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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Have your parents become funny about childcare since covid?

308 replies

Longcovid21 · 10/01/2022 19:32

I was speaking with a colleague today who mentioned her parents are now reluctant to help with childcare since covid. I'm in the same boat. Mine in their 70s now refuse to do any child care and instead pop by to spend time with me outdoors. They will not sit in a house with the children and I as if we have become biohazards.

I am going away for a week with work and they refuse to help, citing covid risk, which leaves me truly buggered as exdp is working and cannot help (we also live 70 miles apart). Is this a common thing? I know they are in the vulnerable category etc., but given how much help they had off their parents when I was growing up this seems really unfair. Aibu?

OP posts:
RedCandyApple · 10/01/2022 19:33

Mine have never done any child care 🤷‍♀️

MadeOfStarStuff · 10/01/2022 19:34

YABU Your parents don’t owe you childcare

Original poster
Longcovid21 · 10/01/2022 19:36

I was waiting for that response @madeofstarstuff. However its a bit shit if they never want to help ever again. I only ask once every year or so.

OP posts:
Suzi888 · 10/01/2022 19:36

My relatives do not isolate, refused to and still provide childcare.
Aunt and uncle, CEV, in their eighties have had covid. DM and MIL to their knowledge have not. All go to the pub, met with neighbours etc They socialise more than we do.

Could covid be an excuse? Maybe they find it too much?

gobbledygoook · 10/01/2022 19:37

Imagine being in your 70s and being expected to provide childcare!

They don't owe you childcare (regardless of whether you think they had help raising their own children many years ago).

You going away for work isn't their issue to solve, you and your exDP need to sort childcare as the parents!

DSGR · 10/01/2022 19:38

Sorry but yabu. They’re allowed to do what they want to protect their health and maybe, just maybe, they don’t actually want to help anymore.
As above, your parents don’t owe you childcare.

CrowFriend · 10/01/2022 19:38

I’m sorry it’s hard for you but you shouldn’t even be asking them for childcare in the current circumstances. And mentioning help they got from their parents is truly unpleasant and irrelevant.
Cue a poster coming on to say you can now cheerfully leave them to it if/when they become frail …

ShirleyPhallus · 10/01/2022 19:39

I find all the “yabu to expect childcare my parents have never ever done it” a bit sad and unfair. It is a bit odd for grandparents to never want to see their grandchildren.

However, I think the media has really done a number on instilling so much fear in to people that they are avoiding what are quite low risk situations where you could argue that the benefit outweighs the risk. I have sympathy for you for not having any support OP, that must be tough. But on the flip side, I can’t imagine how scary it must be to be vulnerable and to be that scared of getting the virus. That must also be really tough.

echt · 10/01/2022 19:39

I know they are in the vulnerable category etc., but given how much help they had off their parents when I was growing up this seems really unfair

Unbefuckinglievable.

Pearlpink · 10/01/2022 19:39

My parents help out with childcare in the school holidays and have been through most of covid. Dad had covid last year, both mid 60s.

KiloWhat · 10/01/2022 19:39

It's their life, they don't want to end up on a ventilator

teaandchocolate1 · 10/01/2022 19:39

To be honest it's quite hard to provide childcare in your 70s.

We don't live close to my mother, she is in her sixties.

If we lived closer I would really avoid asking for her childcare unless I really don't have another option.

I think it would be a bit too much for her.

Getyourjinglebellsinarow · 10/01/2022 19:39

I think it's understandable they're worried about the risk to them when they wouldn't have been before.

But also, I think you're thing about them having more help when they were in tour position is pretty valid. I do think there is less help being handed down now.

teaandchocolate1 · 10/01/2022 19:40

You also have to consider that in the past people became grandparents younger. It's easier to prove childcare when you're relatively young.

Getyourjinglebellsinarow · 10/01/2022 19:41

Although, DHs parents are in their late 70s. They are absolutely not able to care for our DC. And even my sisters in laws are much healthier and I'm still not sure I'd leave my DC with them either. 70s is old for looking after young children.

