Not wanting grandchildren

Not alone OP. My parents and in laws both are similar in not wanting to help. Sometimes my mum and DC will play together for an hour but I am on hand in the background. My MIL can manage five minutes to talk to DC before she looks past DC and starts gossiping about people we don’t
know, and DC runs back to me. DH and I are full time and have no other help except for paid childcare. Even in the newborn days, no help at all (I would have loved my mum to come over and make me a tea and ask how I am doing).

My MIL had a lot of help from her mum and her MIL. My parents not so much however we were carted to a relative’s place on occasion for 1-2 weeks so my parents got a break sometimes.

I think hands-on grandparents are amazing and in my wildest fantasies I would have one that could look after DC for half a day once or twice a month.

Why are grandparents useless if they don’t want to be involved and/or have said so?

They can show interest without providing childcare.

Of course grandparents can be as little involved as they please, but I think there are geographical variations in how much help grandparents are expected to provide. I've noticed that in London and the south-east very few people seem to have day-to-day family support with their children, and kids are all in nursery or with the nanny/childminder. Whereas in the north and south-west, grandparents doing regular childcare seems much more common. My cousin's kids were all looked after by "Nanna" 2/3 days a week and she did after-school pick-up and dinner when they went to school.

You are not being unreasonable, however your children will likely hate you for it.

My parents are very keen not to help, whereas my partners Mum is absolutely amazing. She actively wants to see them and messages to say what an amazing day she’s had with them etc. It’s so nice to see that they actually bring her joy.
My Mum on the other hand will very rarely have my children & when she does, she rings me after half hour saying they want to come home.

Nearly all of my friends have a similar story. One set of Grandparents are useless, and one set fantastic. They all really resent the ones that don’t want to help.

But you’re not unreasonable for not wanting to look after any potential future Grandchildren, but it will likely come at a cost to your relationship with your children.

I look after my grandchildren a couple of times a week. Still leaves me lots of time to do my own thing, and I really value the close bond I have with them.

I haven't been abroad for eight years. Three days for my 40th wedding anniversary. Never been on a cruise. Need two walking sticks some days because of my disability. I'm a decade older than your grandparents were. I'm glad they were able to help. But not every grandparent can.

You do get some choice in the matter to decide what kind of grandparent you are going to be if your children actually decide to have children.

My parents had help from family members but often I spent most of my time at my grandparents’ watching tv and movies or outside riding my tricycle up and down the street in front of their home. I was taking myself to and from school at 8 so by then the only time they were asked for help is when I was ill which was rare. They were nowhere near as hands-on as some of the grandparents I read about on here, but I loved them all the same and knew no different.

My sister and I both live far away from my parents with an ocean separating me from them. They very much looked forward to grandchildren (too much imo and to the effect that I would never willingly want to live close to them). They video chat with my children and we see them once a year or once every few years. They visit my sister who lives 12 hours away from them and see her maybe every six weeks for a 4 days or so but she also lives near other family members with children.

My in-laws are the hands-on and complaining about it grandparents you speak of for their daughter (they complain to DH every time they visit us twice a year) and it definitely is off-putting to listen to them knowing the two are quite vocal when they don’t want to do something or have an opinion , but somehow can’t tell their daughter and son-in-law that it’s been too much for them. Their choice, their consequences. It’s closing in on 15 years of help.

I would have never desired 3-4 days a week of help and leave DH to ask them when he wants because I rather not if they’re going to go complain about it to someone else even if it is a once a year ask from DH of 90 minutes.

I am with you about not caring about becoming a grandparent. My children deciding whether or not to have children is not my decision and I’m not going to push them either way. If they ask about my experience, I’ll be honest but other than that, it is down to them and I will make a decision when that happens how involved I will be and let them know from the beginning.

I would say though that i think there used to be a time when women worked less and grandchildren were shepherded over to visit grandparents each sunday. When people are all working this is hard to manage, I've been very grateful that my parents are willing to travel to me as much and more as I can manage to get to them, they know i am time poor.

You can set boundaries! My mum was clear she wasn't going to commit to childcare and thats fine - she's done her time!

She has helped on an odd occasion in an emergency, if she's been available to do so, but she has her life, hobbies and plans and I don't expect her to drop those to be Granny.

