with part-time Mums earnings not covering expensive childcare costs that grandparents are so involved.
I have friends in their 70s who don’t mind helping out, but are quite resentful at the amount of grandparent duty they expected to do, especially when they live some distance away from their kids. I have asked them why they continue to drop everything upon demand and their responses are that they daren’t do anything else because that is the societal expectation these days.

OP, @lifeonthelane , will you return to the thread, and join the discussion?

My children’s grandparents were helpful and involved. If I have grandchildren I will help where I can, depending on how fit and able I am at that point.

We are in our early 70s. For about 8 years we have spent 1 day a week on childcare for both our children, so 2 days a week. Our grandchildren’s other grandparents do the same.
Now the grandchildren have started to go to school we are very busy in the school holidays!
As our children and their spouses work full time, I don’t see how else they could do it. For our children, summer holidays are split between annual leave for family holidays, Camp and grandparents. As grandparents we do get very tired but we are very lucky that our grandchildren still like coming to us.

It varies from one family to the next. I live too far for my parents to help. Dh and I are of the opinion that if you have kids you work things out between yourselves and that is what we did. We didn't rely on inlaws for help even when we lived with them. It's tiring taking care of young kids, evenmore so as you get older. Inlaws made it clear that they had done their parenting and couldn't commit to regular childcare I've never been offended by this but understand. They are still very loving grandparents and come to assemblies, nip over for storytime etc.

We make a lot of sacrifices for our own kids but I don't want to particularly do that for grandchildren who I don't see as my responsibility. This is all hypothetical as my kids are little but I'd like to be able to offer some form of help. What that would look like we would need to discussed at the time because it will be dependent on our health. In an ideal world we'd offer each child a day each of childcare but we will see when the time comes.

Depends on the family / age of GP’s. My parents used to have my oldest and my oldest nieces a fair bit. But my brother’s late in life son, my mum never babysits as she says she is too old. She is 71 and in good health, but just doesn’t want to look after him. Which is fair enough. I’ve said i’ll have him for a weekend / week if they wanted to get away, but so far they haven’t. SIL’s mum is overseas. I’m hoping to be an involved GP it that’s what my DC want. We will see I guess. My Nanna lived next door, but my parents never once went away without us. Guess it wasn’t the done thing then.

So people's role in life is to have children then when those children have children their role in life to help raise grandchildren?

Considering a lot of people say women have to stay home the idea is women's sole role in life is children then?

I think it’s because people have to work later.

My grandmother never worked. My grandfather medically retired at age 50. My mum is in her 50s and still works full time. As people work later, they’ll obviously do less. And then want to enjoy their retirement.

Agreed, it's difficult to know where that line is as well sometimes. I made dd well aware that it is a one off arrangement I won't be childcare for another if she has another.
Dd's partner left her part way through their planned pregnancy and has been nowhere to be seen since so I stepped in as support. Dd also has ankylosing spondylitis which impacts a lot on how much support she needs.
Do I think she takes advantage sometimes? Possibly, but if I was wrong then I'd be letting her and dgs struggle and I wouldn't want to do that.
For me though I was never under any illusion that my father or in laws would be anything other than visiting fun grandparents so would have had to get on with it if in the same boat.

Also agree ive never felt the need to be away from my DC. They visited gp for longer this year without me (5 days, aged 6 & 8) due to my work and i missed them so much

More people are waiting until their 40’s to have a baby so if their DC do the same then we’ll have first some grandparents in their 80’s.

My GP did not look after us much. We had a wonderful relationship with them but saw them mainly in school holidays, they didn't live close by.

My own parents are similar. You only get heavily involved GP in communities where people tend to stay living nearby. Where there's a culture of people going off to university they tend to not return as they go where the work is.

I agree with this. DH and I did not want or need overnight breaks from the DC when they were small. The only time we needed overnight cover was when I gave birth. I think our DC were 6 or 7 before they stayed overnight at my mother's and it was one at a time for the first few years.

Different families, different situations. I was born in the 1950s and hardly knew my grandparents as they lived a long way away in different places. My parents helped as much as they could and moved nearer to me when they retired. I have always been quite hands on with my grandchildren more so when I retired, by that time the youngest was 5 so I did quite a lot of school runs.

I think it's individual circumstances. I had far more grandparent help than my mum did. I'm not a grandma but if I was I wouldn't be able the offer much practical help during the week because I work ft and realistically will be working ft for another decade or until I pop my clogs, no doubt at work, whilst wondering why I never saved more when I was young.

