AIBU to wonder why some grandparents avoid helping with childcare?

They probably can't be bothered

I've got children and I can understand why. Because they're tired, because they don't want to, because their grandchildren are annoying, because they're busy, because they raised their children and now it's not their turn. For many reasons. How many bloody threads about this topic!!

Because it’s not their job, and older women don’t exist to be support humans to their adult children. YABU.

I find it hard to understand too. My dd died a few years ago and loved spending time with my kids. My dm went along with it but now is not interested. Goes away for months at a time. I find it hard to accept that she can let us struggle. Recent times have changed things - I had to go full time to keep up with our outgoings with increased cost of living and our youngest has additional needs.
My parents had similar circumstances and my gran gave us dinner each night and did after school activities and much more. She helped when they needed it and I just find it sad that my mum would standby and watch us struggle . I don't think she should be doing as much as my gran did but how can you watch your kids drown ? I can't understand it and it makes me sad.

I’ve been looking after and helping my DC for nearly 40 years now, my eldest needs a lot of support. If I do have DGC I don’t know how much regular help I will be able to provide. I’m thinking when will it become my time? I don’t want to go through my whole adult life caring for people, my adult DC, my DM, then perhaps my DGC, who is looking after me?

Yeah I don't get it either

I keep seeing everyone talking about having a 'bond' with grandchildren. I don't need a 'bond' with my grandchildren. I have a bond with my own children. Their children are not mine. I love them but one lives in Australia so I'm never going to be intimately involved in his life anyway and if a 'bond' has to come at the expense of my freedom to finally have some time to myself after raising five kids as a single parent - the so be it. I don't feel the need to have a special granny bond anyway.

My parents live with me and DH and they absolutely adore looking after our little DD.
she goes to nursery twice a week and then the other 3 days they look after her (albeit I work from
home on those days). They’ve never once complained and always offer to mind her. DH finishes work at 3 then he’s home to take her off their hands but it’s never ever been a problem for them. They said it’s given them a new lease of life and something to keep them occupied in retirement. Different families, different circumstances, different family values I guess.
DHs family are the sort that chuck all their kids out at 21 so we know they would never be up for babysitting, nor would we ask them - they also live 200 miles away and don’t make any effort at all to see her so we don’t either.

Yes - just as I’m familiar with all the stereotypes which existed around Gen X in the 90s (we were nihilistic, lazy, cynical, sarcastic, would never amount to anything, etc etc), and all the nasty complaints about Millennials (too sensitive, wasting their money on avocado toast, etc etc) from older people for the last couple of decades too. Every generation complains about the attitudes of those older than them (remember which generation spat ‘Hope I die before I get old’ in one of the biggest hits of the 1960s?) and those younger than them too (it’s in classical literature and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales!). For some reason, though, Baby Boomers seem uniquely offended by quite a mild expression of ‘look at you, living up to all the stereotypes of your age group’!

Are you not familiar with the whole 'OK, Boomer' thing?

I wonder why you see ‘boomer’ as a pejorative term? It’s helpful shorthand for ‘people born between the end of the Second World War and the mid-1960s’, just as ‘Generation X’ refers to people born between 1965 and 1980 and ‘Millennials’ those born between 1981 and 1996. When I talk about my grandparents being part of the ‘Greatest Generation’, it tells you that they were born between 1901 and 1927, and you know instantly which historical events and social attitudes shaped their lives. Similarly, the ‘Baby Boom’ generation were shaped by their experience of being the largest demographic group for most of their lives.

Who raised the the adult babies?

Unlikely. People are inherently selfish. You could provide round the clock care for your children and grandchildren and it still doesn’t guarantee that they will give a crap about you in old age.

I'd say it's the other way around - maybe if grandparents wanted to help their adult children and develop a bond with grandchildren, then said adult children and grandchildren would want to reciprocate that???

I understand what you mean. It’s not just about ‘childcare’ it’s about involvement with the children’s lives.
My mother didn’t work, but my grandparents regularly had me (a couple of times a week) She also had 2/3 nights out a week, while my dad worked full time and always stayed home.
When I had kids she showed no interest in them and bemoans the fact that they don’t call or visit her now they’re grown. They are just matching her energy. My dad on the other hand dotted on them and they shared their lives with him. They reminded married until he died a few years ago.
I think some women, especially years ago, were pressured into having children. Even if they don’t acknowledge this resentment.

Fortunately avoided those, but have reported the waves of others similarly identical themed ones. It makes no difference. I’ve only been on MN for under 2 years but think it has lost its appeal for me. Am fed up with the polarised, rage bait nature of most of the threads, or the pile-ons on seemingly sincere support seeking threads, these days. And the sarky replies like yours, really.

Yep. Am done, here.

Did you report the dogs in cafes threads as well?

Couldn’t agree more. People having kids and expecting everyone else but them to raise them. Exhausting.

The bigger question is why mums dont want to look after their own children.

Why mums? What about the dads?

Thanks for reading. You dont know me at all. I'm so pleased I dont know you.

I agree - I reported several other threads to MNHQ stating that there is something underlying all these threads but they said each poster had a history so were not bots etc. which still doesn’t preclude them from being journalists/researchers working in concert.

Am coming close to leaving MN as it is getting ridiculous now, but have been on a few threads about A levels/uni apps that I keep coming back for.

This is so sad :(

Also, I was born in the 80s and we never had grandparents looking after us as they lived far away. In my class in primary school, a couple of kids had grandparents living close by who looked after them but most didn’t. I know the OP says her mum had help but most didn’t.

@myislandhome My older sister is a bit like you, had to assist with much younger siblings, me and two other sisters from 12, she was married and had a child young at 19.

She had another a couple of year later and then an accidental third a further decade on. So it stretched small child rearing years. She was a Granny at 43 and helped loads as her DD was abandoned when PG. Then further grandchildren arrived at regular intervals over the next 15 years.

She is now in her early seventies and had about 5 years where she did no childcare and enjoyed some hobbies and travelled with her DH, just within the UK. But now her DH is very ill and her describing all his issues that’s it now she is his carer. That man is not going to get better and the operation he needs is too high a risk.So that poor woman has had a life dominated by caring.

I mean everyone loves her and she is viewed very much like some kind of earth Mother but really she was a bit of a doormat. Who put everyone’s needs above her own.

The bigger question is why mums dont want to look after their own children.

My MIL has four children, who all have children. She was very involved with two of the families and did loads of childcare to help them. She wasn't at all involved in two of them.

Guess which ones are divorced? I often wonder if the marriages might have survived if the parents had learned to take responsibility for their own lives instead of delegating their children.