Looking after grandchild - favour of not?

My mother will be watching my DC two days a week when I go back to work and I consider it a favour.

I think there should be no expectations or assumptions that grandparents should or will provide childcare. If they offer, whether on an ad hoc or regular basis, then this is a bonus. We have been lucky in that my parents have offered a day a week for childcare and have done this for each of their grandchildren. They are now about to start looking after their 7th grandchild for a day a week, and I do get the feeling that they feel a sense of duty to as they have done this with all the others. But they are adamant that they want to do it. This is likely to be the last grandchild, and (much as they love them all), I think they’ll be happy to stop doing the regular childcare and move to ad-hoc provision in the school holidays etc.

No one wanted ours regularly. Means we're not beholden to anyone.
I'd much rather they said no than did it begrudgingly which I've seen with a lot of GP. Like they feel they have to.
Big believer in anyone of any age paying for the help they need.

Looking after grandchild is a favour. Both sets of grandparents help us loads with childcare. I tell them to take holidays whenever they want, if they feel not up to it, me and DH will cover. We try and help them with admin and tech related stuff or pet stuff.

We don't do care at all for dh's grandchildren. We have one of them half a dozen times a year for about 4 hours...the other is too young.
We certainly won't have them overnight.

Not expected …. Thats being a CF

Bear with me…I think it is definitely a favour every time, whether it is for work or so you get to have an occasional glimpse of a social life. They are your children and when you decide to have children, you should assume they are 100% your responsibility 100% of the time, anything else is a bonus.

However. It baffles me why someone wouldn’t look after their grandchildren even if for no other reason than just to give their own children a well deserved break from parenting. Surely they remember how hard it is and how relieving it would be for an unforced offer of help. They are still your parents. For me, I think I’ll always feel a sense of duty to help where I can to increase the quality of life of my children regardless of their age. Even though I find looking after mine tedious, boring, frustrating and tiring at times, I will offer to help as much as I can when the time comes. Hopefully I’ll enjoy it but even if I don’t, I will be there to help my children.

Aside from that, I think time with grandparents is precious, and it is a huge shame for the children when grandparents just aren’t bothered. My husband and I have great memories with our grandparents but ours won’t have those memories on one side of the family because they basically can’t be bothered with the hassle of taking them out etc. Their memories of things they’ve done together i.e. seeing them sat on a settee with a cup of tea at their convenience won’t be treasured unfortunately.

Admittedly it is hard work as we all know. For my parents, it is a chore to literally sit in the house whilst the children are asleep so we can go for a meal once or twice a year, so it might just be laziness / fear of being out of their routine. We get summoned home so early it is barely worth going. But if they aren’t bothered, that’s up to them, it’s their loss ultimately because the children will get to an age (quickly) where they don’t want to visit their grandparents because they’d rather be with their friends / video games etc. The opportunity to build what I am told can be the most rewarding relationship will be lost forever. They therefore won’t have a solid relationship when the children become adults and their grandparents have lots of time to kill when they are elderly.

It is frustrating for the parents in the equation, especially when (like me) everybody around you seems to be doing things, going out, wedding days, trips away without their children because the grandparents actively seek to spend time with their grandchildren because they actually enjoy it. We know people who literally convert bedrooms ready for the newborn as soon as they hear their children are expecting. Our children haven’t spent a night away from us in the 8 years we’ve had them. But you have to live with it because it is the hard truth that we decided to have children so shouldn’t expect help.

Nobody helped me when my children were born. My mother told me not to expect a babysitter. Her time looking after children was over.

I used to see grandparents picking children up from school, grandparents attending sports days, school performances, offering hands on help for their children and felt like something was missing, that my mother was not interested and did not care and I was right.

I asked for help three times only and was turned down twice. On the third occasion she agreed to look after the two little ones aged three and five when my oldest son had his tonsils out.
She knew it would look bad if she turned me down this time as other family members knew about the operation.
My husband dropped them off at bedtime and collected them the following afternoon.
My children remember to this day how horrible she was to them.

