Entitled attitude: grandparents must provide childcare

[Hope54321]

I’m seeing a lot more of this attitude quite recently. Why do people have children if they can’t look after them or pay for their childcare? Why is it that grandparents are expected to do the childcare so the parents can work? I think it’s acceptable if the grandparents are offering to help out, but to feel like grandparents should be obliged to offer childcare is simply taking the biscuit.

I don’t know but you quoted some statistics at me about 70’s inflation, differences in the wages of men and women and pensions access to emphasise your points. Are your statistics okay but mine aren’t?

I'm a childminder and on the school run today was chatting to another mum who's been dumped on for childcare and offered a measly £150 a month as payment so she asked me how much I would charge and told her that's a minimum of £100 per week so she's really peed off and can see how cheeky this friend is being.
I get childcare is expensive but there are different schemes that help parents and paid childcare is paying for professional care. What really bugs me is how people demand grandparents provide free childcare then dictate every aspect of that care. Care from grandparents should be on the grandparents term of offer and not an expectation.

I thought that, what a bizarre view tfresh

I have grandchildren. I've worked full time my whole life, I still work fulltime.

I've not created anything for my children apart from a good work ethos and respect for others!

well put

So you acknowledge the appalling state of the economy in the 70s @PlumPudd yet still maintain we were having the life of Riley - how does that work? I don’t suppose you’d care to address my points upthread?

I don't feel entitled to childcare, just to be clear. But my partner and I work really really hard, and we live in a rented three bed bungalow. My parents live in a stunning six bedroom farmhouse with lots of land. They're both fairly open about not having worked esp hard - and doing exactly what they loved when they did - but that they have been insanely lucky with property. So I don't feel entitled, but fucking hell it does some times leave me gasping. We will literally never ever ever catch up. Childcare would be a drop in the ocean.

What?? I am responsible for my dc not my parents not there dads parents but me and their dad that's it no one else!!!
Just as if my dc have children they will be responsible for them not me it is their choice so there responsibility what a ridiculous comment!!!!

Well I'm a boomer and I can tell you we weren't able to survive on one wage. We bought our council house and I worked evenings as a waitress- getting up early after late nights to deal with the children..walking 3 miles into town with a pram and 2 children and back again up a steep hill loaded with shopping.then getting ready for work...nirvana it bloody wasn't...
honestly when my children complain about being knackered as they shop online and whizz the Dgcs to their various clubs in their very nice vehicles etc. I sometimes have a few thoughts...no it's not easy now but it wasn't easy then in boomer la la land for everyone.

@senua if it meant my children didn't have to spend 42 hours per week in a nursery costing the entirety of my husbands salary whilst mine doesn't cover the other bills, then yes.

If one wage could provide clothing, a housr and comfortable living, I would happily be chained to the kitchen whilst my kids need me to go get a small PT job when their older.

It means not having to hand over your children for strangers to raise but having to pay for that 'privilege' (is it really a privilege??)

It is a world that was created by the grandparent’s generation and decisions although that is a fairly simplistic way of looking at it.
It is part of being a family. Two parents generally need to work now. It isn’t the way it was in the past but there is no avoiding it now. So grandparents have to pull their weight. Or they won’t have grandchildren.
Interesting that the same grandparents will need and want care and support (which is not dissimilar to childcare) in later years. I work in adult social care and see the same parents/grandparents making demands of their adult children.

There are plenty more studies that say the same thing about the UK and other similar economies, but as you’re already disagreeing with sources that UCL, CNN and the FT find very credible, I won’t bother posting them

I'm sure everyone else on here would be happy to read them if you did, but if you're put off by one person's mild disagreement with your sources, you probably won't. And just because sources are found very credible doesn't mean they are 100% right.

www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Authority

Similar to us on both sides. The difference is we don’t expect our parents to provide care, unlike our siblings. I have no issue at all with parents not providing free childcare but do feel there should be equality so if it is being provided for some grandchildren the same offer should be made to the others.

Of course, it’s all the women’s fault.

You are talking utter arse!

Be quiet.

Absolutely, @MarvelMrs - it does totally blow my mind when grandparents who already have grandchildren and don't do anything to help properly then whine at one-and-done. Yeah, sure, enjoy your spare time but there will be consequences!

