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.

DD's dad didn't see her until she was 2 days old, let alone be there at the birth. He left to go back to his deployment when she was 10 days old and we didn't see him again for 4 months (he was Royal Navy). We were living near the base which was 200+ miles away from my parents who were both working full-time (including some weekends), so weren't able to help out when I went back to work, when DD was little and her dad was often away at sea. So yeah, I've given birth alone and have been utterly exhausted from working and looking after DD on my own for long periods of time. Still don't think GP's should be obligated to do childcare though.

Well, I was born in the 1970s and my parents were an absolute joke, as were most of my friends' parents, so my experience tells me that I wouldn't trust them to take care of my kids and I have kept them away. But my situation apart (I know it isn't representative of everyone's experience). I genuinely think parenting has got tougher than it's ever been.

A lot of this has been caused by parents (including myself) working to correct the general neglect of children (that I experienced growing up - lack of nutrition, lack of support with school, lack of resources and the children should be seen and not heard and shoved out of the house from morning till night etc), but there are also the relentless problems caused by social media and the pressures that children have now.

Every generation has its difficulties, I would hope that grandparents want to help out their family, but I know that isn't always the case.

If grandparents aren't interested well who cares really? the ones that weren't interested in raising their own kids certainly won't be interested in grandkids. I say on you go, enjoy your purple rinse and bingo, don't let the door smack you on your arse on the way out! I would create your own support units with friends and siblings if you can. Reciprocate always and do your best.

Really good points @Goldbar

My DD1 lives in London having grown up in Midlands. She moved away after Uni. She has two DCs pre-school age and is regularly annoyed with me that I haven’t given up my FT job, moved nearer to her and/or been prepared to stay at theirs every weekend to ‘give her a break’. Apparently all the parents of her friends with DCs do this. 🙄

She regularly tells me how lucky I was to have loads of parental support when she and her sister were little. However, I don’t think her memory from before she went to school is quite correct. Most of her memories of spending time with their GPs comes from when DDs were older, GPs had retired by then (they were still working before my DCs went to school and gave up my job to look after them) and any stays were made easier by the fact we hadn’t moved away from where our parents lived.

Yes - it was possible to live comfortably on one salary back then but we had to move to a cheaper area even so. And my career inevitably suffered from have a gap of 7 years. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get to a good point now and I’m not about to give it all up because my DD thinks I should.

I love my GCs but I don’t to be tied down to childhood routine and commitment all over again.

@sweetpeapea

sits on her wealth 🤣

what exactly do u think she should be doing?

you and your partners choice to have kids, not hers

sooooooo entitled

@MachineBee

absolutely agree with you

**

I have to say that this sounds like a staggering level of entitlement from your daughter. Certainly I don't think this way and I don't think many of my friends do.

Besides everything else, for example, the cost of my parents' comfortable family home with nice garden where they live (3-4 hours from us) would get them a 2-bedroom flat where we live in London (and they'd be lucky to get a balcony). To expect my parents to sacrifice the quality of life they have at the moment in a peaceful and quiet location just so they're on hand for babysitting would be absolutely crazy.

That's not to say they don't help, but the type of help they provide is different. They both still work part-time, but they're very generous with trying to tie in their visits with any babysitting we need or if we want to go out. They've looked after my DC for a few whole weekends before so DH and I could get away. And they've offered to have DC for the occasional half-term or holiday week in future when DC is a little older (and less hard work!) so we don't need so much childcare and DC can have some nice, relaxed days with them rather than holiday camps. When I had a work trip abroad last year during a busy time at work for my DH, my parents covered 3 days of it and my in laws did the same so we could both retain our sanity. It saved us a fortune hiring a temp nanny so we were very grateful.

Like I said, the approach of every holiday and half-term heralds a flurry of messages on all the parents whatsapp groups I'm on - 'What camps are your kids doing?', 'Do they offer extended hours?', 'Does anyone know any that will do full days for 4 year olds?', 'Does anyone know a nanny/babysitter who wants extra hours?' So clearly the entitlement/expectation of family help is not universal.

What on earth are you talking about

They have done so for thousands of years.

Where is the evidence for this? I checked life expectancy for the Stone Age. One study of 80 skeletons from 10,000 years ago put life expectancy at 25 - 30. Another put it to 20 - 25. I am struggling with the maths to work out how a 20 - 25 year old could be a grandparent?

By the Middle Ages, infant mortality up to age 4 was high, but if you made it past 4; then life expectancy was 55. Without contraception, presumably women were having babies up to menopause?

Even within my mother’s working class family, one great grandmother had 8 children. Actually all her 8 children commented that having the twins broke her. If you have 8 children, who all have 2 children, how much time could one woman give to 16 grandchildren? Later on, the 8 adult DC had their elderly mother to stay with them in turn; but then care of an elderly person is much easier shared among 16 adults; than today’s average of 2 adult DC.

