Can't Commit to being Babysitters - Are we being unfair?

[PeterTD1]

My wife and I are loving grandparents and love spending time with ouf son and his family. My daughter in law works part time and has childcare and my wife who also works part time often helps out. We are due to retire this year and have lots of plans especially travel. Problem is DIL wants to work full time and has more or less presumed we will have children 2 days per week. However we dont want to commit. We have worked hard and want to be able to have freedom to book a week in the sun and go the next day. We would of course help if we are at home but we want to live our own lives and have freedom. Her own parents never have the kids and only visit sporadically (and only live 6 miles away) and son and dil think they are wonderful but never ask them to babysit for reasons never explained. Are we being unfair?

No YANBU. You raised your kids. Now it is their turn to raise theirs. There's a massive difference between the kind of commitment she's assuming and occasional babysitting and/or bailing them out in a crisis IF you're there.

If you wanted a job you wouldn't be retiring. And looking after children two days a week is a job. Enjoy your retirement!

As I said givemesteel you can have a good and loving relationship with GC but not have to provide childcare week in week out. Take my DSis. She has her GC to stay, she stays overnight to give her DD and her DH a break, she watches rugby matches in the freezing cold, she goes to birthday parties, school plays blah blah. She has a close relationship with them even though she doesn't provide childcare.

Maybe when you get to 60/70s and you have retired and you want to be able to go off on the spur of the moment, you will feel differently. You suddenly realise that the window of opportunity to do that sort of thing is quite small. So to see lots of the GC, to help them out as much as possible, but without a fixed commitment... and to be able to take a quick break without notice is not a bad thing. You can still have that strong relationship with GC.

Sorry I can't help but feel a sense of entitlement from this thread. No way would I have wanted my DPs to feel obliged to have my kids in case I cut them off when they got elderly.

Givemesteel - your relationships seem to be based on ‘do what suits me now or I won’t hesitate to screw You over when you’re older’

I've never said I'm screwing anyone, I've already clearly said with dh's parents, who have never once babysat or helped with dc, we will still help out where we can and in emergencies, but that will not extend to us helping them on a regular basis.

My family is close because we get on very well and because of that we enjoy helping each other out,it's not a chore or begrudging obligation. Part of the reason I have time to help them is because they help with my dc.

But anyway I'm obviously a selfish old crone. I'm sure in 10-15 years time the OPs son/dil will be more than happy to drop everything help their aging parents like everyone else on MN... Unless of course their children are grown up by then and they're enjoying some spontaneous holidays of their own... Which is fair enough, as why should family obligations tie them down...?

You’re being ‘tit for tat’ Givemesteel.

You said it yourself- why should the OPs son and DIL help them out when they’re older if the OP isn’t committing to regular childcare for them?

I think that’s a really strange way to look at family life. Why wouldn’t the OPs son and DIL accept that the grandparents are loving, interested, involved grandparents who just want to live their own life without being tied to being childcarers?

I completely get that if grandparents arent interested and involved, and don’t make any effort in maintaining a relationship then it probably won’t be much of a two way thing. That’s different though.

To say that grandparents who no doubt adore their grandchildren, have really special times with them and are interested in their lives are somehow less ‘worthy’ of being treated well simply because they aren’t acting as convenient free childminders is deeply selfish.

Its fair enough to say ‘you raised your kids it’s their turn to raise theirs’ and have that mentality - but;

My grandmother- raised by a mother who stayed home as the family could easily survive on a single wage (owned home/car/decent food).

My mother- raised by aunts/grans/Cousin’s (All lived within streets of each other) when gran had to get a part time job to supplement grandads wage!

Me- raised by grandparents/aunts and local family as mum had to work 25-30 hours per week! So were my cousins and siblings...that’s just what happened in the 90’s!

🤔 now, my generation (25-35) are being pointed toward £1200 a month (per child) nursery - because our parents might want to take a cruise at some point and ‘can’t commit to childcare’🙄.
All whilst the economy is at an all time low, it’s almost impossible to get a mortgage or survive on even two average FT salaries, and being told that our ‘frivolous spending’ is ‘what’s wrong with this generation’! 🤔

Actually OP, I would consider the support you received in raising your children. If you actually did it alone then fair enough you deserve your retirement time, but if you used family support to make your life easier/get where you are today - but now don’t want to pay that back because you can book holidays easily online and retirement has become more of an ‘adventure’ than it was 30 years ago- then I’d say that’s a little bit selfish...don’t you think?

I do think the 50-65 generation now have had the best of both worlds- lots of support raising their own families, made a fortune on houses, swanning off into long holidays and retirements. (Obviously not all- but quite a lot who I know 🤔)

givemesteel You are making this very black and white. As I've said before, there's a happy medium. You obviously don't get on with your ILs and feel aggrieved they don't do more with your children so when the time comes, you won't put yourself out.

I would never have expected GPs on either side to commit to childcare. GPs can still do things with GC, have a close relationship, help out when they can and that is something to be grateful for.