DaphneduM · 10/01/2022 19:42

We are grandparents who willingly provide two days a week childcare for our two year old grandchild. We're late 60's (me) and mid 60's (husband). We accepted the risks that go with the territory, and were obviously in the childcare 'bubble' during lockdown. We are so pleased and privileged to be able to build a relationship with our grandchild. We consider ourselves fairly fit and active and could get Covid from anywhere really, so I don't see the issue. These childcare days won't last for ever - he'll be in school before we know it. His other days are spent at nursery which he loves, but obviously it is very costly for his parents. We moved to be nearer to our family and it's worked for us.

TequilaBlaze · 10/01/2022 19:43

There's a difference between seeing grandchildren and being relied on as a source of childcare. Not wanting to be an unpaid babysitter isn't the same as not wanting to spend time with the grandkids.

UpDownRound · 10/01/2022 19:44

My mother in law is 70 and helps us with childcare whilst also working part time. Isn't the retirement age now 68 or something? Or will be soon anyway. So there'll be 68 year olds looking after a class of 30 four year olds or whatever. No help to the OP but just pointing out it's not particularly absurd to imagine some people in their early 70s could be up for childcare.

elelel · 10/01/2022 19:44

I know they are in the vulnerable category etc., but given how much help they had off their parents when I was growing up this seems really unfair.

Aibu?

What do you think OP? What do you think?

mynameiscalypso · 10/01/2022 19:45

Mine would be happy to if they didn't spend half their lives on holiday or socialising!

Theyellowflamingo · 10/01/2022 19:46

I’d say now they’ve been vaccinated mine are as keen as ever to see my children but they are more reluctant to do actual childcare than they were before. But lockdown etc has really aged them, their world is much smaller and quieter than before and they are much less close to the children as they just didn’t see them much for months. They don’t have the stamina, noise tolerance etc to manage the children for extended periods anymore - they’d have them for a couple of hours, but no way overnight or for a week, unless dire emergency (like, “DH and I were in hospital and the only alternative was foster care” type emergency). It’s fair enough, they don’t owe me anything and they’re still amazing grandparents.

Given the current levels of covid, especially in schools, I can fully understand anyones reluctance to do anything next week! I don’t think it’s a fair comparison with whatever help they had from your grandparents!!

Original poster
Longcovid21 · 10/01/2022 19:47

By the way when I say childcare I mean once in a blue moon to babysit or a one off emergency. Not a regular thing. I do all that myself. I am a single mum in full time work. My mom was a stay at home mum until I was 13 and she still had loads of help from her mother. I literally have had 1 night out in 4 years. I agree with a poster upthread about the fear thing. My mum is now controlled by my dad and brother who decide where is safe and not safe.

OP posts:
Original poster
Longcovid21 · 10/01/2022 19:47

Given the current levels of covid, especially in schools, I can fully understand anyones reluctance to do anything next week! I don’t think it’s a fair comparison with whatever help they had from your grandparents!

It's not next week, it's end of April.

OP posts:
WotsitMum · 10/01/2022 19:48

I think a big factor is retirement age too, i remember my nan looking after me as a child every friday but she was retired, my mum is 58 and works full time at a school, she helps out during school holidays but during term time i have a hefty childcare bill, me and my sister ask my mum when she will slow down with work dropping a day to look after grandchildren, she says she would love to but cannot afford to. my nan is in her 80s but is fit and healthy for her age but has started to show signs of slowing down, loves to help out where she can but can only manage a few hours so she picks up LO 1-2 times a week from nursery 3 hours before i finish so i save that few hours of childcare, my LO goes to a nursery that you pay by the hour and can change hours each week so is handy!

MindyStClaire · 10/01/2022 19:50

I think YABU to expect childcare - but then we don't live anywhere near our parents and so have no unpaid help, so perhaps I'm biased.

I would be upset at them not meeting indoors at all, I think that's difficult after this long in our climate.