Wild expectations of grandparents

[Morningtee]

Just reading an article from the I paper called ‘the do’s and don’ts of grand parenting as children go back to school’ I’m sure the article was written with well meaning intent but as a Gen X I’m just increasingly shocked at some of today’s young parents expectations of grandparent role. Even a paid childminder wouldn’t put up with some of the advice in the article. I had a great relationship with my grandparents but they didn’t play the role that seems to be expected of modern grandparents which seems more about serving the needs of entitled millennial/Gen Z parents than the grandchildren. Indeed a number are quite happy to destroy the entire relationship between grandchild and grandparent if their wild expectations are not met

I certainly couldn’t buy a house as a parent in the 1990s either as there was hardly any childcare available let alone funded childcare, we bought our first house 5 years ago

You are laughing, but I have a friend who was providing baby-sitting services to her children and when she received a £50 voucher for Christmas, she had a chat with her son and dil - saying 'what the fuck is that? I would prefer a holiday after everything we did for you.' If the children are thick and don't know the real value of things, no shame in telling them. Because next what? They will be expecting music lessons for free from friends too - because they gave a £50 voucher?

Yes most of my friends ( 30s and 40s ) are not entitled at all but there is definitely an underlying trend of expecting grandparents to offer more and more

Seriously 😂 bet they wished they had just used a childminder!

You're reading too much into a badly written article which does not sound as if it's about any real family (AI generated ?) . Yes it does make the GPs sound like staff but that's why it's a silly article not real life

But no one is “expecting grandparents to take on a parenting role just because it’s hard” - you are the only one saying this

i haven’t said anything about things being harder now than ever. Nor anything about parenting in the pandemic being worse than the war or the 1980s or whatever, you are the one saying that parents are saying that - and they aren’t

you are saying that parents are more entitled than ever, but I’m not seeing any evidence of that, when we have no idea/evidence of how entitled parents felt in the past, how put-upon grandparents felt in the past

I got married in 1987 and have never had a dishwasher or tumble dryer. My mum had the latter.

I'm sure this must be a minority. I mean I was single from the birth of my child and worked full time (five days a week in the office, commuting to London) and had no family help (my mother died young, my Dad lived 250 miles away) so you find a way to cope if you have to. I didn't expect it to be easy. I didn't go to the gym or go on a date until DS was 7, this was also before you could get shopping delivered. But parenting requires a lot of sacrifice and you get to rest and enjoy life a bit more when they've left home and you retire. You don't generally want to start all over - ok to helping out occasionally but a regular arrangement must be exhausting when you are retired. I'm sure most people still realise that children are their responsibility and theirs alone.

We’re above the level of being entitled to help except for TFC etc) and being able to buy our own house on a mortgage that takes us through to our 70s in a cheaper area of the country and pay for swimming lessons and a birthday party for our kids, scouts etc but below the level of having disposable income for meals out, more than an annual uk short holiday etc

@Morningtee I certainly couldn’t buy a house as a parent in the 1990s either as there was hardly any childcare available let alone funded childcare, we bought our first house 5 years ago

So do you see why things are much, much worse today? Many Millennials and Zoomers will never own a home.

You have to read the posts I’m replying to, to understand the context

People talk about the relevance of distance from the grandkids, but I know of a grandmother who lives one end of the country with the stepdad, and has bought a flat the other end of the country, near the grandkids. She spends six months of the year in the flat, doing childcare, leaving the stepdad on his own at home.

I was brought up in UK in 50’s and 60’s and my parents never owned a washing machine, fridge or car and they only got a tv in mid 60’s, and where I lived down south in a council area, that was all quite normal.

You were replying to me. I have read the thread. People are not saying “it’s the hardest time to be a parent EVAH” or that they are entitled to grandparent help. People are fully agreeing with you that grandparents should not have to be more involved than they wish, and that parenting has been more difficult at various times in the past. The entitlement you speak about is not in evidence here.

... But you're a boomer, and you're talking about your parents.

OP is saying that her boomer parents never owned a washing machine, which is very unusual.

My boomer parents never owned their own home or expected to, I never expected to be able to own my own home and was in my 40s by the time I owned my own house. Apparently 50% of the population owned their own home in 1970, 65% do today. I noticed a huge change in the country around the early 2000s when suddenly the country was awash with money, people who were in minimum wage jobs were suddenly driving round in brand new cars, getting their kitchens done up, going on foreign holidays etc, I don’t think today’s young generation realise that was a blip causing a massive temporary rise in people’s standard of living, now many people who grew up in that era are wondering why life seems so much worse today, even though it is actually far better than before then for many, although yes my friends who were truly middle class with huge houses in the 1980s probably don’t have as good a standard of living as their parents did so also have the perception that things have got worse

Sorry, what's demanded of parents now?

Times haven't changed. You just had unusual grandparents.

Not really. Home ownership was still not very common in the late 60’s. Many people still rented. Began to pick up in the 70’s a bit more.
And no, they didn’t have washing machines.
A sort of boiler thing that came with wooden tongs. And a spin dryer that had a rubber thing you put in the centre, with a bucket underneath to catch any water.
Then on the line, then iron. Always on Mondays.

Many will inherit from their parents!

Nothing at all, of course.

but seriously, I meant that parents are expected to provide a level of engagement that they were not expected to in the past, in the same way that childcare is now expected to be registered and of a certain quality

im not saying it is harder now than ever, don’t worry, I know it isn’t

im not saying that it’s the same as parenting in a war zone or a famine or or even during the massive inflation of the 70s or anything, that would be silly