I know this won't apply to everyone but (millennials and grandparents)

[Mamananny]

I saw something online about my generation being raised by their grandparents almost, or spending alot of time with loving grandparents.

Which I did. My nan was so special to me, I was there all the time, sleepovers and she took me away on trips etc.

My parents retired early and dont really see my kids. They drive and only live 15 mins away but they just don't bother with them (only see them when we visit)

And I saw something online that said 'Millennials who were raised by their loving grandparents wonder why their parents aren't like that with their own kids.
Well they didn't to be around you (thats why you were at your nanas so much) so why would they want to be around their grandkids?!)

😂😂

It really made me laugh and it's true for me at least.

We were always sent to my nanas, after school, weekends.

And my mum didn't get a job till the youngest left high school so it wasn't for childcare.

This is supposed to be light hearted and I'm not looking for the 'it's no one's responsibility to raise your kids'! thing.

I'm not looking for anyone to raise my kids.

I just expected my kids to have the same bond I had with my nana, with my mum.

But she's just not interested and I realised she wasn't that interested in me growing up either.

I showed this to DH and he laughed. His mum is exactly the same.

I think it’s cultural more than generational tbh.

I was on the Northern Ireland subreddit a few weeks ago and saw a comment from an English junior doctor who was over here for his training. He said from his perspective people put much more emphasis on family bonds than in other parts of the U.K., with relations generally showing more interest and willingness to help support with care when patients come home.

Certainly within my friend group, I don’t know anyone whose parents/inlaws aren’t very engaged or supportive with the grandchildren.

My MIL is very keen (and extremely helpful!) To be part of her grandchildren lives because her own mother absolutely refused. And stopped her father doing stuff like taking them to the park.

She even looks after her great nephews regularly because she knows her niece needs the help.

Her own MIL lived for her grandchildren as well.

What happened the generation before does effect the behaviour the current generation.

Not true here. I spent a lot of time with my maternal Grandparents. But no where near enough that they did any thing like raise me. I was close to them and miss my Grandma loads. And adore my Gradad.

My DC OTOH actually lived with my Mum almost 50% of the time. Only so I could work though. Nothing to do with not wanting to be with them.

My family is the opposite! I (millennial) rarely saw my GPs as both my parents moved away from their home towns but GPs stayed put so distance was a factor.

Whereas my brother’s kids live close to both sets of GPs and see them all the time.

I'm in my 50's and didn't have a close relationship with my grandparents, despite the fact they lived locally.

I'm a grandma myself now and we help out a lot with our granddaughter. We've helped look after her since she was just a few months old and regularly have her for sleepovers and after school (in the days we're not working)

I cannot imagine not being involved in her life and supporting our daughter to raise her. Our life is definitely more fun (and noisy, chaotic and messy ) Wouldn't change it for anything.

100% true for me. I was with my Grandma all school holidays and also at least 1 night every weekend. My parents couldn't care less about my kids. We have moved 1.5hrs away from them but they dont call, or visit despite being in good heath and more than capable of going on numerous foreign holidays every year.

My mum is extremely helpful and hands on with my DD, I know she needed a lot of help from my grandma too who was a big part of our lives. Not sure it's generational, I know a lot of young grandmas very involved also. I'm sorry your parents aren't bonding with your children, that's really sad for them.

I think it sometimes goes alternatively in each generation in some families.

I am GenX and I had an extremely close relationship with one set of grandparents who I saw almost daily and they played a huge part in bringing me up, almost halfway between parents and grandparents.

My other grandparents had a more traditional grandparenting role but we spent summers there for childcare and had a close bond.

Both my parents (separated and both remarried) had no desire to help with my children and made that clear. My children do not have much or any real bond with them which I think is not only sad but a bit of a cheek as they got so much help.

I choose to have that bond with my grandchildren and realise it takes work and effort to make that relationship happen. And it gives me such joy.

I can only hope to be half as good as my grandparents. In fact when my Gran was coming to the end of her life she uncharacteristically asked for reassurance that she hoped she and my Grandad had been good grandparents. And I told her honestly that they had been the best to all their grandchildren and I would model my grandparenting on theirs.

I could have written your post OP. Every word, even about the mother and work.

I can’t get my head around it other than my parents (& I speak solely for them because my situation is very very different to a ‘normal’ upbringing) don’t want anything to do with me. They take their other son and DIL on holiday with their kids, go to their events, babysit.

I get nothing. Resulting in psychological intervention.

Friends and I have talked about it. We have parents who are loving and involved grandparents BUT we all get comments from them when we ask them to maybe have the kids for a few days once a year. Now fair play if they don’t want to do it, they’re older and it’s their life - but we all remember being packed off to the grandparents all the time as kids, and now our parents act as if we’ve invented the idea of grandparents having the kids for sleepovers 😅

Sort of.

I saw my dads mum every Saturday (but it was a family thing like mum dad and my sister would visit every Saturday she lived like 10 minutes away and would just spend the afternoon there) I would only see my mums mum and dad in the school holidays and if I was sent home sick from school and mum was working we only slept over on my parents anniversary or they had a work do.

My parents are basically grey nomads now they travel for more then half the year they are here for holidays and birthdays and during summer but most of the year they are gone my inlaws have been fantastic all throughout as they just recently retired while my parents retired 10 years ago my parents live like 10 minutes for us and inlaws about 40 minutes to an hour.

My son has had many sleep overs at my inlaws and parents when they are home but my son is older now so that's becoming far in-between now.