I am a grandma and support my children every time they ask for help. It's my job to look after my family and I love my grandchildren. At the same time I expect to be respected and not taken advantage of.

I see other grandparents who look after little ones so parents can go to work, unpaid and unappreciated. It's a balance. Grandchildren should be a blessing and not a burden.

No favours here, we look after our granddaughter once a week and love her to bits. Her other grandmother also has her once a week. It helps her parents out and we all get to spend time with her. Win, win all round really.

The problem is that the parent in this scenario just isn't a very nice person. It doesn't matter whether or not the time the child spends with the grandparent is a "favour" because there isn't a fixed equation of moral logic that will magically make them be a decent person.

I see it as a favour. My mum recently retired and has very kindly offered to watch DS2 one day a week when I go back to work. It really helps us out so a big favour as we've never had family help with childcare before.

Neither of my parents have ever once looked after my DS - he's 7 now. On the one occasion I asked my mother to look after him (so I could go to work) she said yes - but only if I drove 90 minutes to drop him off, another hour to work, an hour back to her to pick him up and then 90 minutes home. I took the unpaid leave as it would have cost me more in petrol to drive for 5 hours just for her to look after him for me.

I'd wonder what kind of ingrate I'd raised!

Definitely a favour but in this situation I can see the grandparent wanting to spend time with DGC.

Definantly a Favour, and child was definantly out of order not helping his parents. If I was grandparents, I’d be reconsidering whether to help my ungrateful child!

If the parent has asked the grandparents to do it it's a favour, if grandparents have asked to have the DC it's not. I've never expected others to look after DC unless it was part of a paid for childcare arrangement. Why should grandparents rearrange their lives to look after grandkids, they have done their child rearing years and should be able to just have the good bits.

Also depends how old they are, I didn't have kids until my 40s so my parents and IL are sweet but an actual safeguarding impossibility!

It should never be expected. People need to accept what others are prepared to offer which may mean nothing at all.

I'm pretty lucky in that I have both sets of grandparents who'd have mine at the drop of a hat.

My lot would have them move in.

Nobody should be expected to provide childcare except the parents. Every family's situation is different and sometimes grandparents providing childcare works for all concerned, and sometimes it doesn't, but grandparents are under no obligation to look after the children if they don't want to.

Depends on the set up and discussions beforehand.

When pregnant we had discussed with both sets of grandparents, 1 had dc 1 day a week and the other 2 days per week when I went back to work 3 days per week. All agreed/ discussed lots.

Less than 4 weeks before my return date grandparents of 2 days changed the arrangements where they'd previously agreed and suggested they come to dc's home as all equipment etc there and had visited regularly to join us and learn new walks/ baby groups etc. They decided if they took dc I'd need to cart all the equipment (highchair, pushchair, toys etc) along with baby, over to them before my work day then after work collect it all up again. Worst bit was they said they still need to work (shop owners, shop has managers/ staff) but they visit often. They said they'd be taking baby to their work with them most days and if they're dealing with an important/ regular customer it's ok as the staff can watch dc

At that point I found a childminder for those 2 days. Other grandparent is a dream, nothing is too much but I don't take the p*ss and when they have done a big ask like a 7am start or the very rare overnight as they refuse payment we take them for a nice meal or buy a nice gift.

Some people presume grandparents will provide free childcare which is unfair.

Communication is key!!

I don’t know anyone whose circumstances meant it was possible to do this, as grandparents all lived too far away to regularly look after the grandchildren. I would never see it as expected though..

I was hugely grateful that my mum had mine for 2 or 3 days a week. Not only did it save me a fortune in childcare but I knew they were in the best possible hands. Whenever I thanked her she assured me it was her pleasure, and she certainly did the most lovely activities with them. I very much hope that in the future I will be able to carry on that favour for my own children

The irony is that they complain that they never had support when we were little and they had to struggle on alone

My in-laws offered to look after DD1 for one day a week when I returned to work following mat leave. I never expected it or took it for granted - it’s always been very much appreciated and I stressed to them that if it ever got too much at any point then they just had to say.