Growing up my grandparents babysat us all the time- to let my parents go to work, for them to go nights out/date nights, to let them go away for the weekend, sometimes just because.
I hasten to add, my mum and dad’s shifts would overlap at the weekend and I had a younger sister with a big age gap. I would babysit my sister on a Sunday morning-afternoon every week due to this while I lived at home, from when I was a teen . This inevitably meant missing nights out when I got to a certain age as I needed to be up early on the Sunday . When I left home as a student and got a job that involved weekend work, my mum was furious and I would always end up avoiding certain shifts to let me continue to help her with childcare. This meant taking my sister from the Saturday night until Sunday afternoon. This only stopped once I was a qualified nurse and couldn’t avoid these shifts. Miraculously, my mum managed to alter her own hours then.
I now have my own children and don’t really ask for help with childcare. Husband and I both work and sort childcare between us both by working opposite to each other. We have a date night maybe once every 12-18months at most. We have had one night away, for our wedding night. Other than that, I generally only ask for help if it’s really extenuating circumstances like when I was in labour. My mum usually isn’t the one to provide this childcare.
A few weeks back my daughter was hospitalised. I couldn’t stay as the resident parent, as I’m breastfeeding my youngest who is still a small baby. So, husband stayed with her and I would go to the hospital while the rest were at school/nursery and in the evenings. My sister, auntie & uncle, neighbour and friends all chipped in to help, without me needing to ask. On one of the days, we had nobody during the day because everyone was at work. I wanted to be able to attend the ward round (it’s me who generally attends all my daughters appointments due to the way our shifts are, so I know her medical history much more fluently than my husband and it would have been helpful to have me there). My mum was off work and I asked if she could collect my toddler from nursery at lunchtime and sit with her for an hour or two to let me go to ward round. My toddler naps at this time, the nursery is a 3 minute walk from my front door. My mum
herself stays a 5 minute drive from my house. I would have been home within 2 hours max as needed home for school pick up. She said no. She gave no rationale other than it would be “a lot” for her. She is in her late 50’s, physically well and still works etc. she would not have found this physically taxing.
I feel as if there is a huge disconnect between her expectations of childcare when she had us as kids and what she thinks she should provide as a grandparent. I think it bothers me more as I helped her with childcare for years, which was never complained about but was a pain as meant missing friend’s birthday parties, nights out etc if they fell on a Saturday night.
Is this similar to the experiences of others? I feel like everyone else I know has much more help from grandparents.