My DPs didn't do much with my DCs because my DCs were the last in a long line of GC (they probably did less than your ILs). Fair enough, they'd been there and done it before and I wanted them to enjoy their last years doing what they wanted, and they did. I could've had resentment about their lack of GPing with my lot, but no, I supported took them to hospital appointments, looked after them, nursed them to the end. Because they were my parents.

I do think the 50-65 generation now have had the best of both worlds- lots of support raising their own families, made a fortune on houses, swanning off into long holidays and retirements

Oh, here we go. Time to bash the baby boomers of which I am one. I had no support raising my family. Absolutely None. We are now retired after a long working life, my DH is older than me, we want to go off on long holidays whilst we've got our health. Crime of the century.

I support my DCs endlessly, I've helped them in more ways than I can type here, I don't have GC yet and when (or if) I do, I don't want the commitment of looking after GC every week. I'll be bloody ancient by the time it happens probably! However I will be a hands on GP and when I'm not on holiday I will literally put everything aside to support DCs and spend time with GC.

It’s tricky... I immediately thought yanbu as it’s down to parents to arrange care for their own children. If gps don’t want to do it, it’s totally up to them and parents should never rely on gps to provide childcare. And I do still think that...

BUT, the more I read the “you’ve aren’t your retirement- enjoy it” comments, the more I start to ponder what my own retirement, and that of other people my age, might look like. A lot of people cannot get a foot near the property ladder and won’t be able to retire till much later than our parents. The cost of childcare is prohibitively high for many parents and then there’s the effects of global warming abs Brexit to look forward to . Not that any of that is the older generation’s fault, but I think it would make me think I’d like to help out my children a lot more than I’d like to go on a five week cruise 🤷‍♀️. Just a thought and I absolutely do not judge gps for not wanting to commit to being unpaid childminders. It’s just that life could get harder for all of us and I know I don’t feel great about that when I think of my own dcs growing up.

*earnt

*and

Bloody autocorrect!

I've never been able to provide regular childcare for my gc as I have one younger and work part time.
I've watched my pil pretty much put their life on hold to look after bil and sil kids and I think it's really unfair of them. Fil in particular is really resentful as he was looking forward to having some free time and travel.
Sil is now talking about mil doing school pick ups as she can't afford after school clubs (which is bollocks) and will mean pil have a half hour journey each day to do it.
It's their choice of course but I wish their children would be more less selfish.

AndOfCourseHenryTheHorse

Every generation has its particular stresses though. Many of us in the bracket where we’re old enough to have young grandchildren but not so old that we’re too frail to do childcare, lived through the era of astronomic interest rates, then falling house prices, very short maternity leave, no paternity leave and tbh childcare has always been horrendously expensive. My children were in day nursery in the early 90s and our childcare bills were through the roof. And we didn’t get the free hours at age 3 either.

I think it’s a pointless argument to try to say that any one generation has it harder overall. Yes my kids may struggle more to get on the housing ladder but once they are there they probably won’t have to horror of interest rates in double figures. And if my dd has a baby she can have a year off before having to use any childcare at all (as opposed to the 12 weeks I had with her.)

Ultimately it’s about having loving respectful relationships which don’t hinge on duty and guilt tripping. I’m really shocked at the attitude of givemesteel. The implication in her posts is that if her parents were lovely, interested caring grandparents (which I’m sure they are) but didnt commit to looking after her children twice a week, that would affect her relationship with them and make her less inclined to be favourable towards them. I find that very sad. Surely if you love your parents you want them to live the life they want - which may not include being childcarers

I think it’s a pointless argument to try to say that any one generation has it harder overall.

No, I definitely appreciate that every generation has its problems... but I don’t know... I think climate change is a ‘biggy’ though, and it will affect my children a lot more than it will me. I just can’t see myself prioritising cruises over helping them, as it was my decision to have them. So, if they have dcs, I wouldn’t go to the extreme end of “I’ve earnt my retirement, so I’m gonna enjoy it”.

I think a middle ground makes sense and is what most sensible posters on here have been saying.

I just don’t accept that it’s as simple as “I’ve earned this time to myself, so I’m taking it 🖕”.

If you retire as early as some people in my parents’ generation have, and live as long as my grandparents did? that’s rather a lot of time off.

That was meant to be a comma, not a question mark. I’m on my phone and it’s being annoying.

Well, a cruise wouldn’t be my cup of tea either!

I suppose the point is, the massive perk of retirement is the fact you’re no longer restricted. After 40 years or more of working, you’ve earned the freedom to shape your days and weeks as you want. And any commitment to regular childcare by definition restricts that.

If I’m lucky enough to become a grandparent one day I’ll aim to help out, babysit so my kids can have ‘couple’ time, I think I’ll love having the grandkids to sleep over when they’re older etc... I’m sure I’d be crazy about them! But that doesn’t mean I’d necessarily want to commit to regular childcare. Its not something you can take on and then muck about with... the parents are dependent on you to do their jobs, so as the carer you’re tied to those times too.

And if any of my children felt differently about me because of that, I’d seriously question how I’d raised such entitled people

Don't feel guilty you've done your bit!!

Enjoy your retirement!