I wonder this myself but then I can’t help but blame the grandparents for raising their own children to be so entitled? I have never expected help, I know all the grandparents of my child would happily do childcare more often but the only time I ask is for a rare special occasion such as a wedding. Otherwise I am either paying for nursery so that I can work or looking after my child myself, you know like a parent is supposed to.

Good god!
You would happily be chained to the kitchen and not work? And now because women have way more in the sense of equal opportunities across the board, and have the temerity to reasonably access these, you are blaming them for this situation?

Northing wrong those men back then staying home and taking care of the kids was there? Why didn’t they do that to prevent this so-called problem?

I look after my grandchildren one day a week (and some evening/weekends occasionally) and I work full time (4 long days). It’s knackering! But I do love having them and I have a really good relationship with them so for me it’s worth it.

You realise that many women work because they want to, and have the right to.

That most women don’t just consider rhit slaves vessels for child birthing/tearing and housekeeping.

Did you fall down a rabbit hole into the 1950s?

@PlumPudd

I agree with you @MrsDanversGlidesAgain. The UCL report says "If assessed by net household income after housing costs, then a life time generational decline is likely in the UK and several other European countries." Note the "If". They have chosen housing costs because that's what the current generation moan about. They have ignored general household costs - appliances, clothing, etc - which were much more expensive back then. We didn't have a throwaway society because we couldn't afford to do so. We were desperately acquiring, not decluttering; ; the word had not been invented back then.

I was ALWAYS at my grandma’s house - she came round to help my mum clean every week and I stayed at hers once a week. Now my mum is a grandparent and we see her probably 5x a year. It’s not like it’s a new thing that grandparents help out.

As a mum of 3 I don't think it's my mother's responsibility to care for the children I CHOSE to bring into the world. It was her responsibility to care for me as a child which she did.

Nor will I be giving up my career, friends or holidays to care for my grandchildren. If my children decide to have children I will be totally delighted and love and spoil them but have raised my children so will be not be raising my grandkids. That's there parents job and one I need to let them do.

The odd babysitting for a date night is no problems but day to day care it out of the question. Having had endless sleepless nights, toddler tantrums, years of school runs, homework, bedtime routines etc I have no plans to go back to this once my children have flown the nest.

We get virtually no help from family and have paid thousands on childcare over the years. Its just part of life. We rarely get nights out or breaks but again it's the life we chose by having children.

Same. Grandparents 2 miles down the road, took me and my 3(!) siblings probably one weekend a
month, always available for school pick ups etc if needed, babysitting in between.

Dads fucked off to the Mediterranean just in time for his grandkids to be born. Convenient that.

I fully intend to offer reasonable childcare to my grandchildren in future if I am able (maybe not 5 days a week; but regular babysitting, helping with school runs if needed, having them to mine as and when required). I anticipate being able to help even if I’m working full time, because even then why wouldn’t I be able to take them on a Friday night or for a Sunday?

@Noix (and others)

For current grandparents it was possible to feed and house a family on a single income back when they had children themselves. And they usually had some grandparent childcare as well as lots of women were sah.

The current parents (millennials are pushing forty, so last minute for having kids) have encountered one economic crisis after another, they cannot afford houses like their parents could.

Fully agree with PP that this is the world grandparents helped create and have benefitted from. Don't blame governments, they didn't repeatedly vote for themselves, did they?

While I agree life can be tough for working parents. There’s quite a lot of your post I’d take issue with.

A lot of grandparents are a similar age to me (50s/60s). In fact, for most of my contemporaries who had their children in the late 80s/90s, both parents worked. Hardly anyone was a SAHM, although they may have worked part-time.

As regards major economic crises, I googled and these were in the mid 70s, early 80s, early 90s and 2008 (plus COVID of course) so I guess the grandparents have lived through quite a few of these too.

In terms of governments, people who are ‘pushing 40’ have been able to vote for 20 years. Who did they vote for?
Most of us are going to have to work until we are 67/68.

Before you assume I’m a Tory voting Brexiteer, I’m not. I just get very fed up of all these posts blaming older people for everything.

Oh, and I absolutely don’t expect my DD to look after me in my old age and have told her as much. I fully expect her to be living somewhere on the other side of the world.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
My DD doesn’t want children so how will I fill my days?
What about crap mothers that would be just as crap grandmothers, those still paying off their mortgage that need to work and we all know that according to MN we wouldn’t want PIL to do it.