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.

What?

My own parents would have been offended if we chose to put the DC in nursery to pay a bunch of low-paid, disinterested teenagers to do the bare minimum care, when they were more than willing to help for free. They said as much when I was pregnant with DD1. They only do two school pick ups and the odd day in the school holidays, but they seem to really cherish the time with them. They get all of my old toys out for them, set up activities, take them to the park. They don't seem to view it as a chore but just quality time with their GC, and are always reminding us that they're there to help.

I personally find it a little sad when GPs are completely disinterested and value their 'me' time over family. Nobody is laying on their death bed wishing they had spent less time with their family. I'm already looking forward to being a GP and my eldest is only 10, and we will help out any way we can.

There is a big difference between wanting to spend lots of time with one’s grandchildren - and, if l am looking forward to doing so if l am blessed with grandchildren in the future - and being expected to be in loco parentis. The rôle of grandparents is to enjoy the good bits of their grandchildren without bringing them up because we have already done that with our own children. If l do have grandchildren, I will probably be in my mid-sixties at the earliest, possibly nearer seventy, and, with the best will in the world, energy levels are much lower at this age than twenty, thirty or forty years previously.

I'd have to agree with @Violinist64 . I had my only child when I was 43 and he is now 26 and single. I'm very well, but I am not going to provide more than (very) occasional daycare, even now. Assuming it takes another decade for my DS to do reproduction, I shall be at least 79. My family do make old bones in good health, but surely this is pushing the envelope of expectation for grandparenting?

I know, what a daft comment.

Grandparents have already been part of the system giving so much by raising their own children. And most of the grandparents I know with young enough GC to need childcare are still working themselves.

If your family desert you for not providing free childcare, they’re not much of a family, are they?

I have a friend in her 70s who was similarly pressured and guilt tripped and it's caused a lot of family drama. She is retired but has a hobby that takes up a couple of hours every morning and a little home business - so couldn't do those for the two days of childcare). She didn't want to do it in the first place and also told me she was finding it too much looking after a baby and toddler - just getting them in and out of the car was tiring her out. She's got 5 DC in all and the others were upset that as she hadn't looked after theirs regularly why was she doing it for that one and (ironically) they reminded her that the entitled DC was the one who has always done the least for her. She didn't want to leave them in the lurch but gave them a time limit to find their own childcare - I say them as it's a husband and wife (both with good jobs). She wasn't 'abandoned' after all and it did cause a few arguments amongst her DC.

Some people have a lot of front!

This is BS!
We were lucky to have a better work/life balance, yes! But to blame us for the world changing to something we didn’t vote for, and don’t agree with is rather disingenuous.
And we certainly didn’t sign up to become childcare in our 60’s! Younger generations should still, as we did, consider their life choices and cut their cloth accordingly - not just assume that the grandparents would provide free childcare!

@Worralorra

would you give up the triple lock free bus passes protected public service pensions and winter fuel allowance then?

the younger generations carry a far greater financial burden than you possibly did and for longer making having and raising children far more expensive than previous generations

Grey12 is either Rachel Reeves or a Labour luvvy who has bought into the fallacy that pensioners should be raped of all their earnings so the country can keep everyone at a low pay levela nd claim benefits.

I find it interesting that there seems to be some belief that Boomer parents seemed to rely on their parents to provide childcare and practically outsource their parenting to them and therefore should be prepared now to do several days childcare a week.

Maybe for a small minority, but statistics show that Grandparents now do FAR more childcare than previous generations. I don't remember ever seeing any Grandparents at the school gate. None of my school friends were ever regularly picked up by their grandparents after school and those that had parents that worked all went to after school club or a childminder. Even when you go to toddler groups, half the people there are grandparents something that my mum said she never saw when we were younger.

I certainly wouldn't hold my parents personally responsible for the fact two incomes are needed now (I'd also hate to be a SAHM) and demand they do childcare for this. It's such a ridiculous thing to say.

I think it varies. Going back well over 100 year my GGM helped my GM, my GM did lots of childcare for my mother (looking after me) and my mother did slot of childcare with my older children but she wasn't well enough for my younger children. I pay it forward by doing childcare with my GC. It is just normal in my wider family.

Thinking back to being a young mum in the 70s most people I knew got support from their parents. Does it vary round the country or communities?

I definitely knew grandparents at playgroups and pick ups at school. I can remember three families where grandparents were bringing up GC full-time as parents were off partying and living the single life.

I assume it must vary by area but growing up in the 90s where I lived it wasn't as commonplace. For most people I knew grandparents were people you visited and were babysat by now and then, not day to day carers.

This might sound awful but those I did know back then whose grandparents were more heavily involved it seemed to be because the parents weren't coping. For example if the mum had a baby very young or there was illness. I'm guilty of making assumptions about some families before realising how grandparent childcare had become more common.

Wtf. How the hell do you know what financial burdens every pensioner ever had?
Generalisations by government and media are not facts.
There will be millions of pensioners who could tell you how hard their lives have been including me but what would be the point?
Fyi i don't have a bus pass nor do i have a public service pension but i did get the wfa because my income is under the threshold.
It's really not a competition to see who had it harder. Some people do and others don't.
I also don't yet have grandchildren but if i ever do i can't do childcare not because i don't want to but because i have mobility issues. Then again my chikdren aren't entitled arseholes and wouldn't cut me off if i couldn't help them.

I think it does vary, I know 20 years ago colleagues would say I did too much but when I went to where my family came from all my cousins and second cousins were doing the same as me.

I also have to say I enjoy it, I think it keeps me young and fit. My eldest GC is in his 20s and the littlest is one. Another six in between so it is ongoing for me. I'd be sad if my help wasn't wanted.