Totally agree acciocat. In our case, we didn't meet till later in life, had children later, so GC will be later, if or when it happens! I get the point if you have GC when you're in your fifties or whatever, more energy to perhaps commit to doing childcare, that isn't my circumstances. I know my DCs won't hold that against me because they aren't like that.

Exactly what happened with my family and DH's family HattieRabbit.

Fwiw, neither sets of gps help us out. I mean, at all. I think they are at the more extreme end of NOT wanting to help.

Do I hold it against them? No.... But it makes me think a little less of them. I do not understand anyone who would make some of the choices they have, but that’s very long and complicated! I suppose we are quite different people.

My mum’s dead, so she’s definitely off the hook!

I wouldn’t expect gps to put their lives on hold etc etc though.

I know my aunt is like this with her gcs and her husband is the one feeling neglected and resentful, as he wants to enjoy retirement. I think either extreme can be unhealthy.

I would never expect this from my parents. Tbh, weekend help us my preference, so we can go out and have a lie in the next day. Currently happens a few times a year.

Go enjoy yourself! That's our plan!

HattieRabbit, you maybe don’t realise that people in their early 60s had a very different experience of what you see from a current day perspective.
They may have been able to get on the housing ladder, but double figure interest was normal (generally 13 - 15%) House prices went DOWN in the 80s, so if you moved you could easily find yourself in negative equity, ie owing more on your mortgage than the house was worth - often up to a third ( eg you payed £150,000 for a house but have to sell for £100,000.) inflation was astronomical.
Te equal pay act didn’t come in until 1970. Women were not allowed to do certain jobs before 1975.
Women who have just turned 60 will have been the first women to be able to get apprenticeships to be electricians, mechanics, technicians and so on. Or do higher level work in banking, management and so on. Women’s jobs were even more poorly paid than they are now and seen as unimportant. Very often a woman was sacked if they got married. (It was assumed that she couldn’t work outside of the home and look after her husband as well) They were almost always sacked if they were pregnant. No compensation, no redundancy.

But then, there were fewer “modern conveniences “ like dishwashers, microwaves, ready meals, on line shopping or even personal computers (although the milkman (sic) often delivered bread as well ) and not everyone had a car.
There was no easily available child care. What there was tended to be unregulated and expensive. There was no government support for it, except child benefit.
I get that things today are tough. Austerity is tough. The future is bleak for today’s 20 somethings. But each generation has had its difficulty.
Not everything was as simple as you seem to assume.

Um... why is it the DIL who is the problem here? Your son is also a parent of these children and equally as responsible for them.

You need to chat to both of them

@Riv

It’s not that I’m unaware. I fully apreciate that women’s lives were far from perfect (my grandmother has told toe curling stories) and that every generation has faced hardship.

My issue is that whilst we’ve been ‘liberated’ and people seem to believe it’s so much ‘better’ for woman now because we do have more ‘choices’, very little critical consideration is given.

Yes We can choose whatever career we want- but we HAVE to work as staying home to raise children is a pipe dream for most! Families struggle to survive on two wages nevermind one! So is it really a ‘choice’? 🙄🤔

‘Rregulated’ childcare for one infant can easily exceed £1000 a month, so actually if a woman’s salary is required to afford mortgage/bills, and suddenly childcare costs cut away approx 3/4 of it, what sort of situation are they in???? Because it’s RARE that men’s salary is impacted in the way a woman’s is, in fact it’s pretty common for women to be in a ‘it’s not worth me working’ situation because their salary is seen as surplus to their spouse/partners (often the breadwinner)

To me it seems like new packaging of old restrictions. No one will fire you for being pregnant but it’ll end up barely worth it (or completely pointless if you have more than one child under school age).

My experience is that my mother and grandmother both had SUBSTANTIAL support from their mothers in raising children and this cut down their costs/made their lives easier. Therefore I would feel quite hard done by if my mother decided she ‘couldnt commit to childcare’.

🤔 if you accepted the help from family you should be prepared to give it back to family. I fully expect to care for my own grandchildren one day

OP- tell us more about how DIL presumed you’d looking after the kids 2 days/week...
Was it from a conversation that you had? If so, then you could’ve put your points across then.
Or did your wife have a conversation and say she’d love to look after the grandchildren regularly?
More detail needed please!

HattieRabbit. I do hear what you say, I know it’s still really tough, always has been unfair, especially for women. In the 80s and 90s (when most people of 55 - 60 were looking for child care ) the cost, if you could access any, were similar- virtually equivalent to a woman’s salary for one child. Grandparents were usually both working by then. People also had to move away from their parents to find work- double problem. Your parents and grandparents seem to have been fortunate. My parents had no family support. nor did I. DP and I didn’t even get a night out until the yourself was 7. I worked full time and paid my entire wage to a childminder to be certain I didn’t loose skills and could get work once they were at school. DM did the same. MiL was 70 by the time we had DC and lived 200+ miles away.
Don’t want to hi jack this thread any more than we have already, especially as we both seem to be on a similar page, agreeing that if you get from one generation you should be prepared to offer to the next... paying it forward.