Grandparents helping with childcare - do you get help? Did your parents?

[DorotheaHomeAlone]

We’re lucky to have weekly childcare help from my mum with our three dc. She’s come pretty much every week since I returned to work after mat leave with my first.

A lot of friends have said how lucky we are. I agree, Mum is great! She also offers the occasional overnight and we holiday together every couple of years. Her mum provided similar when she had children and both enjoy close relationships with their gc as a result. I hope to offer my kids similar help if they choose to have kids one day.

A lot of parents I speak to would love this sort of help but don’t have it and it’s got me wondering why that is. Were our grandparents‘ generation more inclined to help than our parents? Is it because people are less likely to live near family or because they’re starting their families later and grandparents are too old to help?

So my question is: did your grandparents offer childcare when you were small and do your parents offer now? If not, why not?

[pigcon1]

Both my parents and my in laws work. They are fantastic people and we support each other great grandparents with lovely relationships without kids and their cousins (but not childcare).

[Ltdannygreen]

My mum quite happily looks after my kids whilst I’m at work, they are 12 and 7 so fairly independent but she has looked after them since they were born. I work morning and she works evenings so it works well. She won’t except payment and I try buying her things se says she needs but she just puts money back in my account and every time says I don’t need paying for spending time with my grandkids. Her mum and dad looked after us when she was working late and during half term. My kids have an amazing relationship with her and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[Zaphodsotherhead]

[quote MondeoFan]@Wildfireponie

Mine are late 60's and early 70's with no health problems either.
Mine are 25 min drive. They never phone or come round and def no babysitting.
If I go there my mum normally cross with me as she hasn't seen me in 2-3 months or whatever. Zero interest in granddaughters. I feel sorry for my girls as they haven't experienced what it's like to have proper grandparents. [/quote]
What are 'proper' grandparents, though?

I'm 60 and work two jobs. When I retire I'm not going to volunteer to spend my down time caring for someone else's children. I can still be a 'proper' grandparent though.I've brought up five children, I've done my time.

[choli]

PIL moved 4 hours away on retirement I strongly suspect to avoid grandparenting duties. If we go and visit they will do a bit of entertaining but won't offer to babysit so DH and I could have an evening out.
If you believe that there is a thing called grandparenting duty i am not at all surprised that they moved.

[MondeoFan]

@Wildfireponie

Mine are late 60's and early 70's with no health problems either.
Mine are 25 min drive. They never phone or come round and def no babysitting.
If I go there my mum normally cross with me as she hasn't seen me in 2-3 months or whatever. Zero interest in granddaughters. I feel sorry for my girls as they haven't experienced what it's like to have proper grandparents.

[ohtheholidays]

I didn't really get any help even though I was a single mum to 4DC(and one of them was my newborn breastfed DD and DS who was 20 months old at the time and is autistic)and I was attending college and working part time.

My Mum and Dad got tons of help with they're 3DC from my maternal Grandmother and she was my most favourite person in the whole wide world and my bestfriend,I was devestated when she passed away and I still miss her all of the time even though she passed away about 40 years ago.

We(me and DH)have 5DC and 1 Grandchild,our DGrandson is 10 months old and we love looking after him,we've bathed him,fed him,changed him,winded him,played with him,you name and it we'll do it and our DD really appreciates any and all help we give her.
We've had DD and our DGrandson stay over and me and my DH take it in turns to get up with him in the night so our DD can try and catch up on some much needed sleep,she expresses before she comes to stay so we can feed him in the night.

Because of the above we have a really close relationship with our DGrandson and he's allready learnt to say Nanny and Grandad.

[okiedokieme]

No, the closest I lived was 60 miles and they weren't willing. Had in total maybe 15 days of childcare off my mum (much further) in 18 years

[polexiaaphrodesia]

Both sets of my grandparents looked after my sister and me for a day a week each when my mum went back to work. They also looked after us a few times when my parents went on holiday. On DHs side the grandparents lived further away so no regular childcare but would have DH and his siblings for 2 weeks a year so PIL could have a child free break.

PIL moved 4 hours away on retirement I strongly suspect to avoid grandparenting duties. If we go and visit they will do a bit of entertaining but won't offer to babysit so DH and I could have an evening out.

