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 what you're snorting, but you need to stop it.
What if their children are infertile or don't want kids, or are even in a same sex relationship and don't want kids?
Stop being ridiculous and go read a book or something.

I don’t think this is a new set up; my great grandmother did loads of childcare for my grandmother’s children in the early 50s. It was offered not demanded though.

This is about women. You raise your kids while working full-time and are then expected to give up your job to provide free childcare. Meanwhile the men can enjoy themselves.

To quote Mike and Mechanics, ‘every generation blames the one before’.

Not sure why the poster earlier thinks grandparents kind of owe childcare because they were given so much? I am a grandparent and won't get to retire for 7 years yet on a pretty piss poor pension having worked 4o years by then. I definitely can't pack in work for childcare. Not sure what all these riches are that I was given.

Should say 49 years.

My first grandchild came along when I was 38 and still working full time with a mortgage and bills to pay.
Should I have packed up work and hope that my mortgage and utility providers wave my bills away to play peek -a-boo with baby?
Stop being silly and go run yourself a bath or something.

Most women didn't work back in the fifties though, and very few had careers.
It was a different world then compared to today.

@GoingThatWay According to some on here you should not have had children unless you were prepared to quit that job.
Alternatively you should have had your kids older and cared for your grandchildren in your seventies and eighties.

Yep, my parents benefitted massively from having a dual income and zero childcare costs due to both sets of their parents giving it for free, including overnights. Not to mention fucking off abroad once a year for 10 days WITHOUT US KIDS.

Meanwhile, in 14 years, they’ve not so much as watched my children for an hour. When I needed surgery, they were nowhere to be seen.

Both sets of my Grandparents are horrified, and have said they’d never have given up so much of their 60s to help their children if they knew they’d be such shits to their own children.

They're barmy though, so their opinion doesn't count.

My parents can't wait to have my DD when I go back to work. It's actually a bit annoying that they mention it whenever we see them because I feel like they are wishing my mat leave way 😅 But that is also how I would expect most grandparents to feel

Where do I say you were all living the life of riley? I said very clearly that several studies showed that in general things were better for the boomer generation than for their children. That I understood these trends wouldn’t be the case for plenty of individuals in either generation, and that it didn’t mean everything was great for boomers, or that nothing had improved for millennials.

You asked me to share links to the studies and I did. These studies factor in the economies situation in the 70s and still conclude that in general boomers kids are having it slightly worse.

I don’t need to address your points about the 70’s, the studies do that.

You’re taking what are objective facts calculated by economists and scientists very personally.

I have twice at work had different colleagues have to take emergency leave after their childcare fell through when a grandparent had a medical emergency. In one case a stroke, in another case a fall. Both times I have wondered if that parent really was well enough to take on that level of childcare. And on both occasions the parent needed some level of ongoing care from then on. So they went from caring for grandchildren to needing care themselves, no time for a proper retirement of just enjoying themselves.

Boomers are in their seventies and eighties, they were children in the fifties and sixties, not the seventies.

My point wasn’t to stir up intergenerational arguments or to attack boomers or praise millennials.

I’ve said upthread that grandparents shouldn’t be pressured to give childcare, it’s up to them and if they don’t want to they should just say a firm no.

My point was just that a lot of people on this thread are using personal anecdotes to argue that things in grandparents generations were in general worse, which is I’m sure true at the individual level for some people, but isn’t true at a population level. I find it a bit generally dismaying when people don’t understand that when their personal experience didn’t match what is a well established trend, that doesn’t disprove the trend. Anecdotes are not good science or evidence, when compared to population level statistics

Grandparents should be changed to grandmothers....oh and yes there will be a couple of folks running to tell us that their dads do the childcare but lets be honest it is rare.

Many who work wont be retiring until they are 67. Do their DC truly think there newly retired mother should then start offering childcare? I have worked since 18 yrs old, I have 4 DC and my last wont be out the house until I am 62. I will be enjoying my retirement and not being restricted by childcare duties. Happy to baby sit and help out over holiday times and emergencies but not to take on a new fulltime job. I chose to have 4 DC and all of them went through a nursery.

Perhaps the “entitlement” comes from the fact that most millennials I know were basically raised by their grandparents. I can see how it might be an expectation that something similar might be on the cards for them too.

My friends have ended up with paid childcare though; as they soon found they were uncomfortable with the grandparents’ lack of experience with children (they didn’t raise their own, after all).

The oldest boomers are 77, the youngest are 58.

I’m not taking your “objective facts” personally at all @PlumPudd, I’m simply pointing out that you are biased and have said things that are patently untrue. 🤷‍♀️

Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 so they aren't in their 80s and some of us (including me) are in our 60s and the 1963 and 1964 vintage haven't quite reached 60.

What have I said that’s untrue? How am I biased?

Let's not pretend it's about grandparents. We're talking about grandmothers here. Women. Back in the olden days when women became mothers at 18 and grandmothers at 36 and didn't have to work and the cost of living wasn't atrocious and society said that being a wife and mother was your purpose in life, it was understandable that they would help raise their grandchildren.

But these days, women are finally realising they are worth more than just childrearing and keeping house. They want, need, and are allowed to do other things. Because that's what it's about - worth, value, respect. You should give up your self for your children and grandchildren because that's all you're worth. Well that's bs.

No woman should be guilted and shamed into giving up her self for the sake of others just because she is a mother.

Read my first response to you. I bullet pointed it to make it easier for you.

Eh?

Oh the irony of this comment!