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.

Btw my retirement age is 67 ... my eldest is already 24 so there's a almost certainty I will still be working if she starts a family. I can't afford to retire before state pension age because my employer pension is linked to it

This is a strange thread. My parents are still working. It would be unreasonable to expect them provide child care especially as they have raised their families and now how to contend with my frail grandparents. That being said grandparents have always helped in my family but not to the extent of providing regular childcare. When I a young child; my grandparents were still working. In previous generation women may have stayed at home bu this definitely did not apply to my mum - As far as I aware she has always worked - she may have taken a year out or something. My grandmothers were working working as well.

I think the fact that the vast vast majority of humans do make decisions that aren’t entirely based on logic and calculation of potential risks, is an explanation in and of itself for why people make less rational choices, and that even those who do make rational decisions all the time, can therefore surely understand why others don’t.

Human nature and the fact that we evolved to live in a very different world to this one is a pretty clear explanation.

I’m assuming you don’t own a car, a gas fired boiler, a gas hob, a credit card, more that two pairs of shoes and four outfits, drink alcohol, don’t eat red meat or sugar, or go on any holidays ever, and that you didn’t have any children after the 1970s when the future impacts of climate change became known@whumpthereitis? Because all of those are also irrational decisions that either expose you to some future risk, or don’t make sense in the context of how the world is very likely to change.

It everyone does ‘pay it forward’ - my grandparents looked after us every school holidays for 13 years. Full six weeks in summer, they loved 2.5 hours away and we’d be there the whole time whilst my mum and SD went on holidays and got a break. My mum has never had any of her grandchildren beyond watching them while we nip to the shop. Not that I’d personally want her to for various reasons but it’s not a hard and fast rule

Did she use grandparents or parents for childcare or did she not need if she did it's a little hypocritical.

Yes but they couldn't in the 70s and 80s either! Big difference is we were left to fend for ourselves through necessity (from a young age) while our folks were working. Hence the GenX latchkey kids

That has to be the most bizarre argument I’ve heard in a long time, and there’s little to beat Mumsnet for irrational 😆

Female employment rate Q1
1971: 52.8%
1981: 56%
1991: 62.9%
2022: 72.3%
(Source: ONS)
Not all women were able to stay at home in the past by any means, but a lot more were.

Absolutely amen to this!!! My thoughts 100%

My parents do childcare for me. They're in their late 50's but both retired a few years before my son was born.

I never planned to have my parents minding him, we can afford childcare quite easily and I put his name down on crèche waiting lists as soon as he was born. They just insisted on it (it's 6 days a month because I work a lot of weekends too and my husband minds him then). My mum often calls and asks if they can take him for a few hours on my day off too if they haven't had him for a while.

I feel lucky and don't take it for granted.

My mum was telling us the other day that when my dad was in the police we never had any money so for dinner most days we would have vegetable pie made with a bag of frozen veg from Bejams and a suet crust.

She would take in typing at home as we lived a few hours from extended family so she couldn’t work outside of the house and they couldn’t afford to pay rent on his wage.

What’s really sad is how many people clearly hold the grandparents to ransom, if they won’t provide free childcare they basically don’t get to see the grandchildren. Huffy remarks about how weekends are family time, people making it clear they aren’t willing to facilitate contact with grandparents unless it benefits themselves financially. Nasty, so nasty. So a lot of the time when people are saying grandparents should stand up for themselves and not be pushed into it, I suspect they’re very aware that they will be kept at arms distance from the grandchildren unless they play along with what is expected of them.

Even worse are the posters who come out and say that they won’t do anything for parents in their old age because they didn’t agree to free full time childcare. It’s quite chilling how cold some people can be on threads about grandparent childcare. Basically wanting pensioners to work for them to earn basic compassion and family support. Vile.

So even in 1971 the majority of women worked and that's without the cash in hand jobs.

Defo think there are some people who think grandparents should provide childcare. There are numerous threads in here about it.

However isn't it a very sad situation that we now have 2 parents working because the cost of living is so high, and they still need to rely on grandparents because childcare is so expensive! How have we come from 1 parent providing for the entire family, to 2 parents working to provide and still barely getting by / not getting by? It's wrong!!

I utterly loathe this ‘don’t have children is you can’t afford childcare or can’t care them’ attitude. Childcare along with the rising costs of everything is prohibitively expensive for a lot, so that support network is more important than ever. That being said, no one should be pressured into giving up work, doing more than they are able to provide free baby sitting.

but then it goes both ways doesn’t it, if grand parents don’t want to help, that’s ok and it’s their right but then I don’t think then they can expect or demand or pressure that they are cared for in and some one gives up their job to care for them in old age.

i have no support from either set or grandparents and it is more difficult, but I’d never coerce someone into doing something they simply don’t want to do. However I am finding with both sets of grandparents (who are all mobile and drivers) that there is also 0 willingness to be involved if it requires any effort from them, they’d never visited, attend birthday parties, days out etc there’s always an excuse yet they moan and expect they children to be ferried to them. Wonder if there is a connection

My mum did say recently that her generation is the first to juggle elderly parents and looking after grandchildren.
Although I didn't mind either way if they took my son, it's actually more of a faff to get him to their house rather than nursery but it does build their relationship. It's more my mum telling me I have my son in nursery too much but not offering to have him more. So just said to me to make me feel bad.

My parents used my grandparents a lot though. In fact I even lived with them for a year. But my parents would balk at that idea (not that I'd suggest it) but I think it shows they are always just "take, take, take" kind of people.

I've read some bollocks on here but this is peak bollocks.

You've obviously never heard of the influence of peers and society on a person's behaviour or even understand the concept of free will. With respect...you are deluded.

Doesn't mean they all had children

Yes I remember the desperation when there was overtime, the officers who would volunteer to work Christmas Day because they needed the money more than the time with their kids.

For some reason that all seems forgotten.

There was a grandmother at my dcs school who did all the school runs for her two gc and holiday childcare. She didn't seem to mind this too much but she was fuming when her daughter had another baby and instead of just doing the school run, she now had a baby/toddler to look after all day too. So incredibly selfish imo of the mother to have another child in that situation.

Doesn't mean they all have children now.

True

I work full time and will do so until I am in my late sixties. I will not be providing full-time childcare at 69 years plus.

She could say no