On my side, my mum still works although very part time. My parents meet up with my sister and her DCs every week but this is at a National Trust house or similar so on their terms and more of a day out than "childcare". They will do a bit of babysitting if asked but tend to turn up late or make pointed remarks about wanting to get home to beat the traffic (being in labour with DD was a good example of this!) They are now making noises about moving to the coast to enjoy their retirement. Underlying all of this is their belief that I shouldn't be working in a professional role and should have given up my career when I had my children as my sister has done.

I used to get very bitter about this, especially when I see the amount of help and support that other people get (have had to bite my tongue a few times when people complain that granny puts the baby down for a nap too late or let them get dirty in the garden etc) but now I think this absolves us of any responsibility when my parents are old and need help. By moving miles away and offering minimal help they have removed any chance of us popping in for regular visits from the equation. I also like the fact that DH and I are completely independent and solve any childcare issues ourselves without having to ask favours but it is sometimes difficult and at the moment DH and I are absolutely exhausted so would like a break.

[Splattherat]

My grandma looked after me the first grandchild quite often on an adhoc basis while my mum went into town (in those my mum had to get the bus to town to do a weekly food shop) or for various other things. My mum didn’t work when I was little and I visited my grandma with my mum most days. I loved her and we were really close.
My mum looked after my sisters daughter my niece 16 months older than DS practically every day (sister worked PT) and my mum quite often looked after her over nights and weekends etc.
Yet my mum barely saw my children, I think by the time my DS was born they were engrossed with my niece they wanted a break when not looking after her. They wouldn’t even look after my DS for half a day a month or for an over night once a month!!
Needless to say my two don’t have a close relationship with my mum.

[icebearforpresident]

Both my mum and my in-laws have been invaluable with helping out with childcare and I will never be able to thank them enough for it, especially my mother in law who, at one point, was doing 4 days a week for a few hours at a time.

My mum still works but went down to 4 days a few years ago especially to help us out. We didn’t ask her to, she only told us she had done it once it was organised. My mother in law is retired so offered to help out as we live in a small town with a chronic shortage of childminders and no private nurseries but i don’t think she realised how much we would need her. Eventually my eldest started school and we managed to get a childminder a few days a week for both kids so pre-Covid she was really only doing a school & nursery pick up (same building) until I got home at 5pm one day a week. Youngest starts school in August and I’ll be working part time thanks to Covid-19 so we won’t need her any more. On the rare occasions DH and I have evening or weekend plans my mum helps us out as MIL did so much during the week we never dared ask for weekends as well.

[Mrsfrumble]

No. We don’t live nearby, and my mum was caring for my dad who had dementia until he died 2 years ago. I don’t resent missing out, but I do think people don’t acknowledge what a massive privilege it is to have family members willing to provide regular free childcare. It’s up there with being gifted a house deposit in my mind.

[ThisAintNoPartyThisAintNoDisco]

In-laws we’re always brilliant and used to have the dc often and overnight too.

My parents would have them for a couple of hours sometimes and never overnight. Which is strange because I was often at my grandmas overnight whilst they went out. But as grandparents my parents just wouldn’t. Or they’d say they’d have just one which was no help at all really.

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

No help here because we were living overseas when dds were young, and TBH I wouldn’t have asked or expected it anyway. My DM had 4 inc. 2 close together, with no help at all, not to mention no automatic washing machine etc. then - she had no family nearby. I felt that she’d done her bit.
In any case, even if we hadn’t been abroad we almost certainly wouldn’t have been living close by.

[MoominKitty]

My nan looked after us when mum had to work nights after my brother went to uni (huge age gap) and dad left.

My mum is also filling the gaps between my shift ending and my partners starting, so 2 or 3 hours a day, when I go back next month.

We are also moving to be with mum to help her financially and so we get a garden so it is benificial both ways tbf.

Were very lucky both our families live in the same town as we never wanted to use childcare for our son.

[DisgraceToTheYChromosome]

No (too far away), no (too busy) and we're the helpful grandparents now. They lived with us for most of the first year, see elephantine skipping in Classics. We have an overnight once a week, and a day or two every so often. There's a cast iron rule that it's to be no more than 6-7 hours if we're on our own, due to fucked legs and fatigue.

