How does childcare by family members work?

[BillSaysDoYourJob]

Hello

I've NC'd but have been here a while etc etc.

My boyfriend and I have been together a few years and we are discussing kids, marriage etc. (I realise boyfriend makes me sound about 15 years old but I hate OH, DP etc ha!)

My mum, who's in her fifties and on a low-wage 'job' rather than 'career'-type role (and therefore not fussed about quitting it), keeps dropping into conversation that she can't wait to look after our kids, if/when we have them.

Putting aside the weird pressure I feel as she's planned out her next decade or so based on the children that neither me nor my sister are entirely sure we want (which she thinks, only semi-jokingly, is selfish of us) - how does this work?

She can't afford not to work, so would we pay her for caring for our child; or rather, is this what she's envisioning? How do other families do it?

I like the idea of my child Going to a nice nursery where they learn and play with other kids - as much as I adore my mum, they wouldn't get that same opportunity at home with her. Am I looking a gift horse in the mouth here? Or is it awful to consider letting my mum look after these hypothetical children at below-market rates? Am I turning my mother into some kind of baby-feeding slave?! ;)

Obviously this is all UTTERLY IRRELEVANT considering I have recently got the coil and therefore won't be taking on any small humans in the near future, but it's been weighing on my mind as she's so bloody excited for me to spawn her some adorable grandkids.

I feel like I should try and soften the blow of her imagined retirement where she plays with heaps of toddlers all day long, when it's probably not going to happen (or, for you all to tell me that everyone on MN packs the kids off to DM's Mon-Fri, pays the going rate, and that the children are rigorously Montessori-schooled the whole time, in which case I will shut up and tell my mum to start turning my old room into a playroom)...

In reality, your mum might change her mind. Mine did when she realised looking after toddlers was very different aged 60 than it was aged 30.

You will not be unreasonable to worry about it at the time but you are being unreasonable to worry it before your kids are even born! Youll have plenty of time to worry about in the future.

Could you do nursery some days and grandparent some days?

Also meant to say you could talk to your mum in a general conversation, maybe mention you won't be having kids for x number of years... or mention the "lovely little nursery" down the road.

And grandparents have relationships with grandkids without behind childcare.

Personally I would pay my mum to look after my kids.

There was a thread on here a while ago about a grandparent whos daughter didn't give her anything to look after her grandson and the poor woman was struggling. I'd ask my mum first and deffo offer payment although not as much as a nursery, maybe? I'm not really sure what would be a good amount

depends on how wealthy you are, but it will most likely be cheaper than nursery to get your mum to do a few days a week at least. If she is retired then hopefully she has a pension which will supplement her income. Many GPs do it on this basis as a cheap alternative to childcare, which is exceptionally expensive.

I would not look a gift horse in the mouth.

And FFS get married before you have a baby, there are few few legal rights for women who don't, give up work, lose income, dont pay for house etc and then they always come on here baffled about it and have everyone chorus with "why didn't you get married then????"

So you are warned - all the smart women get married before having a baby.