She & dad have a lovely relationship with my kids. They visit when it suits us both. I plan visits to her and dad that work for us all. Taking the commitment and childcare vibe out of it its much nicer for everyone.

That’s up to them. It’s very excessive. None of my friends with children have their parents babysit several times a week/every day. You don’t need to do that.

YABU. No wonder so many people apparently feel lonely when they are elderly, if they haven’t fostered close relationships with their adult children and grandchildren because there were other things that were more important to them.

Really sad that your Grandparents never babysat you. Of course looking after their grandchildren many days a week might be a lot to cope with as people get older, but that’s not what the majority of Grandparents do. I don’t think having their grandchildren for a day or 2 each week (and not usually overnights even, when they young) as seems most commonplace for the grandparents I know, is especially unreasonable - in fact I remember reading it actually benefits both grandparents (reduces cognitive decline amongst other health benefits) and their grandchildren.

Plus surely people don’t have children in the first place if you don’t want to help them out even when they are adults too (assuming you are physically/mentally/financially capable). How would you “have your time now” if one of your adult kids had disabilities and needed care? Imo most people don’t stop helping their “kids” just because they have reached 18/21 - it’s part of deciding to have a family in the first place for the majority of people 🤷‍♀️, including the possibility that your children might want children of their own which they’d appreciate help with.

Of course, I’m assuming that you had a choice to have a family yourself - if it wasn’t your choice to have children or you are in a country where termination wasn’t possible then obviously YANBU to not want to look after grandchildren at all as well!

My mil has looked after our kids a handful of times in seven years, it's usually the mums mother who gets the childcare side of it and the mil all the fun!

I’ve helped out a lot. I work full time and have never been able to help them financially but I have loved being hands on grandma.
But you do you. You don’t have to be hands on. Just make sure that if things are going that way, make it clear.

I didn't say that they had to look after grandchildren! I said that they are not entitled to elder care!

Are you for real? They signed up to raise kids and then give childcare to grandkids until they kick the bucket? I think not.

My ILs have had very little to do with our children. They haven’t seen them for the last 6 years (children were 15 and 17 at the time). ILs don’t know anything about them and don’t ask after them either. As soon as they reached 18, they stopped sending them birthday cards.

Our kids don't care as they never much enjoyed the expectation that they should be seen but not heard.

You could always be like them.

That's what they signed up for by having kids. They aren't entitled to help in their old age for doing the bare minimum expected of them.

Obligations? For childcare? No grandparent should be expected to provide childcare. Please myself? Emmm I have raised my kids and now it is time for me to live a little especially as now I am older. People just expect grandparents to mind children till they die.

Exactly! That's it in a nutshell.

Of course it's fair to say enough now. But then it's not fair to expect your adult children to devote their retirement years to elder care.

Re not helping with elder care if GPs didn’t help out - I don’t think this attitude is based on “tit for tat” exactly.

It’s more that grandparents who set the example of “I’m going to please myself now and refuse any obligations I won’t enjoy” can’t be surprised if their DC absorb that attitude and do the same.

I hate that old crap, well if you don't do childcare don't expect me to look after you in your old age. Your parents brought YOU up, looked after YOU, do you expect them to do it twice and look after your kids aswell before you would give them a hand out when they are old?

I hear you op. I’m wrung out as it is. After uni mine have migrated back home and I’m exhausted with a full house again. That and a difficult elderly parent nearby.

I don’t think there are immediate plans for children with two of mine..however my older dd mentions it sometimes. But her relationship is rocky and it concerns me to hear her say those things. Obviously I’d help, but more so I long very much for some peace, a gap in life at least, to call my own.

My own parents were not a great help with either me as a child or the grandchildren. I could never be the way they were either though..

My DM died when I was a child. My dad and his partner very generously do help out (for hospital appointments and occasional babysitting)which I’m extremely grateful for.

Of course I would still help them when they’re elderly even if they hadn’t helped out but I don’t blame people that do not if their parents show no interest in the grandchildren.

My DGM said she didn’t help her mum in her elderly years as she never helped her with any form of childcare or babysitting. I don’t blame her one bit.