[WildfirePonie]

@MondeoFan
Sucks doesn't it? Makes me wonder why I bothered to move back to the UK. My parents insisted that we moved 5 minutes away from them. What is the point? The kids never see them! They are both early sixties and no health problems. It's so sad really.

[Tinyhumansurvivalist]

Yes and no... when dd was little we got jo help from either side. My mil was amazing and had demanded we didn't use Jersey etc and she would have had dd when I went back to work, however she was 80 and died before it was an issue. But her help wouldn't have been accepted as her age meant it would have been massively unfair on her and fil has always been a shit driver so was never letting dd be in a car with him.

My parents both worked until recently, mum now helps and has been a lifesaver for lockdown.

I think it is less about not wanting tonhelp/have a close relationship with gc and more because people have no choice but to work longer so many like my dad are still working full time at 68 because he can't afford not to. House prices, cost of living, the recession in the 90's and then again in 2008 has meant a lot of people have lost out on private pensions, mortgage endowments that failed to reach anywhere near the expectations sold...all contributes to people not retiring at 60 like in generations past and not being able to help.

Also we live in a much more mobile society, people no longer live and die where they were born, we follow the work etc so often grandparents are miles away and cannot help.

[Bumpsadaisie]

When I was small we lived 2 hours plus away from both grandparents so no - but once we were old enough we did used to go for a week to stay with my mums parents which we loved.

We moved near my parents when my eldest was born and they have helped out from when she was 6 months old.

At the most involved they were having them 2 days a week - when they would have my youngest (aged 12 mths) all day and collect my eldest (aged 3) from nursery and then have both of them till 6.

[Mimishimi]

No, we never lived close enough and my mum had bad health anyway.

[happypotamus]

I work random shifts which are different each week. When I went back to work after my first maternity leave my parents and my in-laws offered to do 1 day a week childcare, so we didn't have to pay for 4 days a week of nursery when I only worked on average 2 week days as nursery needed set days (I don't work Fridays). They didn't do it every week as I wasn't at work that day every week. They would also offer to have DC sometimes in the school holidays for a day once they went to school. When both DC were at school they didn't do childcare anymore apart from the occasional school holiday day, as neither are very local so it was too far to come just to pick them up for school and look after them for up to 1hr until DH got home from work.
My mum's parents lived about as far away from us when we were children as my parents live from me now but they didn't drive, so couldn't do regular childcare. We would go and stay with them for a few days every so often so my parents could go away though. We only saw my dad's parents a couple of times a year.

[Poetryinaction]

No and no.
My parents did't live near their parents and wed don't live near ours.

[BrieAndChilli]

My mums parents looked after us a lot. Dads parents lived overseas.
Several reasons my Nan didn’t work so could have us after school /holidays etc
We lived nearby

My mum has never helped with childcare. I don’t live nearby (and we are no NC anyway) but she won’t help my sister out either who lives nearby and even when she had a hospital appointment and was stuck for childcare my mum said no. (No longer works so that wasn’t an issue)
MIL lives a couple of hours alway but works termtike so often either comes here or the kids go to here for some of the holidays. FIL lives nearby to us and when the kids were smaller and me and DH worked shifts/evenings FIl did a lot of babysitting for us. (And he hates children - he has ASD and hates noise etc) so I really appreciate that he did so much for Us.

I do think it’s harder for todays grandparents to help out - a lot of them are still working and it’s no longer usual for the mother to not speak once children are grown. And it’s more common for people to move aaay from thier home town making it harder logistically for grandparents to help. Also nursery/childcare is more common and not just for high flying career women.

[jenthehen]

@MooneyBadger my situation was very similar to yours as I also have a much younger brother who I looked after loads but I got virtually no help from my parents. Like you say I don’t feel any obligation but I wish my children had a close relationship with their grandparents (sadly the paternal grandparents have died). I really tried when they were little but when no interest was shown in return I gave up : (

[AlexaShutUp]

Just to add, my grandparents might have moved to live closer to my parents if they had had the financial resources to do so, but they didn't. For my parents, it was a choice that they were thankfully able to make.

[babycakes1010]

My parents had no help with me and my brother so knows what it's like and has my 3dc so we can work.