Is it unusual for young children to have strong relationships with grandparents?

[bluebottle1]

I saw a post last night on Facebook from a parenting/baby group I'm in, not something I engage with but I was interested to read this one. There was a post from a SAHM with a partner with who away and the post said that the in laws had offered to have her 2 year old daughter to allow her to have some time to herself. In the post she said she didn't have children for her to palm them off on other people to look after them and it was her job to look after the child 24/7 no matter if some days are a bit tough. There was hundreds of comments saying that they all agreed with this and that they had also never spent anytime away from their children and they had never stayed with grandparents or spent much time with them. Majority of it was related to children 1-4 rather than young babies. Apparently this is modern parenting and young children only need there mum, dad and a few friends. There was only one comment I read amongst the hundreds that suggested it might be a good idea to get the child looked after in preparation for nursery.

I also have a partner who works away and by Friday I definitely need a break and hand DS over to DP to do the majority of parenting over the weekend. I think I would burn out otherwise. I'm due back to work next week after maternity leave and my almost 11 month old will be spending 2 days a week with my parents or DP's mum when she is off work.M, the other day he will be with a childminder. I don't have the best relationship with MIL but she is a good grandparent. Is this really uncommon now? Do your children spend much time with grandparents? Obviously this question is for those who have reasonable parents/in-laws not those who are totally in-interested in there grandchildren. I was thinking about it last night and I don't know why but seeing the hundreds of comments has now got me feeling guilty almost as if this is totally unusual and that I shouldn't feel like I need a break. I had a lovely relationship with my grandparents growing up so wouldn't prevent my son from having the same. Don't get me wrong DS has never had a night away from us and we don't plan on that anytime soon but for a few hours I didn't think there was an issue.

I'm in the same post and saw that post too 🙄. Found it a bit judgemental to be honest.
I have two kids 4 and almost 2 I work three days a week and have them the other two, they go to nursery when I work. I love them to pieces but it's perfectly ok to still love your kids and need a break from them.y parents see them every Friday as they come to visit when I'm not working. They're in their late 70's so they don't do sleepovers anymore but they adore the kids. My sister lives down the road and is our main babysitter and the kids love her. My eldest is off for a sleepover tomorrow night and I can't wait to "palm him off" 😀

I think it's really sad when there are loving grandparents around and parents don't let them spend proper time with the grandchildren. I used to love staying at my nan and grandad's on both sides!

My SCs, on the other hand, have rarely ever spent a night without one or the other parents and as such struggle to go on overnight school trips or do sleepovers with friends because they just can't cope. It hasn't benefitted them to never spend time elsewhere.

I think a close relationship with grandparents is a luxury that if you have the opportunity is really sad to not encourage.
The whole it takes a village is so true. The responsibility of childcare is for parents but there is nothing wrong with accepting help when offered. Grandchildren bring my parents so much joy.

It's also about building a strong relationship for when they are older. Both me and my husband were close with our grandparents till they passed away. Older children learn so much from spending time with older people. I see it as a family circle of life, they care for you when your little and you will care for them when they need it and that compassion and love is passed through generations. I know it's not how everyone sees it and it is hard but that is what family means to me.

People love a bit of competitive parenting and if you are an SAHP (I am not not criticising SAHPs in general) pretending that your kids will be terminally damaged if they separate from you for even a day CAN be a way of bolstering your feelings about your life choices.

It is of course up to you what you do. But it is better for kids to have strong relationships with their broader family, and to build confidence by spending time away from their parents. It's better for parents to get a break, as it is for anyone in any occupation to get a break.

My kids grandparents are all very hands on.

I was brought up by my GPs so they don’t have any on my side.

my MIL lives with us now. She has a brilliant relationship with all of the kids, even though 2 are her step-grandchildren. We don’t always agree on everything but she’s the person I learned most from about being a parent. She’s got an individual relationship with each of the kids.

My two girls who are not DH’s no longer have a relationship with their father (his doing) but they have a close one with their GPs. When their dad went a year without seeing them they contacted me and asked what they could do to have a relationship without him. It’s been hard at times as I’ve felt it shouldn’t be my job to facilitate that, but they’re lovely people and I’m glad I did. Their Grandad drove the girls and a bundle of their friends to a festival this weekend and will pick them up (the kids paid to hire the minibus and the fuel etc).

