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

Obviously, if grandparents are still working or have an illness or disability they won't be able to provide childcare to their grandchildren and shouldn't be made to feel guilty.

If grandparents are retired or, in some cases, were SAHMs who didn't go back to work and their adult children were regularly cared for by their grandparents, it's rather hypocritical of them to categorically refuse to do any childcare at all, even in emergencies. If they then complain that they don't see enough of their grandchildren or if they go on social media pretending to be grandparents of the year, they are being very unreasonable.

Of course they can do exactly what they want but they can't complain when it has a negative impact on their relationships with their adult children and their grandchildren.

It's the hypocrisy that's frustrating people I think. "We didn't have help either"... Yeah right. I must have imagined all those holidays with gps then...

Also i don't get why there would be a specific focus on MIL or mums, granddads are as useless as grandmothers.

And no one in their right mind would blame someone working for not helping with their grandchildren.
I don't know where you get that grandparents are more likely to work now, boomers are actually the last generation of grandparents that are unlikely to work in their 60s.
None of grandparents on either side of our families work. They all retired in their 50s, with good pensions and own their home.

1 of them has watched our kids for 1 day in 4.5 years.

Migration from Gransnet. They are setting out their stall here.

Oh dear

the women who are of the age to be grandmothers today (age 40s to 60s) had much much less maternity leave and pregnancy rights

Typically in the 80s 90s and early 00s you had no more than 8- 18 weeks off and none of it was full pay compared to a lot of employers giving 6 months full pay and up to a year off

career breaks after maternity leave were rare and women were treated with contempt if they had a child care issue. It was very commonplace that employers and colleagues expected them to take mat leave and then just resign.

no financial help with childcare. Very few nursery options
No emergency care days in contracts. No paternity leave. No breastfeeding rooms or working from home.

This is not that long ago up to early 2000s and most women becoming grannies now will remember this.

it was THESE WOMEN and their mothers before them who fought for the better conditions mothers today enjoy

I think whether gets new and current mums annoyed is the expectation that they need to bring up a family, hold down a job and foster and maintain grandparent connections.

It is repeatedly said and acknowledged that changes over the last decades haven’t ment that women can have it all, rather that they need to do it all.

We have stories about new excited grandparents wanting to turn up hours after labour with no thought as to the new mother wishes. We had a poster recently asking how she could stop her mother coming to stay immediately after giving birth and was told by one how about offering her 2 weeks instead.

Many of us completely get grandparents not wanting to offer childcare. But then resent that they then want to see grandchildren 2, 3 or 4 times a month- which takes up valuable family time from the nuclear unit and is a big proportion when balanced again in-laws, other friends and when most parents are both working full time.

We then hear many grandparents asking for sleepovers or to take the kids on big fun trips on their terms when they have done both previously to show that they are responsible, know the child’s routine or can be trusted with sole care.

I think there is a huge level of entitlement amongst grandparents in many cases. And at the very least very little understanding on how much pressure societal shifts have put on women in recent years.

Exactly, why are there so many threads on this at the moment?

This has been done on here at least twice in the last week alone, we get it.

There are certainly a number of threads on here where the poster expects their mother or mother in law to provide regular care.

Well, I’ve never expected (or had) any help with childcare from my own mum or MIL. Dh and I have always done it all ourselves with paid childcare.

But I do think it’s a bit off to not at all acknowledge what a privileged life you had never having to pay £1200 a month for childcare or worry about taking a day off with a sick child or having to fill an entire summer with activities and childcare.

My mum went back to work when I was 3 months old. My grandparents had me full time 8-6 5 days a week from 3 months until I started school close to 5. Then I was with them all school holidays until 12. And they did the afternoon school run every day, fed me dinner and my mum picked me up at 6. I usually stayed for a sleepover one weekend a month too, sometimes more.

I loved my grandparents. They were truly wonderful people. And they 100% shared the load. My grandfather did all the school runs. He taxied me around everywhere. He taught me carpentry and how to build a model railway. He was totally as engaged as my grandmother was. Really I spent more time with them and was closer to them than I was my own parents. I don’t think grandparents owe anyone childcare, though I will certainly be happily providing it for mine if they live close enough and I’m able.

But what I think I would have appreciated was an acknowledgment of how much harder I had to work to build a career and a secure future for my family doing it all on my own. There were a few times in the early years when my mum asked what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday, and I said honestly, nothing, but I’d be grateful just for whatever you’d spend on a gift just in cash so we can pay for nursery and have a bit of a buffer this month. There was definitely some tutting and eye rolling and telling friends about how we can’t afford our child and she had to rescue us. 🙄 I wanted to shout at her, you had 12 bloody years of free childcare! I’ve never had you look after my child one day so I could go to work! My eldest is 13 and she still never has. 😂

It’s the hypocrisy that bothers me a bit. The lack of acknowledgement of how privileged it is to have full time childcare on tap. I wouldn’t actually want my mum or my MIL providing regular childcare. And I say our mums only because our dads both died before we even met. But I could do with an acknowledgement that I had to work a lot harder to do things myself and take a lot longer to do things like buy our first house because we didn’t get everything handed to us for free. That acknowledgement isn’t really there, I’m kinda treated like a spoiled entitled child (I am NC with my mum now for totally unrelated safeguarding reasons), but this is how she talks about me to friends. Actually, of anyone in the family, I’ve been quite independent, certainly more than she was at the same stage.

I do think it's a bit weird when people complain that they don't get "access" to grandchildren if they don't babysit. Plus threads saying that you're 100% responsible for children in grandparents' house etc.

Prior to having my son, we'd see in laws every 3-6 weeks, no regular schedule. They wouldn't dream of not seeing their darling grandson for that long and provide regular childcare now, with MIL also getting to have lunch with her own son every Friday.

If my parents or in laws expected us to see them every weekend, whilst also assuming full responsibility for our son, I'd tell them to get to fuck, we have our own life and plans. I'm not some kind of grandchild concierge.

Fortunately our families don't have this weird concept of access to grandchildren where it's done solely for the benefit and convenience of the grandparents.

I dont have children so zero skin in this game but: I suspect life for mothers today is A LOT tougher than it was for grandmothers in terms of work and finances. A lot of that is down to political choices made my the grandmothers generation. I sort of feel they owe it to their daughters if they can

I think people get annoyed when grandparents ask to spend time with grandchildren, but only on their own terms / when it suits them. Or they offer to babysit and then rescind it because they get a better offer.