Likewise, another great grandmother had 7 children. One died in her early 20s from a congenital heart problem. One of the others died, in a back street abortion of baby no 10. The 9 children were shared out among her 5 surviving adult siblings. So, how much time, did my great grandmother have to care for 19 grandchildren?

None of the women in my grandmother’s generation could have relied on full time childcare from their mother, to enable them to work, because her time was spread too thin!

On my father’s side, they were all middle class and married women did not work in Victorian/Edwardian/early 20th century times. Certainly, none of them provided child care to anyone else’s DC (although none of them were fit to - my great grandmother was an alcoholic and my grandmother spent her time, playing bridge and totally neglected my father).

Well @Bluestream I’m 51 my DC are 23 & 21 so grandchildren are potentially in my near future but….and there’s a big but, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 5 years ago so I probably won’t be able to manage the least that you expect me to do as a grandparent. Any suggestions?

🙄 chip of your shoulder the size of everest!

Grandparents didn't create this world or deprive their children of money. They just did the best they could to get by. Have jobs, worked hard, didn't scrounge off the state, struggled to buy a house and provide their DC with a loving home. They didn't have diswashers or high tech phones. Many grew up in such poverty they worked hard to get out of that poverty. Many don't own homes but live in social housing and struggle financially as much as many young families on a tiny pension.

When I see posts on here about young women asking should they have a third child even though they are living on benefits, my blood boils.

My grandparents had 11 kids even though they could barely afford to feed themselves - back then the state didn’t step in to Rae their way - having kids when you’re skint is not a modern affliction.
The reality is making irrational choices is not a new thing the youth need to be blamed for!

WTF?

Decades ago, consumer goods were very expensive and housing comparatively cheap. Therefore by forgoing the former, you were well on your way to affording the latter.

Nowadays that has completely turned around. Consumer goods are cheap and housing is disproportionately expensive compared to wages. Depriving yourself of consumer goods will barely make a dent in being able to afford a house.

I think this is something the older generation don't always take into account.

I don't think we learn anything from quibbling the smaller purchases which as PP say simply don't cost the same as the used to relative to earnings.

I'll always remember getting lectured by colleagues about how they didn't have a TV when first married. I mean WTAF when a TV cost us a fraction of our monthly income? Should we have gone without it in solidarity with previous generations? What good would that have done anyone?

Decades ago, pay was lower and tax was higher. Buying clothes, food, furniture, furnishings etc took up more of your wage. Most people didn't have a credit card or bank loan, in fact the idea was usually unthinkable. People may well have been able to afford a house, but holidays abroad or even at home were out of reach for most people, as was owning a car. A lot of houses didn't have central heating or double glazing. The majority of the population did not go to university. Some people were even written off academically altogether at the age of 11. There was no such thing as the minimum wage or holiday entitlement in work. Men were generally paid more than women. Unemployment benefits were lower and there were no in work top up benefits. Women were not allowed on a mortgage unless they were over 21 and even then they had to be married or have a male guarantor.

This is something the younger generation does not take into account.

I'll always remember getting lectured by colleagues about how they didn't have a TV when first married. I mean WTAF when a TV cost us a fraction of our monthly income? Should we have gone without it in solidarity with previous generations? What good would that have done anyone?

Perhaps your colleague may have been pointing out that, despite some people not being able to get on the property ladder, we generally have a better standard of living these days than in the past, rather than that you should forgo a tv. But all the younger generation seem to see about anything pre 2002 is CHEAPER HOUSING.

Decades ago, pay was lower and tax was higher. Buying clothes, food, furniture, furnishings etc took up more of your wage.

I thought younger generations were worse off than previous ones & generational progress has halted?

But all the younger generation seem to see about anything pre 2002 is CHEAPER HOUSING.

Because that is huge aspect, well I think it is.

www.ft.com/content/81343d9e-187b-11e8-9e9c-25c814761640

Absolutely agree with this. My ILs dumped their kids on MIL full time, 5 days a week. Never any consideration given to whether MIL would have liked time for a hobby, or to go on holiday or anything like that. She was just expected to want to mind the kids. Horrible.

I'd argue housing costs are more relevant because it has a more fundamental impact on how you live your life. What's considered a desirable consumer good is going to vary a lot over time but you always need somewhere to live.

agree

Why we are even having this ridiculous argument is to justify a sense of entitlement.
’you had it better therefore it’s your obligation to help out’.
Its just grown up kids not standing on their own two feet by taking the opportunity not to have to pay a whack of cash for childcare when they can get it for free.

I don't think its a better standard of living at all, just a different one. I'm no happier with a TV in each room than I was with the crackly black and white thing I had as a child, I knew no different. Nor were my children happier interacting via gadgets than my generation were face to face.
Comparing standards of living across decades is largely meaningless, as the relevant comparators are between people living at the same point in time, so these days if you don't have TV or phone, you're going have a worse standard of living than is the norm.
There are some worthwhile comparators between the generations, but they're not concerning consumer goods, they're related to the basic necessities of life. Like housing and food. As has been pointed out, housing was much more accessible then. And we'd never heard of food banks.