Did grandparents who had no help become less willing to help?

Be like my parents and pick your favourite DC and just offer help to that one?

I had little help and will be helping out when I can. Lucky to have mine near by - what a blessing.

I think the opposite is often true. My parents had endless help from their own parents and don’t help us at all despite living close by. I think they genuinely don’t realise how difficult parenting is without any support because they never had to do it. My husband and I have already said that if we ever have grandchildren we will help as much as we can and make sure that our children have regular opportunities for breaks and time to themselves. We know how difficult and isolating it is to parent without a village and would never want our children to go through that.

Not in my experience. My parents had no help whatsoever with 6 of us - they have helped all of us with our own DC immensely.

The thing is how does it work if a DGP has three DC and they each have 3 DC?

I think some families have a strong culture of grandparent support, so it's their norm. The other side to this tends to be an equally strong culture of respecting the views of grandparents, giving them a say, trusting their experience etc and actively including them. This is the culture in my family. If you don't have the second part, which increasingly seems to be the case, you have less chance of the first.
However even if you play your part, personal circumstances come into play. By the time I retire my oldest GC will be adults, so the hands on stuff I can do is limited by my need to work. At the other end of the scale, if my youngest DC has children late on, I will be pretty old and with the best will I'm the world will struggle with the work that even parents admit is exhausting.
GP are not a homogenous mass. We each have our own lives and feelings.
If you feel you will need your parents help to raise your child, the wise thing is to talk it through before you start your family. Because most of this resentment is caused by hopes and expectations that have never been discussed, presenting your parent with a child and a set of expectations that live in your mind but not necessarily in theirs. Always best to know where you stand and plan accordingly.

My parents had no help. They were young parents and became grandparents at 40. This was their choice as they lived far away from any family help. I know my grandmother did offer to care for me so my mother could go to university though, if she didn't marry my father. She did and they moved, so no help.

My parents haven't been the give help type. They blamed this on being young and needing down time around work. So I got no real help.

I don't have grandchildren but plan to be available to give some help, on my terms, if I ever do. I'll be different from my parents in that way.

I think retirees now are very different from my own parents. Many women (and let’s face it the vast majority of the care is from women even if there’s a man around) have worked and brought up children. Retirement is a chance to travel or meet friends whenever and however they want and routine childcare provision is a big intrusion into their lives.

I have also warned my own children not to make any assumptions about my availability!

Webmoved closer to my parents because they asked me to to make them helping us easier. No help ever materialised, just the occasional visit. When we moved away again the shit hit the fan because we were making it harder to see their grandchildren and denying access, even though we only moved an hour away back to the place we had lived before.

We were happy to live closer if it meant help, not simply to make their visits easier

I don't remember my grandparents ever watching me for my siblings probably because they were too old and live too far away

My mother watched my children a little bit but she had never worked outside of the home so she had plenty of time to do it

The few times I watch my grandchildren I was horribly taken advantage of plus I am still working full time

I think that is a huge difference a lot grandparents are still working

And I think we are talking about the grandmothers here because there are no expectations on grandfathers to do endless caring and child care

I had zero help from anyone but then I didn’t expect it. I’ve helped with child care where I’ve been able to.

My grandparents were like second parents to me; I spent a lot of time with them. My mother has near zero involvement with my DC.

I had no help. 5 children. My mum didnt babysit and my husbands mum wasnt in our lives. I wasnt willing to let strangers babysit. So we went out separately until the children were old enough to stay at home themselves.
Im now a grandmother. And I help as much as I can. Im 46 and working part time. So I am enjoying life going out etc, as I didnt for a long time. But if my daughter asks me to have my granddaughter, I do. I have her through the day aswell so my daughter can sleep. Or just spend time with her partner without a child there. Or even just go shopping. I probably have my granddaughter overnight at least once a month, and twice ive had her for the weekend while the parents go away. I help and support as much as I can, as I didnt have that and its hard.
Also my nan and grandad had me and my siblings (was 5 of us) while my mum worked, and at weekends sometimes. And was older then than my mum is now.

My mil said this to me yet she would leave her boys overnight with her mil every weekend. My mum had no help but helps my sister 3x a week.

Mine are little yet but should they have children I do not wish to be relied upon for regular childcare and even then I don't think I would want to do more than a day for each of my children. I'd rather do adhoc days like in an emergency or for special dates. I chose to have my children and I make sacrifices for them as they will need to do for their own children. I am a working parent. We are British asian and attitudes are changing.

