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.

She's 34. Hardly a lifetime. Who knows how much her rent will cost in future. Housing stock changes ownership and tenancy rights reduce. Tory government remember?

This. Its funny generation we live in. Basically people are living longer, and women are having kids later. Us girls can have a career, a life, and not bother with men at all. Men are now redundant in so many ways. Forward thinking women's attitude is that an able bodied mother in her 70 s who is present, is more useful and reliable than any man . Women who have this relationship with their mother is to be cherished rather than the kids father who is displaced, no longer the bread winner and on tinder .

@Shudahaddogs
if there was any logic in this batshittery (which of course there isn’t), the ‘redundant males’ would be providing the childcare to the grandchildren whilst the Uber-mother in her 70s would be relaxing after her lifetime of graft.

I'm sure many 70 year old women are more useful and reliable than feckless men. But when those women, who have already done the heavy lifting of raising one family, are expected to start all over again, working for free in their 70s, i think most feminists would consider that a bit of an own goal.

Oh, I don't deny it..it's a privilege not a right. However, we don't have the luxury afforded us of a stable -ish economy. We couldn't buy our houses with a 10k down payment.

Manners go a long way -for sure. However, a little appreciation as to how close to the bone most of us are these days; wouldn't go amiss.

WTF! Jesus self entitlement personified 🙄

Childcare is just so expensive (£2,000 a month full time here!) that I can see why people hope that grandparents will help, but relying on it isn’t ideal, even if all agreed, as it can be a lot to do for someone whose energy levels and health may be waning. A friend has her two pre school grandchildren two days a week and it is really affecting her already precarious health, but she doesn’t feel able to say so as she knows her daughters in law rely on her and couldn’t afford to work if they had to pay for childcare. A lack of affordable childcare, including council nurseries or workplace crèches, really does make things hard for working parents, especially mothers let’s be honest.

I have told son that I won’t be doing granny child care on a regular basis. Fine for occasional thing. They live 150 miles away so unless they move, wouldn’t be much help anyway. I raised mine with no in-laws. Mother died when I was a child, father very full time working, in-laws abroad. We managed. Was definitely not easy. But you can find a way

WTAF???

I agree i have never expected help for childcare from my parents, had my first child at 18 and had to give up college and driving lessons untill she started school.

Totally agree, it’s such an entitled attitude but at the same time, I do wonder about the grandparents who have taught their kids that that’s acceptable in the first place

Procreate with better men

i have a live ad (lottery) showing put upon Grandma running away from her entitled family…

I suspect that it is the grandMOTHERS who are forced to give up the things they love to care for their children’s children…..plus ca change. IF people want to help out, that’s wonderful, but there is a world of difference between volunteering to help out and being conscripted.

So true😁

Some of the entitlement here is unbelievable. Who'd've thunk someone like myself who has always practiced and preached equality and avoided the worst excesses of capitalism are personally responsible for the state of the UK as it is today.

Well I have met a grandparent at the school gate who was literally crying with exhaustion, begged the son and dil to lay off on the childminding and they told her she was obligated then went off on a couple holiday.

I also know another grandma who has a bad back and there’s days when she’s literally on her hands and knees and the kids get dumped on her regardless.

it should not be expected imo

Grandmother to a gorgeous 1 yr old. While I’m happy to babysit so my DS & DIL can have the odd afternoon or evening together, there is no way I would offer, nor would they ask me, to provide full time childcare. No prospect of retirement any time soon - sorry tfresh - your post is ridiculous.

Id have left the grandkids with childrens social care. And then cried my eyes out at how badly id brought my children up.

My in laws made it very clear they retired to retire, not become childcare. That's cool, don't blame you. Kids can be testing.

This rule however only applied to my husband, not his brother or sister 🤨

I will ask if they can help cover PD days or appointments if I'm desperate, but I'll do anything to avoid asking them for help because they were so adamant they didn't want to. They now have my nephew, and probably newborn niece, every Monday. Even pick them up from their house at 6.30am. I know I sound bitter, probably am a little bit tbh, but surely the grandkids should all be treated equally.

My mum however will help whenever she can because she remembers how difficult it was. She still works full time but will do what she can to help.

What a disgusting post.

We moved away from our parents for work so have never had grandparents help as they’re too far away. If we lived closer, they probably would help out more but that is down to the choice we made so have never expected anything from them.

I do of course just wish sometimes they would offer to come down in the summer holidays and help out then as well as spend time with their grandchildren but they just think we can manage everything all the time. I don’t think they realise just how mentally exhausting it is sometimes, working full time, looking after children and there being no support. Sometimes I feel I need their support not just my children so we’d all benefit. They don’t see any problems we have because of the distance and sometimes it feels like they don’t care.

They don’t owe us anything but I wish sometimes they would just offer to help. They’re all retired so could. I’d be so grateful 🥹 and I think I’m perimenopausal which just adds to the pressure and my ramblings on here.

but for those entitled adults expecting grandparents to be there on tap, shame shame shame on you!!! Time to grow the fuck up!

Actually you are entitled if you think grandparents shouldn’t help out. They have done so for thousands of years. You know it takes a village and all. But the last generation where mum stayed at home with kids pretty much ended with the baby boomers. And yes they paid a lot less tax in comparison and had better benefits from the NHS being entirely free to going to Uni for free as well as ending their kids to Uni for free and not to mention being able to by a nice suburban 3-bed with garden for £3,000 and still paying a mortgage for this in 2000 20-30 years after buying it, when you couldn’t rent a bed sit for the tiny amounts they pay. Yes they were and are still a lot wealthier.

How do your parents feel about your attitude to this?

It makes me laugh when people are all ‘oh my parents didn’t splash out money on iPhones/gym memberships back in their day’
no because they didn’t fucking exist 😂 they weren’t valiantly going without.

Wow, a social scientist in the making! Of course those examples of technology didn't exist but there has always been 'the latest' in every generation! My parents were the first in our avenue to get a fridge, I was talking to my grandchildren the other day about watching the '53 Coronation on a tiny 9 or 12 inch black and whote TV, a lot of the neighbours in there and the curtains drawn! We'd actually bought/rented it for the Cup Final the month before. People bought/rented what they could afford, a lot of second hand furniture changed hands when young people were setting up home.

I know it's the MN mode to sneer at such 'anecdotes', that doesn't distract from their veracity.