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 Work full time and will be doing so for another 14 years, assuming state pension age is still 67 by then. I pay tax and national insurance for services many of which I don't use, and claim nothing, so arguably, if you have a young family, I am currently subsidising you. Which is as it should be.

How do you know it's not you been subsided?

*In return 50% of women claiming a state pension haven’t worked a full working life - part time, odds and ends here or there, or not at all.

They get free prescriptions, free bus passes, fuel allowance, and are a huge consumer within the NHS.*

A lot of those women would have been at home caring for children and if they worked paying a reduced NI contribution and relying on their husbands' NI record for a pension. By 'fuel allowance' I assume you mean heating allowance, and the 'huge consumer withing the NHS' is because they're getting older and older people tend to need more medical care.

You really don't like older women at all, do you?

subsidised even!

Interest rates at 7% today apparently will have the same impact on disposable income that the high double rates of the past did. Hence the stamp duty prop I guess.

For those who expect childcare from their parents - Do you actually pay for childcare?

The only way that my parents would be doing full time child care for me if I paid them - I would happily pay the going rate.

How nice for them…

It’s their job to sort their care later in life but the ‘elderly parents’ board will tell you otherwise.

The ravages of old age are insidious, usually people don’t realise they need care until it’s too late to organise it. All I require is to be found a nice care home when the time comes, to be visited every now and then and to have my hand held when it’s time for me to depart this life.

It’s called planning ahead, which is what we’re all being encouraged to do when wanting children apparently…

You have a strange idea of who these hypothetical grandparent 'boomers' are. My kids are better off than I am.

Statistically though that's not representative.

We have a huge demographic shift coming & no planning, look at the state of the NHS & social care now. It's not offensive to say we have an ageing population, that healthy life expectancy hasn't grown like life expectancy & that "free" healthcare isn't sustainable if it's expected to fund decades of life.

Dotty, you are a mad scone.

I like the one I saw on another thread - 'you utter pilchard.'

Planning ahead is ensuring there’s money to pay for it. You can plan to the nth degree but it’s all a bit pointless if you lack the capacity to put the plan in action.

@Lavenderflower I don't expect it & don't pay but try to repay although it's natural as opposed to planned. For example I'm away this weekend with DH so the dc will stay with gps. I will treat them to dinner in a few weeks, DH did some DIY for them last week & on Friday I'm going with my mum to an appointment.

Think of all the things your children will recieve that is free or subsidised. The care you received in pregnancy, your maternity pay. Maybe child benefit. Yours and your husband's tax won't touch the sides of that. Your choice to have children is being subsidised by the tax payer. Which as I said, is as it should be.
Meanwhile, I'm at a point in my life where I cost very little. Still healthy and paying into the system. As I have done all my life. I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm a life long socialist who believes from each according to their means.
I don't disagree with you that some elderly people recieve benefits that they don't need and should really be diverted to families. Its a nonsense there isn't more means testing of money handed out on the basis of age. But, that's Tory vote catching for you.
What I do object to is your unpleasant stereotyping of 'grandparents' as avaricious elderly parasites. We're from all walks of life, income brackets and lifestyles. Some of us are barely older than the parents on here, and have faced much the same challenges.

This is so sad @User57327259

can I ask though and in no means is this an accusation or excusing dgc parents actions, actually trying to understand our parental grandparents. Do you or did you try and arrange to see grand kids and have been told no, ask to visit, go on days out, take them out still outside of any formal childcare arrangements? Or did you expect them to be brought to you?

(I’m really really not trying to be inflammatory or accusatory, if it comes across that way I’m sorry, I’m actually not sure if I have unreasonable expectations from my kids GPs)

Most families DO manage without grandparents help in the real world.

Think of all the things your children will recieve that is free or subsidised. The care you received in pregnancy, your maternity pay. Maybe child benefit. Yours and your husband's tax won't touch the sides of that. Your choice to have children is being subsidised by the tax payer. Which as I said, is as it should be.

I don't think it's as simple as that as the younger generations pay for those above them. Did you not have dc or receive an education? Plus it's a benefit for the country for the population to be well educated.

You could have a family income of 118k & still receive some child benefit, my parents got a similar payment under a different name that wasn't means tested plus birth rates are now very different. Say you were earning similar for a decade that's 30k in tax a yr, that's a decent contribution.

@User57327259 Oh this is really sad. Must have been particularly difficult having built up a relationship with your DGC. What a horrible way to behave. Hopefully in the future when the kids are older they will reach out to you.

tfresh:It's the world grandparents have created. Most families will require 2 working parents to have any chance of putting a roof over the kids head.
^
Grandparents could avoid this by giving back to the system that has given them so much. However, I don't see this happening anytime soon, so maybe chin up and help out.^

Hahahahahaha. What a crock of shite

Yes, my generation managed without central heating, holidays, supermarket deliveries, plastic shopping bags, a phone or a car so everything must be our fault

You are defining my DM (born 1935) as a boomer. Which is wrong. She was a war baby. I was born in 1956 and a boomer, but I lived through the 1970s economic failure, and moved countries to escape the catastrophic UK failure.

We have the opposite situation. I work full-time as does DH, and my mum is always offering to have the children, but I don't believe in using grandparents in this way. I chose to have my children,childcare is my issue to sort, not hers.

I want my parents to have relaxed time with the children where I am available to deal with any challenging situations (SEN needs) and also not be worried about school pick ups, etc. I don't want them to be free/cheap childcare, I want themto be grandparents.

DHs parents have never once offered to look after our children and we would never ask them. My mil did every drop off and pick up for my nephew throughout primary school (a 40 minute round trip each way for her), plus 3 hours of childcare every day - it's just not fair to impose like that. I'm sure she just never felt able to say no.

I would never ask my grandparents or parents to take care of my children. We don't earn mega money, have a standard size house etc, baby goes to nursery 4 days a week and other child is in full time school, yes it is expensive but it is only temporary and we live within our means on a strict budget.

I have friends who say they can't afford childcare but have brand new cars on finance, go on expensive days out and multiple holidays a year, they get annoyed when their parents can't take care of their children when they work etc, it's just selective spending isn't it!

‘They’? ‘Most of them’?

What are you on?