Should grandparents help more?

[Chippitychops]

I see a lot of threads about grandparents refusing to help, not helping enough for their children’s liking or general moans along those lines. Often they are deemed to be being unreasonable, and the general consensus is they’re your kids and yours to look after, you shouldn’t expect help from grandparents, they’ve raised their own kids and shouldn’t have to look after yours now. I totally agree with this in principle. My partner and I have 1 child, we would have liked more but the crippling cost of childcare has stopped us at 1.
Is it fair to expect very limited or non existent help though? My parents bought a lovely 5 bed detached house in 1991 for £150000 which in today’s money equates to £319000, the same house today would cost north of £650000 to buy. My mum didn’t work until my siblings and I were at school and although they didn’t have pots of cash lying around we managed just fine financially.
My 3 bed terrace in a similar area cost £450000 4 years ago, my partner and I both have to work full time to afford the mortgage whilst paying crippling childcare costs. Now I’m not complaining, those things were our choice and the reason we are sticking with 1 child is because we simply can’t afford another.
If we had grandparents on hand to help a couple of days a week then it would be a different story. So should grandparents who are physically able, retired, lots of free time, living in close proximity be expected to help considering the bigger financial struggle that lots of families are facing today?

Winging it--you sound amazing! My parents did very little to help, and I don't know if my health would make it possible to be all that helpful, but I would not feel obligated to help. I want to be a playmate to my grandchildren, someone with whom they can subvert authority.

Sounds like you really want a second DC. Have you investigated options to make that possible, eg 3+ year age gap so youngest will get some childcare, moving to an area with much cheaper housing?

As a (40s) grandparent who works full time I choose to help out with childcare whenever my shifts permit (normally 1-3 times a week). However, that is my choice to do it. I'm lucky in the respect I'm still young enough to have had children of my own at home (I don't), so I'm not too tired to do it. If I was in my 60s+ and retired I'd probably be far less willing to do it as regularly to be honest. I'm lucky I've got the energy to run around after a young child still, but it turns out it's way more demanding than the breeze it was with my own child at 20. Plus there's the constant second guessing - I did what I felt was right raising my own child, now I'm forever texting/ringing to check 'should I do this? Do you do that? DGC is not my child, and I don't want to just assume or overstep the mark. Babysitting is a joy to me, but I'd hate it to be an' expectation'.

I don't think there should be an obligation either way to do a certain level of work for your adult children or for your aging parents. However most families like each other and enjoy spending time together and want to help a bit where they can. My family live in hour away but we all see each other and help out here and there.

I think the problems come when it turns into a one way street and the adult children expect a certain amount help from their parents (financial, childcare, whatever) but don't offer to do anything in return and come to expect it to the detriment of the parents own life or the relationship.

OH and I have worked FT all of our lives. I only had a few months off when my kids were born. We are now in our 50s and are already dreaming of the time we will retire, hopefully before 60. The main drive to us wanting to retire is to finally put an end to obligations which we've had to carry all those years.

I do wonder how I'll fell about grand-children. Part of me look forward to building a bond with them, and being able to give them time and patience to do things that I didn't so much have with my kids. The problem is that this will, rightly so, come with the obligation to offer regular support rather than when it suits me.

DH and I plan to do a lot of travelling and clearly that will mean not being able to offer regular childcare. DH have made sacrifices to be able to retire early and finally enjoy freedom, and throwing away obligations, I do not feel in any way that I'll have a duty to help my kids with childcare when I finally get to that point.

That's my view even though at the time they were little, I would have been over the moon if grand-parents had helped, but they didn't, and now I understand why.

My friends are my village. They are local, their families are of similar age so we can requite favours. I do a few days wrap around for a child at the same school as my DCs, mine go to theirs as the first port of call for babysitting.

Family never was an option.
DM works FT in her 50s. 000s miles away (her move not mine)
DGM1, 80s, 50 miles away.
MiL, 80s, another country.

DGM brought me up on the tail end of her family. In her early 60s she did several months of childcare FT for my brother so my mother could RTW to keep her enhanced maternity package. It was exhausting despite being fit and well. She was in her early 70s when my DCs were born, the arthritis set in and even if she had been local, and expectation beyond the odd sporadic favour would have been totally unreasonable. She'd done 20 years caring for her children (SNs were involved) plus another 18 for me tacking on fairly naturally at the end.

If GPs are local, the right age group and interested, count your blessings, because it's a rarer combination than you'd expect.

My DCs have had 6-7 hours spent solely with GPs, for a funeral, and two events that were local to them where we stayed anyway.

We are in our 50s with 1 DGS who lives 3.5 hours away.
I would love to be able to do more but we both still work full time and need to for a few more years as DH pension crashed and is being rebuilt.
We do travel up to babysit so they can have a night away, and they sometimes leave him with us, or stay here and get lots of babysitting, but I couldn’t afford to give up work to be his carer if they lived closer.
We do try and help in other ways when we can though.
Also, if you do childcare for 1, how do you balance it when other DGS arrive, from other children? And what if you want a last minute cheap week away? It’s a huge commitment and I salute those that can do it.

It’s a cultural thing. I come from a country where grandparents take over all the childcare, they do daytimes, evenings, overnights and holidays. The other side to this is that grandparents are then looked after at home by the family as they age even when they have very complex needs. It’s an interdependent way of life that doesn’t suit everyone, e.g. everyone’s lives are lived together and there is little independence for anyone.

