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

I think the key difference is work. When I was brought up it was rare for the mothers to work as one salary was sufficient to support a family. As a result my GP never did a single minute of childcare as there was no need for them to do so.

Move forward a few decades and that type of household is no longer typical as many mothers now need to work which causes huge childcare issues.

We were older parents so knew that we’d have no GP support and therefore saved a huge sum, well in excess of 6 figures, to cover nursery and childcare. Without that we’d have had all sorts of logistical issues.

I think the bigger problem will come with the next generation when both parents still need to work and GP need to retire later and also don’t have the unearned property wealth that many of that age currently benefit from.

If people are struggling now without GP support how will they cope when their own DC need a similar level of assistance. In many cases they’ll have neither the funds nor the time to replicate the support.

In many ways it will be a significant societal shift as for the first time in living memory it is quite likely that future generations will have a worse standard of living than the previous one. That has never happened before and is something many people appear to struggle to accept.

IME it definitely goes in cycles for lots of families. The women that relied heavily seem to have no understanding of how hard motherhood can be without that support and therefore offer less support to their own DC.

My parents had very, very little childcare from their own parents, due to a range of factors.

They were falling over themselves of offer any kind of help to us. We have always been grateful for their help.

Whether we can help care for any future grandchildren will depend on where our kids end up setting, their career choices and their preference (and that of their future spouses).

It’s not always straightforward.

I didn't say that. I was responding to the point that things are the state that they are in because of boomers and Gen X. I was pointing out that anyone who's 36 now has had the opportunity to vote in 5 elections and 1 referendum to impact government policy.

As it goes, I don't think the boomers or Gen X are responsible for the crash either, that was down to the bankers.

@BeebeeBoyle, what a strange thing to say about junior doctors. I suggest you try reading something other than rhe daily mail.

My last remaining grandparent died earlier this year. So my DS grew up with all his great grandparents plus numerous great great aunts and uncles.

We are quite a small family. My Dad just retired last year. In the years since DS was born (14 years ago) my parents have been doing the heavy lifting of looking after their aged parents- noone died before the age of 95.

When I was a child my great grandparents were long dead. The last one died when my dad was an early teen.
My grandparents all retired in their mid to late 50s. In fact one granny retired when I, her first grandchild was born so she could help.

My mum was a SAHM, but she had help with washing, ironing and cleaning and minding the children 2 days a week in her own house.

My parents went to a joint hobby once a week.

We stayed with grandparents every Friday night.

My parents went on numerous weekends away and on week long holidays without us.

We have had nowhere near that kind of help. But they have been completely tied up with their parents. They had DS over a weekend so we could go to a wedding. My granny (dementia) went missing and was found hours from home with a broken wrist. My DH had to get a v expensive taxi and lots of coffee to their house and stay with DS.

Now their other caring responsibilities are over we are staring to see the benefits. We are going away for a few weekends and possibly a week in September.

They pick him up from school and have him for tea one night a week.

But they were drained for years with caring for other people. I know they are upset they dont have the same relationship we had with our grandparents
Though they are still v close with my DS and my children. It's just that through bo fault of their own they were unreliable for so many years.

I think a lot of parents of that generation (born 50-60s) are in this squeezed middle when it comes to caring

I think when mum's especially have their own mum running after them and providing lots of lovely flexible free childcare, they end up taking it for granted and become spoiled. So when their children have children they would rather stick their head in an oven than go out their way to provide any childcare ( you know, the sort they had all the time but still think they did it all themselves)

Expectating things to continue as they have done, or to improve, is the norm.
Look at the junior doctors striking - they think they should be amongst the wealthier in society, like doctors were 40 years ago.
On MN, posters are unable to fathom that they can't afford to go out on day trips or to restaurants regularly like families did 20 years ago (ignoring that 20 years before that no one went out much either).

Neither set of grandparents were expected to do childcare , and in fact never did. However comments about me not working (I was a SAHM for a few years), the hours worked , the type of job (term time only) did annoy the crap out of me, because not only did they have enormous help and support from their own parents (both me and DH were sent away for months at a time in the summer holidays for example) we were also left alone on our own from very young ages. Even if I wanted to (I didn’t) you can’t just do that anymore.

“I don’t understand how…” . Of course you don’t. 🙄

Oh yuck how snobby of you! And sexist. cant you do maths? If a person is a grandparent in their 40s then neither they nor their child pushed out kids in their teens.

