to think some women feel entitled to free childcare from their DM/MILs just because they had help themselves?

I thought this is what Gransnet is for?!

My dad’s dead but thanks 🙄

So you're saying that the grandparents that doesn't offer to do childcare (even if they could) should be prioritised over the grandparents that do regular childcare so that they spend equal time with the grandchildren? In effect, rewarding the grandparents that don't put themselves out or offer to help in order to keep things 'fair'?

I cant provide structured childcare for my dgd as I work full time but help out where I can. I took the whole week off for easter to help out look after her as the usual wrap around wasnt available and was happy to do so.
When my dd’s were young I worked part time and between my dm and friend I never had to pay for childcare, things were really tight so I paid in kind. For my dm i helped with doing jobs around her house that she hated doing. For my friend I done her ironing, she hated this job, and minded hers when needed. She had 4 under 5 so appreciated the help and thought my 2 never added more to her load the few hours she had them.
My dd with the dgd does appreciate when I help out but doesnt feel entitled.
My older dd doesnt need childcare now but I did do the majority of free childcare for her oldest ds as I was in a position to do it then, not so much with her youngest ds and was never expected to, just occasionally.
If I didnt work full time I wouldnt be happy about having to childmind fulltime but I am older now and have other interests outside of the home and would hate to feel tied.

True. But there are parents on Mumsnet whining about their children's grandparents every single day.

https://www.informationnow.org.uk/article/grandparent-issues/

There's a link to Hansard in that article, for the source of those statistics

So 1.25 million women children at home also need to take care of an elderly relative. I’m not sure this is the statistic to in anyway back up your argument 🤣

Feel like AIBU has been taken over by grandma’s whining about being expected to do childcare (this is the third thread in a week!) and benefits bashing. Weird.

Yet again I'm going to have to find the link to the government's statistics that show that vastly more grandparents do regular childcare now, then previous generations did.

The kind of care that grandparents did in the past, would have been weekend or holidays. It was rarely to facilitate parents working,

I'm 70. As a kid I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. But it was during holidays and weekends. And they lived locally.

When I had my kids, I had no help. My generation was told by Norman Tebbit to 'get on their bikes' to get jobs during a period of high unemployment. So DH and I ended up 1.5 - 2.5 his from our parents. Absolutely no-one I knew had grandparent help.

Now I'm a grandparent. My DD and her DH worked shifts, which were mostly arranged to jigsaw together, but when they didn't, I'd do irregular childcare. Now one of them works M -F and the little one goes to nursery, so I'm needed less.

I'm also finding it increasingly exhausting. My grandmother was 42 when I was born. My mum was 53 when her grandchildren were born. I was 64 when my grandchildren were born.
At 70, I adore my DGDs, and love to spend time with them. But my energy levels have dropped and I'm having some health issues. Regular childcare isn't the possibility that it could have been even a year ago.

It's too much to expect reliable, long term, regular work-related childcare from people of my age.
It's also unfair to punish loving grandparents for not doing so, by reducing their access to to their DGCs.

You’ve ignored it so I’m going to say it again but I hope you don’t then expect your children to care for you when you’re old and can’t care for yourself? Obviously not all grandparents can help out but if they can then I think they should in some capacity, and yes I know you keep saying it’s grandmothers not grandfathers but grandmothers also still expect their children to care for them in old age

In what way is it unfair to state bare facts? If you don't make time to regularly see your grandchildren, then you have to accept that you are going to see them less than if you did regularly make time to see them. You are literally saying, it's completely unreasonable to say that grandparents should inconvenience themselves to get to spend time with their grandchildren, but parents, who are more likely to both be working full time and have more time-consuming commitments relating to having a young family, should inconvenience themselves and sacrifice limited time on the weekends to make sure grandchildren have a good relationship with their grandparents.

If you are unwilling or unable to look after your grandchildren alone (which is not necessarily "childcare", as in an alternative to paid nursery or after-school clubs), you WILL see them less than if you're relying on your children to sacrifice a weekend day to bring them to you at your convenience. If it's not unreasonable for grandparents to refuse to sacrifice a free day to care for children alone, how can the reverse be unreasonable or retaliatory? People just want to spend their free days off work with their nuclear family generally.

This is similar to my situation.

It's the acknowledgement that is frustrating more than anything.

My DH mum became a stay at home mum when she had him (and stayed off work since then) and they comment that they never had childcare help. His dad had a 6 figure salary so we're very comfortable. (And have retired Early)

My parents worked shifts and progressed well through their careers, full flexible hours at work but we still had weekly sleep overs at grandparents and daily school pick up and drop offs. Again no paid childcare used.

Us on the other hand, work full days 8am-6pm mon to fri and have to pick our jobs based on childcare hours, we've paid a full time childminder since my daughter was 18m (she's 6 now) otherwise we couldn't work at all.

My parents now, one doesn't work at all and the other works full time (fine) but they're now they've put the house up for sale, talking about retiring officially and moving 2 hours away "because they never see anyone anyway"

That’s not aspirational

These expectations rarely exist for men

Again doesn’t it depend on the family dynamics?

My dad was pretty hands on even though my mum didn’t work. DHs dad was the sahp. Both gfs were very involved in looking after our dc.

Very few and anecdotal, not backed up by the statistics you keep ignoring

Maybe her dad isn’t the one complaining about the relationship! Which is a separate issue, but not that poster’s fault

I don’t think there’s the double standards it most definitely should and does fall to grandfather’s as much as grandmothers however
I suppose you could say I was lucky that my parents were so diabolical. I wouldn’t trust them with the dog. Never mind the kids so they’ve been released from their obligation despite the fact that my siblings and I spent most of our weekends with our grandparents.
So there you go if you don’t want any expectations that’s the way to handle it
Be crap in the first place and nobody will ever ask you.

This thread is weird. You start a thread where the primary point was about not expecting help from parents even if those parents were helped by their parents. With a secondary point about the imbalance of expectations between GFs and GMs. When anyone tries to engage you on the first point you just respond with your second point. If the GF/GM thing is what you wanted to discuss why not just start a thread on that and leave out the points about previous generation help that you seem not to want to discuss?

And if you’re that fussed about the imbalances of the expectation of childcare between men and women why did you write your post saying that women seem to assume that if their mothers had help with childcare then those mothers/MILs should help them. Surely based on your position you should have wrote why do parents expect help with childcare if their parents had help. Seems like you are just repositioning childcare as the concern of mothers all over again?

Actually I do know one who expects & puts a lot on her parents but she is entitled & always has been. Her parents never said no to her & still don’t 🤷🏻‍♀️