😂😂😂😂

I do not think the one follows the other - it is individual. The main thing that has changed IMO is that many parents seem to have the expectation that their parents might help - this certainly was not the case when mine were little. It never entered our heads that anyone other than ourselves might take responsibility for making sure our children were cared for. Our babies, our responsibility.

I received no help at all from either set of GPs - but I have been enjoying having a role in looking after my GC. However, my AC did not have the expectation that I would do it and would happily have accepted a refusal. But they knew I would love it of course!

I think every family set up is different

my parents were older and have both passed away as have DP’s parents
my sister has in laws and they help her a bit even tho they aren’t in the best of health. Her MIL can’t walk very far but she does her best and her husband is also kind - they will have the kids sometimes but can’t do school runs they’re not very good first thing in the morning etc..

My sister and I were taking about this and the likelihood is that we will both still be working until we are nearly 70!! Our kids will probably have had kids themselves by then and won’t be able to help much as when they’re little we will still be working and when we retire we will be too old and knackered to be of any use whatsoever!!!

if however we’d both had kids younger ourselves and were in a position financially to say retire at 55 - things would be very different.

my friends mum retired at 60 and told my friend to cancel the school wraparound care as she wanted to take her grandkids to school and every day and pick them up to give her purpose and she’s absolutely fab and she’s helped me a couple of times too if the childminder has been poorly, or once she had to go to a funeral and a hospital appointment but she is young enough and well enough to be able to do this.

I never had grandparents when I was brought up in UK. I was always so envious of school friends who had grandparents involved in their upbringing.
Likewise my children never saw both sets of grandparents because they were all living back in UK.

However since we became grandparents 18 yrs ago, we were more than happy to jump in and help out wherever we could.
Both of us have absolutely loved helping out without being overbearing or domineering.
To us being grandparents to 4 gorgeous kids has been such an amazing gift that has given us some beautiful memories.

We were lucky that we were both retired before we became grandparents so were happy to give as much time as was needed to caring for our grandchildren so their parents could work and study without racking up huge childcare costs.

However I know it’s different for some grandparents who feel they have done the hard yards bringing up their own kids and don’t want to or are unable to be involved in helping out with grandchildren.

We've had no help from either side of the family. My dad you can understand as they live 4 hours away. Although they also did have grandparents help either but also due to moving away when we where quite young.

On the other hand my in-laws have been no help (oh hang on they had the kids once). What frustrated me about that is my MIL had lots of help from her own mum, who did all the childcare before and after school and during the holidays so she could work full time. I now think she just wasn't that interested in children.

I watch a lady on tiktok who does skits about how her parents were about helping with the grandkids. They hardly ever babysat, always had an excuse (usually a pathetic one). Would say oh is ur mil not free etc. She is now a very active grandparent and does a lot for her grandkids despite that she got no help with her own kids.
Her own parents had lots of help though with their kids but showed little to no interest in hers. She said the one time they babysat overnight, she had to put the kids to bed first before going out and pick them up at 9am. Other times her mum wld have her coat on waiting at the door so she cld leave as soon as they got home 🙈

I didn't get any help from my parents. It's never occurred to me that I should.
I have provided childcare support for my grandchildren since they were tiny

We had some practical help at one point from one present grandparent. By second child this became limited due to their health.

We are not grandparents but have talked about being able to help our children more when hopefully the time comes. I don’t want to get stuck in endless days of childcare as we do plan to travel but will do some definitely - but we will definitely be there to general running around, helping out with their houses and financially supporting them.

At one point we had no help whatsoever and it’s lonely and demanding. We want to drop off laundry and lasagna, cut the grass to take the pressure off and do school pick ups when we can.

Just thinking our current timescales for retirement will most likely allow for a good chunk of international travel before any grandchildren come along so should be available

sorry that’s a bit rambly

This is us. My parents in law had a lot of help from their parents but combined this with raising latchkey kids. We have no help from them at all - first phrase from mil after sharing pregnancy news was something along the lines of don't be expecting any babysitting. Strange thing to say given that we were not a couple who had asked them for anything previously. They helped considerably with sister in laws child and have not once looked after ours in 3 years. We would not ask- its clear they don't want/like his company or a bond with him unless we are there. I think they helped sil as she needed it, whereas we did not