Posting in AIBU for traction, not because I think I'm wrong - I know I'm right in fact :) But this is where many of the grabby, problematic mumsnetters turn up to have a whinge and make false arguments. So this is for all of you.
And let’s be clear, if you're a grandmother who genuinely loves caring for your grandchildren, good for you. This thread is not for or about you. If your own mother happily provides childcare and truly enjoys it, lovely. This thread is not or or about you either.
This is about dismantling a stubborn and deeply illogical belief that if a grandmother declines the burden of childcare, she somehow forfeits the right to see her grandchildren.
No one is owed childcare from their mother. End.
It does not matter whether she had help when raising you, other people’s sacrifices are not items on a balance sheet for you to cash in later. Older women are not public utilities, nor are their remaining years a communal resource to be allocated by their adult children. They are human beings with dignity, autonomy, and the absolute right to say no for any reason whatsoever.
They have already done the work. They raised their children. Their duty is complete.
But what is especially irritating is how often two completely separate things are deliberately conflated with the dreary refrain of “Well then she can’t expect visits from the grandchildren.”
This is a logical failure.
Childcare is work. It is labour intensive, draining, time consuming, and often physically demanding.
A family visit is not work. Bringing your children to see their grandmother, spending time together, sharing conversation and affection, that is family life. It is a relationship, not a work shift.
To collapse those into the same category is a false equivalence.
If you dislike your mother so much that visiting her feels like a burden, like work, then of course you definitely do NOT want her to shoulder the burden of your job of parenting. That would be quite mad, imagine wanting your children under the care of a woman you would prefer never to spend time with.
If seeing her is a chore and you consider it a job then asking her to work for you (generally for free) is absurd.
If she wants to see you more often than you can manage that is QUITE another matter, just see her when you can, like normal people do.
But if you love your mother, you will want to see her because she is family, because you enjoy her company, because relationships exist for their own sake.
That bond is not, and should never be, contingent on whether she performs even more physical labour after decades of already doing exactly that.
These are the three coherent possibilities - you visit your mother with the children because you love her and enjoy being together. Otherwise known as normal family life.
The second possiblity is that you do not want a relationship with your mother, in which case you would neither visit nor expect free labour from her.
The third possiblitiy is that your mother freely chooses to provide childcare, which is her decision alone and not something anyone is entitled to demand nor contingent upon anything else.
What is not logically defensible is weaponising access to grandchildren as punishment because she refused unpaid work. That's coercion dressed up badly in sentiment.
It's not complicated - family connection and visits are a relationship. Childcare is labour. These two concepts are not interchangeable, and one should never be made conditional on the other or compared to the other.
And finally those of you who claim the relationship with her grandchildren will be stronger if an exhausted older women is forced to do your job of parenting - maybe. Maybe not. Nobody has the slightest idea of how kids will feel about their grandparents or parents as they grow up and a lot of grandmothers would gladly relinquish a "closer" relationship with their grandchildren if it meant they could put their exhausted feet up after a lifetime of labour, or go out when they want as they want doing what they want, without first running it past their dictator daughters.
So, all of you who keep trying to confuse what is actually a very simple concept with this nonsense - just stop now.
If you are demanding child care from your mother and trying to couch it in any way as anything she "should" do because "reasons", trying to conflate famly visit with her doing unpaid work that she did for decades already - you're an awful person, and are perpetuating the misogyny of treating women like commodities to be shared.
Stop throwing a tantrum, get on with parenting your own kids and visit your mother, or don't. For many of you, not visiting would be doing her a favour.
I am an older woman who is happy to agree to the intensive labour of free childcare a couple of times a week because I choose to. An older woman who would instantly tell you exactly where to go if you ever asserted your entitlement or attempted to tell me what I "should" do with my own precious, irreplaceable and limited time on this earth. An older woman who will decline childcare if I want to, when I want to and be treated respectfully regardless.
Signed - an older woman who is sick of your entitled bullshit. We see you.
Stop it.