We’ve always seen our parents for fun and zero childcare responsibilities (neither live close enough to have done childcare through the younger years). Im very happy with it that way. We do days out, meals out, walks, all the fun stuff and they get no stress, can holiday when they want and no additional responsibilities in their 70’s. Our kids adore them still in teenage years now, always love visiting. Both sets of grandparents raised us without help (again didnt live close enough). We used holiday clubs from 2, never had any issues going in school or holiday club because its what they have always known.
When my kids were at primary, I happened to bump into a friend on the school run with her parents (unusual as they shared the school runs between them anyway). She didn’t want to move her car from a good parking spot near her house so got the grandparents to drive her to school. Its just not within our thinking that you wouldn’t just walk abit further from your house if that spot had gone by the time you got home. She’s not wrong for asking and they are not wrong for helping, it just always stuck with me the big difference between those who never have help and those who do. It makes you wonder just how much some grandparents do for working parents that goes unseen, stuff that we have to fit around the work day/day off (housework, laundry, admin, shopping etc).
I think the most important thing is the grandparents should never be put under pressure. They’ve raised kids and health can change in a second (especially over 60). No grandparent should be doing anything they dont happily want to do. Even now (hopefully at least a decade before we have grandkids, perhaps two decades!), we know we dont want to be tied into childcare. We want it to be fun and make all the memories, but we also want freedom in our retirement. If our kids live close (and decide to have kids), we’ll have an honest conversation at that time.