We have 4 children and both work full tome. Both sets of grandparents help out, they have set days and as long as i knoe thier limitations it all works out.. ie, my dad is happy to come and watch the kids at my house, my mother in law doesn't really like that so will have the kids at hers and do drop offs and pick ups. We are northern and there's no way my mum would be happy for me to pay for childcare- she'd go mad if i arranged for a "stranger" to have them!
My grandad always looked after us when our parents worked, we were all incredibly close, my kids are very close to all my kids...
And in a nutshell we'd be screwed without them!

When we say “grandparents” should help out, is that what we’re really talking about? Or is it “grandma”? Because it seems that part of the discussion is fundmental to the issue.

If my daughter has children one day I would love to be able to help her out with childcare.

I think it's sad that our culture has lost the family support ethos.

I home visit and have the pleasure of seeing many different household set ups and cultures. The one thing that strikes me is that many other cultures really support each other with children and general life. The British less so. Don't get me wrong there are many exceptions on both sides. But in general white British have become less family orientated. Maybe it's because they move away further from the family. I don't know.

It's made me rethink my family setup and has influenced how I help my children , grandchildren and parents.

Many of us of grandparenting age have parents of our own needing our help. I read a lot of posts here about threatening not to look after parents in their old age if they don't help out with child care. Without wishing to derail, when the time comes it's really not an option. I now see how hard it was for my DM juggling a full time job and trying to keep an eye on her own DM.

Did you discuss your plans to have a family with them? Did you ask if they'd agree?
No?

Then no obligations on their part

What's the price if their house got to do with anything? I'm 63. I found my accounts book for the early years of our marriage the other day. The mortgage on our tiny two bed house at that time was 85% of my monthly take home pay.
Your parents did their time being hard up, even if their house is worth a lot now. Judging their living standards now against yours at a different stage in life is totally unfair.

My kids know I retired in order to travel and to be spontaneous. So they've assumed I'm not going to be available for regular weekly childcare. But I'll be available when I can for random help and emergencies.

Surely it depends on proximity? When ds was born, my DM was 3.5 hours away, as were the pile. My Dad was 5 hours away. All but mil were working full time, and,she had a crammed diary as she was a local politician. I could take ds up and leave him for a week with mil for the school hols, but we just had to cope.

My parents relied on their mothers to help look after my sister for 3 years until I was born. Then mum became a SAHM until I was 10.

My parents took early retirement at 60 around the time I had DC1. My mum informed me and everyone she met that she didn't retire to become childcare.

They have had my children for 2 weeks in summer holidays and weekends here and there. But they also make me feel guilty for asking for their help. So we don't ask unless we can't afford holiday camps or have no annual leave left.

They go on holiday over school holiday times. They complain about not seeing the children enough and mum insinuates I keep them from them. But often when I try to organise meeting up at weekends when the children arent at school my parents have other things planned.

I'm glad they are healthy enough to enjoy retirement but I am not happy about them being unwilling to help when I ask (rarely, max 6 times a year and they help max 4 times a year) and unable to meet up when I don't need babysitting.

Anyway. Whatever.

Grandparents who relied on family care themselves can have short memories is all I am saying.

I think it's very disappointing when grandparents are well able to help with their GC and choose not to.

I can only hope that they are not expecting help themselves from their dc or GC as they age.

I can only hope that they are not expecting help themselves from their dc or GC as they age.

Here we go again.

“ @TW2013 so bringing you up wasn't enough?”

People don’t owe their parents for bringing them up. My children will owe me nothing for that. It’s not like they had any choice or agency in the decision to be born and raised.
I know that! I was commenting on the people who have said on this thread that they would refuse to care for parents who wouldn't look after their grandchildren. If you insist on seeing it as a transaction, they have already done their share of caring,

@Snog On this thread you will see people complaining that their parents are looking after their siblings children and not theirs and it's not fair. Can you see how quickly grandparents could be pressurised into being reluctant full-time, unpaid carers for the offspring of all their children plus their own elderly parents. Honestly, I am seeing this all too frequently among my women (and it is nearly always women) my age. Many have worked full-time, have raised their own children and were looking forward to a little freedom.

Wow @Huntlybyelection bit entitled, aren’t you?

@EmiliaAirheart
Not really. I don't ask for help and have known since I had DC1 8 years ago that my parents wouldn't look after my child. I went back to work when DC1 was 6 months old and used a nursery. DH and I always knew we would pay for childcare and never expected to have it for few from my parents.

What I am annoyed about is my parents happy using their own parents for free child care but then turn around and before even being asked (may I repeat that I never asked and never intended to ask) announced they were not going to be child care. Their attitude is what sucks.

I only ever ask them in desperation to babysit when there is literally no other option. They know this.

I feel upset by the Times I try to organise visiting them but they plan to go away instead knowing that we had organised meeting them and they subsequently let me down and let their grandchildren down as the children wish to see them.

Then my parents complain about not seeing the children enough.

So no. I'm not entitled.

No. We've done our child-rearing You do yours
I do help out with my granddaughter, but not on a regular basis (she lives 300 miles away)
But even if she was round the corner, I would hesitate. I'm just starting to enjoy a life without kids again. I don't want to go back.
Having children was my choice. I had no say in having grandchildren, and dislike the presumption that not only should I want to spend my free time caring for them, I should feel privileged to be allowed to, as well.

Depends on parents ages too. Mam was in her 60s when my child was born. But hard her sense of entitlement now when I felt she didnt do much. I hope I will help my own kids certainly not 5 days childcare but be a nice granny and help where I can. My mother law has been great. Maybe some just not that into it!! ( late 70s now).