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 agree. I think I must have lived in an alternate reality in the 70's/80's because it sure as hell wasn't the Utopia some of the younger generation would have us believe.

I generally hate the term 'entitled' to describe millennials and below, but bloody hell there's a few living up to the term here.

ODFOD.

I am from a developing country where large joint families are common, with everyone living under one roof or close to one another, and all chipping in to provide childcare. I think this way of life-it takes a village etc etc- is highly romanticised on MN. I moved to the UK to get away from that, and I am glad I did. My SIL has literally enslaved my MIL back home to provide childcare, but my MIL feels unable to say no because a woman is expected to go on caring until she is dead....

Of course grandparents shouldn't be expected to look after grandchildren, but then they themselves shouldn't be entitled enough to expect their children to.look after them when they are elderly either. What goes around comes around

Two posts in to find the bollocks! I know there are families who are genuinely finding things hard but equally there are those who don't know how to live within their income.

Very few people these days look after their parents. That used to be common.

I think expectations depend to a degree on your own childhood experiences. I was never looked after by my extended family and nor was my DH (all dead/unwell/in different countries etc) so it didn't really occur to us that our parents would look after our children except possibly in an emergency. I'm not really expecting to provide childcare for my grandchildren either - for a start I don't anticipate my children living close enough for that to be feasible on a regular basis.
But in the village where we now live there are plenty of multi generational families where it is very much the norm for the extended family to be the main source of childcare and seems to be expected by all concerned. I admit to sometimes being jealous of how easy this seemingly makes friends' lives. They've never experienced the stress of getting the "Doc Junior isn't well, please come and pick up asap" call from school half way through a clinic when DH is abroad on business, or even the juggling of multiple after school commitments for different children in different places at the same time, as they have a large pool of helpers. But on the other hand I never had the angst that occurs when grandma or great grandma won't abide by my wishes re my children which seems to be common when family do childcare, so I guess it's swings and roundabouts.
I don't see anything inherently wrong with either arrangement really. Tension seems to arise if the grandparents and parents have different expectations though, and with people working to an older age now, I think a lot of new parents are going to have to revise their ideas about exactly how much they can rely on their extended families.

She does have a choice but it involves being blackmailed by her hideous family or losing contact with the children.

This!!! My mum always worked. She never had the luxury of skipping about for 18 years, and her and my SD both had good jobs

My parents didn't live on the same continent as me when mine were young. Most of my friends had no relatives within 500 miles ... grandparents providing childcare isn't a world I recognise. My dd has already sounded me out and been told a resounding no, when I give up work it will be for fun not childcare

Agree, and also this ‘it takes a village’ attitude - not dissimilar to ‘I can’t believe people in the UK put their parents in care homes’ attitude - only ever applies to women doing the slog, the arse wiping, the looking after others. A romanticised view with thinly veiled misogyny lying beneath

I worked for the police in the 70s and 80s. Pay improved in the 80s but I knew so many police constables with children in the 70s who were on supplementary benefits, free milk, free school meals. Childcare was in short supply as well, few nursery places in the 70s than in the 40s when the govt wanted women to do the work of men away in the forces. Of course it is hard to get a job working round your partners hours if he is on a shift pattern.

Unions fought to improve pay but the police came a bit late as they couldn't have a union and can't strike.

My first husband worked in the food industry, we often relied on free samples or stuff going out of date to help balance the budget and lived in fear of the electricity bill.

That is horrific. I'd be sorely tempted to ensure that it is made very clear in her will that she has used that child's share of the inheritance in lieu of beeing paid for childcare and loss of income from part-time job and to donate to the charity she can no longer volunteer at and to compensate for not doing the hobby.

Most families cannot manage without grandparent help. It's as simple as that really.

Yes, it is a system often built on the unpaid labour of women, though of course every family is different and there will be exceptions. I should also say that my MIL has never worked, and therefore felt obliged to provide childcare for my SIL, who is a very busy doctor. But that is not the case anymore. GPs these days in this country are likely working till their 70s.

Buit surely under your stupid theory great grandparents should be in harness too!

Grandparents have zero responsibility because, as MN is always quick to point out, have no rights, especially the paternal grandparents.

I can see this thread will provide endless laughs from posters like this one!

Yep. Blitz spirit and all that…

Very few people these days look after their parents. That used to be common.

Not in my experience. There is a huge expectation that children / grandchildren will do a LOT, ie visit daily, take to appointments, do shopping, cleaning etc because many elderly people point blank refuse any outside help. That was the case with stubborn elderly relatives in my family and if you head over to the elderly parents board on here I'd say that's not actually unusual.

I wonder how much many of those have helped their adult children out with childcare while they were able?

Nope it’s not an obligation, but why wouldn’t you want to? Being a parent is bloody hard and relentless, if you can’t help your kids who can you help? Would also argue if you can’t help with your grandkids do not expect help when your old and need a hand yourself.

@grey12

Perhaps in your life but my grandparents never looked after me, my mum did and returned to work pt once I was in school. I did the same with my kids. It's called living within your means. My kids were 9&10 before I learned to drive because I couldn't afford it, I got my own car for the first time when my youngest was 19! I don't recognise a world where grandparents do childcare. Parents choose to have children, they either give up work/work around each other or pay for childcare

Fully agree that it depends a lot on how they parented themselves.

We were cared for by my grandparents a lot to enable both of my parents to do shift work. School pick ups, evening meals, bedtimes, overnights: you name it. So my parents see it as paying that forward now that they are in a position to help us when we're fighting on all fronts.

I hope that by being facilitated in my career now, I can hope to retire at a reasonable age and be there for my children and grandchildren if needed. I would take that any day, over a family that I never saw from one Mother's Day to the next.

So what happens if grandparent takes I’ll or, heaven forbid, dies suddenly? Or in the less extreme - decided to emigrate to Panama, or take up a Hobby Mon-Thurs? Would the parents implode? Or would they find a way to make it work?

What ??????

I mean we could start a thread called ‘why do so many elderly people refuse to pay for care and expect their adult children to be their unpaid assistants’ but that wouldn’t go down very well would it?