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Original poster

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

185 replies

DorotheaHomeAlone · 18/07/2020 08:48

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?

OP posts:
Standrewsschool · 18/07/2020 21:44

My grandparents didn’t look after us, as they lived to far away. Used to stay with them during school holidays sometimes.

My parents and in-laws didn’t regularly help. Occasionally did the odd bit of babysitting.

Although, to be fair, I was a SAHM so didn’t need regular childcare, and got an evening job, so dh could look after the dc whilst I was at work.

GabrielleChanel · 18/07/2020 23:20

My dad was in the navy and my
Mum regularly took us to stay at her mums but my granny was a widow before I was born
My husband parents used to drive the kids to stay with the grandparents for a week at a time (they lived by the beach)

We get no regular help at all from either set
DhS parents have had 2dc to stay twice maybe three times tops.
They have always said that all 4 together would be too much for them

My parents have babysat for us maybe a dozen time in as many years
It makes me
Sad

bashcrashfall · 18/07/2020 23:33

Grandparents who are a bit younger and haven't had the financial gains experienced by some baby boomers are working longer. My Mum doesn't do regular childcare as at 61 she still works full time and will have to work for something like 9 more years, by which point my kids won't need childcare of any kind.

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caoraich · 18/07/2020 23:39

My grandparents looked after me when I was small, we had a wonderful relationship. They lived very nearby.

DC only has GPs on my side. My parents are brilliant but we moved 100 miles away from them for work reasons. They would absolutely help regularly if we lived closer by. My main worry is my DC not getting to have the same relationship with them as I had with my GPs. We see them as much as possible but it wouldn't be reasonable of me to ask them to make that trip on a weekly basis to come and do childcare while DP and I are at work.

I think families are more scattered around these days, and also grandparent aged people are "younger" in that they are more healthy in older age and are likely to still be off travelling etc in their retirement so perhaps less available

SenorFrog · 18/07/2020 23:40

My own gps were very involved in my life but they didn't provide child care, just regular gp stuff. My own parents have been amazing, they've provided years of childcare. Consequently they're very close to my dc who are now 18 and 14, they no longer provide childcare, obviously, but my dc go round for their dinner a couple of nights a week (pre Covid). My parents are blood fabulous though.

IndieTara · 18/07/2020 23:44

Both my parents and Ex DH's parents live abroad and my sisters live an hour away so I've never experienced family care for DD. I've always paid for childcare to enable me to work

MondeoFan · 18/07/2020 23:44

@Oohkittens

Sad isn't it

ButterflyWitch · 18/07/2020 23:53

My parents got lots of help with childcare but have given us none. We only see them once or twice a year.
One wise MNetter once made the point that if your parents were crap at looking after their own kids, they're not going to suddenly want to look after yours! (I may have taken some liberties with the quote there..).
But on the positive side, it means we don't feel obliged to them in return.

jenthehen · 18/07/2020 23:55

No, my parents only live 3 miles away but babysat for my children perhaps 2 evenings a year. I stopped asking in the end. Now I have teenagers and they have no bond with their Grandparents. However, I felt no obligation to do their shopping etc during Lockdown (I did it for my lovely elderly neighbour though). My sister can take on that responsibility as my parents had her kids morning, evenings, weekends and extended holidays. There are only 3 years in age between all our children and we live the same distance away. I’ve come to terms with it now. My children are gorgeous, kind and polite human beings and it’s my parents loss.

AlexaShutUp · 18/07/2020 23:59

Yes and no.

My mum and dad moved across the country to be near us when dd was small, and they did help with childcare regularly. Their parents were not able to help because they lived hundreds of miles away. In any case, my mum was a sahp so didn't really need the help.

babycakes1010 · 19/07/2020 00:03

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

AlexaShutUp · 19/07/2020 00:04

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.

jenthehen · 19/07/2020 00:05

@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 : (

BrieAndChilli · 19/07/2020 00:15

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.

Poetryinaction · 19/07/2020 06:36

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

happypotamus · 19/07/2020 08:59

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.

Mimishimi · 19/07/2020 09:03

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

Bumpsadaisie · 19/07/2020 09:13

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.

Tinyhumansurvivalist · 19/07/2020 09:23

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.

WildfirePonie · 19/07/2020 09:30

@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.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 19/07/2020 09:44

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.

MoominKitty · 19/07/2020 09:49

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.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 19/07/2020 10:30

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.

ThisAintNoPartyThisAintNoDisco · 19/07/2020 10:39

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.

Mrsfrumble · 19/07/2020 10:41

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.

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