Another thought OP. I wasn't away from my DS overnight until he was 8 and went to PGL Why would I want to be away from my child?

Also, having nights away together, mini breaks, is a fairly recent trend, except for the very wealthy. Family holidays involved everyone. Overnight cover was really only for medical emergencies.

@hiredandsqueak a dear friend does that for her dd, despite still working a couple of days a week. The dd has just had her third child and my friend is run absolutely ragged at 67 but won't let her dd know she is crying with tiredness. There's a fine line between a helpful grandma and an entitled daughter who is taking the P imo.

My grandparents lived a fair-ish distance away, so we saw them 2 or 3 times a year. If I'd had kids, their grandparents would also have lived a minimum of 100 miles away. To me, this is completely normal.
In my world, and that of all my friends, you move away from home for college or work. You may move several times. So the concept of grandparents being around for childcare just wouldn't happen. And, yes, there is an age element too - GPs might be 70 when the kid is born.
Is this about social class? Mobility? The economy? Whatever it is, I don't think it has changed much in 50 years, tbh.

My grandparents on my mother's side were very supportive but more in terms of helping my mum rather than doing care for us so grandma cooked, cleaned and ironed at ours and grandad helped with the garden. They played card games with us and read to us but care was always done by my mother. On my father's side grandma treated us to new clothes and toys and gave us pocket money but no real involvement outside that.
I'm now a Granny, I did childcare for Grandson from as soon as dd's maternity leave ended. He's in school now but I cover holidays, inset days and illness, I'm default childcare I suppose. I also iron his uniform every week,feed him and dd a couple of times a week and do whatever is needed to support dd.
I would have loved to have been the Granny who was visited and had fun with (although dgs would say I am that as well) because I never envisaged being default childcare tbh but I would never let dd struggle so it is what it is.

I don't think this has only just happened.

It started when large numbers of people left their home villages to work - so the industrial revolution. Far fewer people live near their grandparents.

I'm in my 60s and never met my grandparents. My DS never met his. I had my DS at 45, so he'll have to become a dad fairly young for me to be much use to his children. For us, it's nothing new.

There are differences generationally too. My mother and grandmother were 23 when they had a child. I was 35. My grandmother was only about 47 when I was born, mother was about 59 when DS was born. I expect to be knocking 70 when I have grandchildren.

It's also cultural. Two of my neighbour households are Indian. In one house the mum and dad host his parents for six months of the year and the mum (my age) does all the domestic stuff and has not worked for 30 years. Their daughter, who is professionally qualified and married, now has a child. The child arrives at 7.30 every morning. The son, who is also married to a professional woman has similar help from his wife's family. I'm not sure if this younger generation of professionally qualified women will be in a position or willing to give up clinical careers to provide their own parents and grandchildren similar care whether it's culturally expected or not.

In the other house, resources were pooled and the mid 40s couple, with teenage children, have her mother and sister living with them. The mother and sister do the childcare.

The grandmas in each case are my age. Whilst I still work, I honestly don't think I'd manage to chase a two year old from 7.30am until 6.30pm. It exhausted me in my late 30s.

If I'd lived with my mother or been that reliant on her, one of us would have ended up in Holloway. But despite that tongue in cheek comment, DH and I achieved what we achieved and managed without help.

My grandparents didn't ever look after me despite my dm being very young when she had me, she was just left to it. By the time I had kids my dm still had caring responsibilities for her younger children from a second marriage. We don't live near either set of gp's either so they can't really provide any support.

I wonder if the shift has been that GP now help during the day so that both parents can work, whereas years ago when women worked part time or were SAHM GP weren’t “needed” so staying over at weekends was seen more as a treat than a chore IYSWIM?

When both parents are working they understandably want to spend weekends as family time.

also as PPs said, often GP are now still working themselves in the week so can’t help out!

My grandparents, born 1890s, did not look after me. My parents did do some childcare for my niece and nephew in their early 60s.
I will not have gc but dh as 3...we don't do childcare. ( late 60s)

I didn’t live near my grandparents so they had no involvement with looking after me (I’m late 40’s so grew up in the 80’s). They were lovely grandparents though, we visited etc. But no practical help.

I had DD late (41) and my parents are also not involved with looking after DD, partly geography but also because of age/health. If I moved back to them I still couldn’t get them involved (much as they would like to).

So for me there’s been no difference really.