DH’s MIL (he was widowed when we met) is simply the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. She has a wonderful relationship with all of our children, she obviously loves DS1 in a different way to the rest. He’s her only grandchild, and her late daughters baby, but she’s been amazing.

Good grandparents are worth their weight in gold. People who love your children and who want to know them and have good bonds are brilliant.
I hate shitty, abusive parents. My mothers parents ran away as they hated seeing the situation. My paternal GPs stayed close and eventually when it got so bad rescued us.

I love that my children have people to scoop them up and love and protect them if I can’t.

Not everyone has a village. It’s not always possible. But if you have one around then it’s totally worth letting them in.

Sorry, that was long.

I saw all four of my grandparents every week when I was growing up. I loved them all and miss them now they are gone, even though it's more than twenty years since the final death. If it's true that today's children only have parents around, I find that deeply depressing and very sad. It's a loss for both parties.

well tbf I’ve seen that attitude on here, I’m a lone parent and I have no support from family I once posted about being sad my mum has no interest in my kids and never helps me and I got told I was unreasonable to want any help and they are my kids and I shouldn’t have had them if I didn’t want to look after them 24/7 and should never expect any support from anyone

*I had shitty abusive parents

My dc are really close to my parents, they looked after then 3 days a week after school but remain very close even though they're now older. They had a week holiday with them every year growing up too. It's lovely hearing stories of things they did when the 4 of them get together, always full of joy and laughter. Their lives, both dc and gps, are richer for those experiences.

I'm 55, I miss my gps every day and cherish my memories of them. What I wouldn't give for a cuddle from them.

My children have always been looked after at least 1 day a week by their grandparents, and now they are at school, it has risen to 2 days (grandparents do school pickup, and we pick up kids from grandparents a couple of hours later.
We all LOVE this.
When I went back to work I felt incredibly sad at leaving my baby with a stranger (perfectly nice childminder). On the days he was with his grandparents, I felt totally different, as he was with family, people who actually genuinely love him, and are (in the case of my parents), an extension of myself. Short of staying at home myself, this absolutely saved my sanity, and stopped my heart breaking.
My kids have an incredible bond with their grandparents, and their home is my kids second home. They have toys, books there etc - and the children love going, as it's just a bit of a break in their surroundings, but with all the comfort of home.
And they love their grandparents, and those extra relationships have added a whole dimension to their lives (eg they play cricket in the garden with grandpa, and have now started stamp collecting following conversations with him, etc).

For us it was also important that the grandparents did not do ALL the childcare, but only a couple of days - so they still had plenty of freedom to do their own stuff, and the grandchildren were a pleasure, not a chore.
I know another mum at school had an arrangement where her inlaws would pick the kids up from school on the monday, keep them overnight and drop them off at school the next day, and she would pick them up from school - giving her a good chunk of time to get the work she needed done without the day being fragmented by pickups and all the nightly duties (she was studying for a professional exam). I wouldn't have wanted that myself, but again the kids and the grandparents have an amazing bond.

We are often pushed by work to relocate to another country (expat roles), and in fact the main reason we turn down these offers is because we don't want to break this bond with the grandparents which is so precious, and finite.

This is very much a cultural thing too. My husband is French and in France the grandparents often take on the children over the holidays, bringing together sets of cousins. People will literally send their kids to their parents for 2 weeks, and you see grandparents on the beach with about 9 kid under 10 :)

I think you are doing ABSOLUTELY the right thing.

I am extremely close to my grandparents, they lived on the same road as us growing up and I use to ‘run away’ to their house often! They had sky tv and I was allowed to watch cartoons (was a big deal at the time!)
My parents both worked full time so they often did after school collections.
We went on holidays together as a family, I went on holidays alone with them.

Even now at 30years old we are extremely close. It’s lovely.

I think your conflating different issues. 'Is it unusual for children to have strong relationships with GPs?' No. But do children need to be looked after regularly alone by their GPs to have strong relationships? Also no.

I had strong relationships with my GPs and I only saw them once every three months because they lived three hours away.

God, I have one of these Facebook groups. Some of the comments I read are mad and don’t seem to be reflected at all in my real life friends. Loads of people declaring that they couldn’t haven’t ever spent an hour away from their child and that grandparents were completely unreasonable for wanting any alone time with their grandchildren.