Todays grandparents are not mainly boomers. Many current grandparents born 1964 or later often in the 70s. Thats not a family pushing out teen pregnancies as you allege but simply 2 generations of births in their 20s or 30s

As each year goes on from now boomers doing any babysitting will be increasingly small so manage your expecations.

Any that are boomers mostly had their kids in the 20s and didnt benefit from all the prefanancy rights and childcare provision that exist now. They dont have the same pensions due to leaving work or going part time

Unless you are from the type of family who all waited until you were in your late 30s or 40s to have kids then increasingly few boomers are involved. And if you do wait to have kids until that age then you need to expect high chance your own mother will be dead or too old to babysit your kids. Thats the harsh reality of delaying having kids until your 40s

Either way younger grandmothers are still working. Boomer grandmothers are mostly too old.

The sexism is that all this expectation falls on the grandmother and not the grandfather

Maybe that's a better idea given that your support network will be young and able enough to help out when they can.

That's how we managed multigenerations of support to the old, young and disabled around work and having a social life.

@movintothecountry

https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/output_url_files/BN234.pdf

Over the past 40 years, the UK has seen an almost continual rise in the proportion of
women in employment. The employment rate among women of ‘prime working age’
(aged 25-54) is up from 57% in 1975 to a record high of 78% in 2017.
This predominantly reflects an increase in full-time employment, from 29% in 1985
(when data on hours of work began) to 44% in 2017.
These aggregate changes are largely the result of a huge change in working patterns
at particular points in the life cycle, with far more women in employment over the
course of their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s.

It is also because women are now much less likely to drop out of the labour market
around the time they have their first child, and much more likely to stay in paid work in
the years following. Whereas only 41% of women born in 1958 were still in work 2
years after the birth of their first child, this figure was 58% for women born in 1970 –
even though the employment rates of these cohorts were essentially the same both 5
years before and 10 years after the birth of their first child.
This has led to a large rise in the proportion of working-age mothers in paid work: up from 50% in 1975 to 72% in 2015. The rise has been particularly large among lone
mothers and mothers of pre-school- and primary-school-age children.
Overall, the proportion of couples with children where only one adult works has
almost halved (down from 47% in 1975 to 27% in 2015) and the proportion where both
work has increased from 49% to 68%.

"Boomers are now age 64 to 80."

Yeah aka standard grandparent age 😵‍💫 Unless you are from the kind of family where people have a long legacy of popping kids out in their teens, today's grandparents are mainly boomers

I suppose it's all down to entitlement, if you expect childcare from grandparents with a huge list of rules, lots of running about without any acknowledgement or real relationship, I wouldn't want to be treated as unpaid childcare for grandkids as its obviously a strained relationship and very difficult to maintain, with the fear of not seeing kids if parents demands not met.
Grandparents expecting kids to be woke up, taken away from fun activities for their last minute drop in are wrong also.
Times have also changed, women are expected to work to 67 easily, due to cost of living, life is far more stressful in that aspect. If both grandparents and parents are working same hours, one set of them have already raised kids and knackered. Women are older having kids too, I'm not a grandparent yet at early 50s but I could within next 30 years? My levels of energy are really going to change over that time realistically.
My parents where so involved/as much childcare as they could handle whilst both working, they where nearly 10 years younger than me now. I fully trusted them, to make good decisions without me there.
In law's, not interested, older, lots of other grandkids, favourites, wanted kids presented and removed without any involvement. Now I'm older, I understand more of how things were, but at time I just seen huge difference in involvement and obviously was better at resolving issues with my own parents without added stress.

This doesnt reflect my experience at all. Im in my 40s and most of my friends have kids from babies up to secondary age with retired boomer parents (age 60s-80s).

Only 2 families i know have had regular childcare help from grandparents and in one case thats because they were axtively v keen to be involved. In the other case they were reluctant and like to moan about it, but they weren't pressured in any way and seem like they enjoy it and then complain to their friends about how put upon they are...

Myself and most of my other friends have no help at all with our childrem and have no expectations or even discussions with parents about it, we just crack on. This trope of the entitled millennial trying to constantly guilt their parents into childcare reminds me of Julia from Motherland, but it's something I've never seen in real life!