So accurate. My parents loved to hand over childcare responsibilities to our grandparents, while telling me and my sisters that if we ever fell pregnant we'd be "on our own"

I get a bit muddled with the terms (b. early 80s), but my grandparents looked after me and my brother loads. Culturally it was what they would do anyway.

My parents would have but are an hour away so used to do odd days and overnights in the holidays.

I'm delighted that they are just voicing ideas about downsizing and moving nearer. The kids are teens, but will be absolutely made up to have their grandparents nearer.

I'll definitely be an involved grandma if I get the chance, I love children.

To push it even further (and to be controversial) they also heavily relied on the fact they would inherit houses from their own parents, I remember many conversations about them waiting to inherit, buying a house with their inheritance etc.

Which they did

But they have now sold their own house and are in over 55 council property and spending half the year abroad in various places.

Obviously, again, nobody is entitled to anything.

They are free to do as they please.

But they were very vocal about their own inheritance from their parents and how they used that to get on the property ladder themselves and they've chosen not to pass anything onto their kids.

I just find it strange.

Definitely agree with this. And the comment by @TheHorneSection is spot on - we’ve asked grandparents to have ours for 2 nights a year so far and it is a definite favour which requires copious gifts and thanks 😂 I was left at my grandparents’ every weekend!!

Do you think it will affect how you feel about your parents in their older age? I absolutely don’t think it’s their job to provide childcare or be involved in our kids’ lives, but I think I’ll be similarly unwilling to put them first as they get older as well - my perspective is you reap what you sow.

My maternal granny lived on the same street as us. She hadn't been a particularly loving mother to my mum, so wasn't much of an engaged grandparent. She had about 12 grandchildren altogether so i wasn't anything special. She did "keep an eye " on us kids sometimes if my mum needed to go somewhere. ,but that usually meant glancing out of the window occasionally as we were playing out on the street.
My parents rarely want out socialising when we were little, so no babysitter required. They went out occasionally when I was old enough to mind my younger siblings. That was from the age of about 12

I think it already does.

I feel less and less inclined to make to journey to visit them.

Especially when I find out they had lunch in the area but didn't bother to pop in to say hi. Which happens regularly.

We spent lots of time with GP growing up. Days out, sleepovers, holidays. My DM died when my eldest was 13 and up until then she'd joined us on one day out and never given them a sleepover in their lives. She loved her holidays, but the thought of going with us would have filled her with horror.

I've thought about this before.I spent every single weekend with my Nana.All day Saturday,all day Sunday.My nana was the one who took us to the library,took us to church,took us out on day trips.She really was a wonderful woman.My mother on the other hand,rarely bothers with my children.Im not bothered really,we are not that close.But there's definitely a change in the way things are done now

Not true in my family really, siblings and I hardly saw my grandparents and when we did I wouldn’t say they were that interested in us. My mum is very much the doting grandparent to my DNs, she does weekly childcare and sees them all the time and is very doting. It’s interesting as to be honest she wasn’t that interested in my siblings and I growing up, never really played with us or did any activities with us and wasn’t emotionally available but she is completely different as a grandparent.

Doesn’t it depend on a lot of variables, though? Like ages of parents and grandparents when children were had, generational and cultural patterns of geographical movement, parents and grandparents working, SAHPs or retired, health etc?

I only knew two of my grandparents. One lived with us throughout my childhood, the other was mentally and physically unwell, and also spent a lot of time living with us in her later years. We hated her, and were relieved when she died. Neither would ever have done childcare. And DH and I were living outside our home country when we had DS, and by the time we moved home, both sets of grandparents were too old/unwell to do childcare, though we do our best to promote a relationship.

I'd have loved to have been sent to granny and grandads as a kid but sadly they were all dead by the time I reached 17. I suspect I'm not the only one.

I definitely see this with my husbands family. My dh and his brother spent weeks in the summer at his grandparents homes, family holidays together, hell, even a holiday cottage was purchased with the sole intention of providing regular holidays for the grandkids.

Now that the parents are the grandparents, they see their grandkids twice a year, at our home for one meal, that we host and provide. I joke that the visiting dignitaries are coming, better get the red carpet out.

There's no holidaying, no extended visits, no babysitting, not even a Christmas gift (they may get a random book, but that's not a given).

These people massively benefitted from their parents input when they had children. The six weeks summer holidays were just never an issue childcare wise. Now it's their turn, they can't understand why if they call us and say we'd like to visit on a Wednesday in the summer holidays, we have a bit of to and froing about dates and times. Because we still have to work, the kids are pushed from holiday club to holiday club and no, no one will be at home for 2 pm to make you lunch, we get in at 630. So, you could come from 7? Eat a beige meal with the kids before they go to bed, ready to be up at 630 the next day to start it all again, and we will try and stay awake past 9 for you. You're welcome to stay, but we will all be gone by 730, not back till 630....and they say oh, but we won't really see the children. No shit sherlock.

Its not even that we want to ship them off to their grandparents for weeks at a time. It's the complete lack of understanding about the differences in the roles from one generation to the next and how that impacts on their relationships with us and their grandchildren. Like somehow we've got it wrong!

But, it's not my circus, so I don't get too involved. I think it makes my dh a bit sad. He saw his parents having lovely times with their parents, 2 weeks in France, a week at the cottage, all together, all chipping in. But he doesn't get to do that with his parents.

I don't think it's generational. I am a grandparent. My DM died before my DC were born. One of my DGMs died when I was a baby and the other lived a long distance away so we saw her once a year.
I have my DGC every weekend and have had several holidays with them, though I have no personal experience of grandparents.

I would actually say its the opposite for people I know lots of parent help with their own children but I don't know anyone growing up who was looked after my their grandparents on a regular basis.