There is a pattern though with these types of mums as they seem to focus entirely on their own feelings and they almost treat their children as possessions. There are only a few normal posters that actually want to promote good relationships with grandparents and the wider family but their comments get lost in the sea of nonsense spouted by the other members. Just do what feels right for you and your family. Personally, I think your son will benefit hugely from having a loving, close relationship with his grandparents and it’s a privilege that not everyone is able to experience.

My partner and I lived with my parents for 2 years after my daughter was born, they are still very close and help out A LOT. My nan was the same with me and my siblings growing up. Why wouldn't you accept support if it's offered? It takes a village. Unfortunately not everyone has the privilege of having family support nearby and I have a lot of respect for parents that manage it by themselves... but it doesn't make them better parents.

We live a couple of miles from my mum. She saw her almost every day when she was a young baby as my mum would pop round just for an hour for a brew and to see if I needed any help. When I went back to work my mum looked after her one day a week and sees her other times.

Now she's at school she sleeps over at my mum's once and goes for tea once a week.

I don't think it's unreasonable. She has a really good relationship with my mum and stepdad.

My husband's parents moved closer to us a year ago but as they are still almost an hour away she doesn't see them as much, its logistically not possible. Maybe every couple of weeks on a weekend. I assume she has a good relationship with them. They can't stand me so I usually stay out of their way.

My DS had/has a wonderful relationship with his DGPs ... they didn't live near but are still very close. They couldn't do routine childcare due to being 250 miles away but would host us and visit us. They would come and stay if we needed babysitting to attend a wedding for example - if it was convenient for them, I would never expect it. It's such a special relationship and even now at 21 DS will go out with my DM (90!) for lunch and invite her to watch his cricket matches. We are just arranging a weekend away to visit him at Uni she's looking forward to it.

It's great to hear others with children who have a lovely relationship with their grandparents. I thought I'd struggle going back to work but now I feel ready and confident knowing he is going to be well looked after, I also feel like it will make our days off more special rather than me taking it for granted.

Yes, our daughter sleeps over at both sets of grandparents and her aunt/uncles. I would say it increased after age 3 or 4 though.

This. People acting like grandparents can only have a good relationship with their kids if they also do childcare is also just a way of justifying their choice to need childcare.

My kids have a fantastic relationship with their grandparents, love them to bits, visit all the time, go on holiday together, video call them when we can't see them etc. But my parents have never done 'childcare' for us or had the kids stay overnight without me also staying overnight. It's just not necessary.

My ds adored his paternal grandparents. They were not able to look after him on their own beyond him being very young because of his additional needs and their increasing ill health but I know his grandfather in particular got a lot of joy out of being with him. They are both sadly no longer with us.

I grew up with two very different sets of grandparents. But both enjoyed having us as children come and visit on our own. I loved my time with them so much so that my one grandmother and I were more like very close friends as I became an adult. We would book theatre together, shared hobbies and travelled together just us two. She was a hoot. Loved her dearly and so happy I got to know her as a person (when I was an adult). Those early years really laid the ground work for our ult relationship.

miss her dearly.

Maybe it's different for SAHM but when i return to work from maternity in December, my parents will look after baby 1 day a week.

We're going on holiday tomorrow and my parents will be there too and they have insisted on spending time with baby. We might even get our first meal out just the two of us since baby was born!!!

When my kids were little my parents lived a long way off and for various reasons we didn't really trust DH's parents to look after them (smoking, 'who needs a carseat' kind of comments). But I did work 3 days a week so they did get to see other people and I got a 'break'. I also felt that it was my job to look after them every second I wasn't working, it was exhausting.

Now that I'm a grandma I look after my 2 year old grandson once a week overnight as do his other grandparents. I can see how much he gets from that and how the 3 sets of people that look after him really add so much to his life and feel that my kids (and I) missed out. His parents are quite young and his mum has a disability so for them to have a break and just be young people too is great for them.

So yes I think contact with extended family can be great for everyone.

My grown up kids have amazing relationships with their Gp’s. I was a sahm but they had them for occasional night/weekends, for the sake of their own relationships as well as giving us much needed time for a break and as a couple.