Why is everyone obsessed with “boomers” on these types of threads? Boomers are now age 64 to 80. Why does everyone’s mind jump to little old boomer grannies with curlers in their hair?? Sexism and ageism

BOOMERS ARE THE GREAT- GRANDPARENTS NOT THE GRANDPARENTS!! IN THE MAJORITY OF CASES

And I hardly think a few holidays with your boomer granny amounts to reliable and sustained childcare for your mother

Today’s grandparents are mostly early GEN X and very soon even will stretch to some millennials. They will be working until 67 or 68 and the women therein will need to rebuild pensions as they didn’t enjoy the same parental and maternity rights as those nowadays

I don’t think you can say someone who was 19 in 2008 was in anyway culpable for the financial crash 🤣🤣🤣🤣

@Bringbackbuffy what years are you talking about. I’m in my 60’s, had my daughter aged 31, went back to work as did the majority of my friends, we all relied on grandparents, after schoolcare and flying by the seat of our pants. We did this without any type of flexibility from our employers, there was definitely no such thing as worklife balance or mental health awareness, and at times we certainly needed both.

I am now looking after my gorgeous grandchildren twice a week but I am also taking a financial hit by going part time, unlike my own mum who retired at 60. Women today work until 67, which means less time to look after grandchildren.

Is it though? I'm Gen X and a grandmother. When I had my kids it was 18 weeks max of maternity leave (I could only manage 6 weeks each time). No Equalities Act. No childcare from grandparents. I worked during the week and my husband worked at weekends. No childcare vouchers. No working tax credit.

However, what we did have was affordable housing and utilities. This went completely sideways from 2008 (financial crash). In other words, anyone who was 18 or above then (so around 36 years old now) is as responsible as my generation for the political situation that allowed this to happen. There have been 5 general elections since 2010 and a referendum (Brexit). So, you know, this isn't just on grandparents.

Whatever you might hope or think, it does damage your relationship with your family if you don’t show some interest in supporting your kids with your grandkids. Obviously health and work situation and location all play a part. But if you never offer to babysit, ignore the kids when you see them or too busy to visit but are retired and super, super busy gardening in your lovely detached home whilst your kids work FT to buy food… then your kids might well be a bit sad. That’s a natural consequence. Of course you can make that choice. It’s just a really sad one. I don’t think anyone thinks grandparents should quit their job to be a full time unpaid nanny. It’s about showing care and love with the time you have.

There may have been less maternity rights, but as a family you were much more likely to be able to support a household on one or one and a half incomes.

My own mother, never went back to work full time after having children, but at least through primary school most of the mums were stay at home mums or part time.

At 3:30 pick up it was always parents in the school yard, not the grandparents you see today. Occasionally through the week we would pick up friends because that was the day their mum worked, but they would reciprocate on other days of the week - not because we needed it but to make the favours fair.

I don’t expect childcare. In fact I barely trust my mother or MIL to look after my children. I do envy people who have more helpful parents, and I plan to be more helpful when I become a grandparent.

For us, we just help each other. And yes, there is an expectation that the rest of the family will pitch in with childcare, and that is based in the fact that you have always been part of looking after other people's kids, but it isnt as simple as "my granny did it so my mother has to do it for mine".

I'm the 2nd youngest. My mother's grandmother took care of me and my siblings a lot when I was younger. Then she got older and, and my grandparents retired and moved in with her. Then my grandparents looked after GGM, and the three of them (GPs & GGM) looked after all us kids (cousins too) when our parents worked or whatever. By that time, my nephews and nieces were showing up.

The older kids were like middle management, so they had some responsibility to the youngers and making sure they didnt get injured or make too much mess. School stuff was ready etc. So it wasnt all on the grandparents and many if the older kids obviously become young adults. They then have their kids and those youngers they watched are soon watching their kids.

We do live differently now but this is pretty much the expectation you can have. There will be someone to have your kids at least some of the time. It may not be parents or grandparents because life is different now and they work or arent around. Who can help will help, though.

I think there are certainly a great number of people on MN who think they are entitled to childcare, yes. Whether that is because the previous generation had help, I don’t know. Because, I don’t know if they did!

What I do know is that my parents didn’t have any childcare help because we didn’t even live in the same country as any of my grandparents. And then amongst my peers, it was quite common that the mothers stayed home (I’m mid 40s) so a lot of childcare wouldn’t have been needed. Any mothers who did work were usually nurses, and the nature of nursing (shift work, easy enough to find part-time work) often means that childcare is easier than it is for someone working a full-time 9 to 5 job, as many do these days.

In my family everyone is responsible for their own children. There’s no childcare babysitting arrangements like I read about on MN. I find it fascinating but really weird. As far as I know my families been like this for four generations at least. We love each other. Would definitely help in any emergency but all stand on our own feet day to day.