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.

Very sadly @Littlemauvebox , there does come a time when dementia is too much to cope with privately at home. I spent an hour with my 93 year old DMIL this afternoon, and while she recognises me, her short term memory is so short that we had the location, day, month and year conversation eight times in about 20 minutes. Her memory is gone. Her mobility is limited and she is in constant discomfort from multiple angles. I don't know how to improve her life, because I don't think she has life... only existence.

I’m very hands on with my 8 grandchildren aged 3 months to 17years old. I do childcare, pick ups, drop offs, I take them on holiday when they’re old enough, I have them for sleepover, we go to the cinema, I have them and their friends at my house to swim, the list is endless. In fact theres hardly a day goes by that I don’t have at least one of them in my care even if it’s just for an hour. I also still manage to have other sides to my life. Nothing I do for my children or grandchildren has ever been expected of me. And I’ve never been taken for granted either. It’s just the way we work as a family and my many children have in-laws who are also very hands on with the children.

Do we get paid? No. We don’t. We’re comfortably off financially and it just wouldn’t be brought up or thought about. And if we weren’t in a good financial situation? Well, we’d all still be retired at quite a youngish age and we’d still do the same but would maybe accept payments for days out etc. But I really don’t know because it’s not a situation we’ve had to deal with.

Indeed. And I'm talking about me, now, when despite being a grandparent I pay in more than I take out.
Yes I did take out when I had children. Just as all those with children do. But we are talking about me, now. When I did take out I understood that people in the position I am in now were subsidising me.
I'm not sure when the cap on CB came in. In those days I possibly wasn't a net contributor, but again, I am talking about now, when I assure you on common with a great many grandparents in my circumstances, I pay in more than I take out.

I understand this. It just evolves.

Yes I did take out when I had children. Just as all those with children do.

We are going around in circles now, my point is you can't say everyone who has a child is taking out more. We have never qualified for child benefit which is in common with the majority of parents I know.

@NanaNelly you sound lovely, & yes it's just an organic thing as opposed to transactional.

Meow!!

So right though.

As a grandparent myself I wonder if it is always in the best interests of the child to be looked after by such as me. I don't always have the energy or the patience anymore.

@NanaNelly

You sound lovely - I hope I'm able to give the grandchildren I hope to have one day the same life as you.

I'd prefer to offer some form of childcare than not have grandchildren at all - if it makes my Children’s lives that little bit easier (and isn't a total CF piss take)

Aside from distance issues, grandparent 1 has several years of full-time working life left before she can afford to contemplate retirement. Grandparent 2 was 80 before our DCs were born. We simultaneously had grandparents too young and too old to care for our children.

We've had a grand total of 3 hours of family childcare in 12 years- that was to go to a funeral.

We knew that grandparent childcare was never going to happen. In the early years we paid for childcare, it was the after-school phase that got more complicated with two childcare providers, tight hours and the finishing factor was DS1 having SENs that meant that he struggled with school and I stopped work as the only viable childcare option.

The awkward bit is that we seem to live in an area where lots of people seem to have hit the local, right age, interested grandparent jackpot and that makes it difficult to ask for mutual favours and not end up in cheeky fucker territory.
It's 3 years since DH and I had a child-free evening together and that's because a Cub camp fell neatly. With SNs in the mix, paying a random (albeit vetted) stranger to babysit is not appropriate for DS. I'm looking forwards a couple more years until we can go out again.

CB is a drop in the ocean compared to the overall cost to the tax payer of people having children.
If you pay for private schooling and health care you may be an exception.

@Hymnulop

how is she right?!

I'm subsiding loads of pensioners

I very much doubt that. Unless you’re childless and earn megabucks.

@Blossomtoes I was being flippant but yes I'm a higher rate tax payer as is DH.

WTF?!

My grandparents lived 300 miles away.

When DD was born, DH’s parents were 250
miles away and my parents were 4,500 miles away. DH’s lot were never going to be involved. Even when my parents moved back (35 miles away) their input was limited and certainly not regular childcare.

Parenting is mine and DH’s responsibility. Not our parents.

And fortunate enough to get private healthcare with our jobs

I haven’t read the full thread but my in-laws are actually the opposite of this. They insist that they MUST have my children one day a week. They then give me 10 days notice that they can’t have them… fine whilst I’m on maternity, not so great when I go back to work next month!
we've paid for childcare all the way through my 2 year maternity leave but they get really offended if I dare suggest that we dont use them. They have a year before my eldest goes to school and we can afford my youngest the extra day at nursery before I jiggle things around that don’t involve them at all.
I have told them that if they carry on insisting they can do it but let me down all the time then they need to be telling their son rather than me as he will the one needing to sort it out 😀

CB is a drop in the ocean compared to the overall cost to the tax payer of people having children.

where did I claim otherwise? You are the one saying you are subsidising those with dc, I just disagreed.

I thought you gave not receiving CB as an example of you not being subsidised. I'm just pointing out that that's almost neither here nor there in the scheme of the subsidies received by families with children. And you might disagree, but I know my circumstances, and objectively I know I am correct.

Agree with this. My mum and Dad help and they are still working. Partners parents do nothing and retired earlier than them, but happily help his brother who lives miles away, but not us. My parents will be at the front of the queue when they all need us snd my partner totally agrees with this. My kids have a much more closer relationship with my parents too because they make the effort to spend time with them. It does go both ways.

It shouldn't be expected, but I don't think it's entitlement, it's desperation. Childcare is too expensive. Perhaps we should all be voting for a government that supports families rather than bickering with each other? Just a thought.....

My German friend pays 160 eurosper month for childcare. She has lived here too with kids and can't believe how much we are expected to pay. It is one of the reasons they moved back.

No you mentioned CB, I just said I've never received it.

And you might disagree, but I know my circumstances, and objectively I know I am correct.

😆, Yes I disagree but you crack on

I’m a first time mum with a 1 year old so far from becoming a grandma. It’s just something I’ve seen in the extended family, friends and also some of the threads on mumsnet. I honestly have better things to do in my life than to start a thread with the intention to cause rows between mumsnetters.

Look @towelhammer, if you use private healthcare, education and aren’t entitled to child benefit, you’re probably not being subsidised by the likes of 5128 and me, but you’re a very rare exception. Most families with school age children take out more than they pay. Childless people rarely do.

Fully agree with OP and baffled at the bonkers lot.

SIL is a very good example of this entitled attitude and it drives me and DH crazy because at the end of the day it is all
about accumulating money. They treat my MIL like dirt; they both work, she is on a state pension and yet they won’t even reimburse her for the £££s she has spent on petrol and meals for them over the years, coming out with such drivel as ‘it’s your privilege to look after my kids’.

They are the type that say things like ‘we can’t afford to buy anyone Xmas presents this year’ but somehow manage to have a brand new car, holidays to Florida and their kids are all dressed in labels. Makes me sick.

@Blossomtoes but @5128gap isn't childless & I was just disagreeing that she was subsiding everyone with dc. I've not argued that everyone is like me but we certainly exist & I think it's becoming more & more difficult to have dc unless you are comfortable. Which is wrong imo but house prices are prohibitive for many & certainly impacting birth rates.