🤣🤣🤣🤦♀️🤯
Op, it’s one thing parenting when you are young, they’re your kids and you have to look after them
its entirely another thing for a “retired” grandparent. People retire for a reason.
- Mostly it’s because they’re feeling knackered and worn out from working , (mentally if not physically),
- a significant majority of everyone over 50 has an increasing list of physical issues , by age 60-65, 52% will have at least one long term health condition (ONS Data).
- some who have retired healthy but early, and can afford to do so, are able to afford to do so becuase they have done pretty demanding jobs that have meant their work life balance has been shot to pieces for years. They retire to actually enjoy life while they are still healthy and able to. They know by 65 plus they will start to see health issues probably and want to make up for lost time
- people who retire do not want to work anymore. That includes working as a childminder on a regular basis. A lot would infinitely prefer to continue in their old job earning a decent wage, getting holidays they can decide when to take, and paying into a pension, than slogging away unpaid doing a job , with holidays you have to continually negotiate with advance notice, a lack of flexibility and work that’s way harder 🤦♀️
all of these reasons are not conducive with child rearing (“minding”🙄🤣). You need energy, physical fitness and flexibility (to get on floor etc) and a huge amount of patience . When you have just retired and are looking forward to “me time” for the first time in your life having worked so hard for it, the last thing a lot of people want is being volunteered for childcare on a regular basis .
contrary to what you may thing OP, childcare has always been expensive and what you’re describing is not new. I had 2 children in 1990s. I worked part time and husband full time. ALL my wage, and I did a fairly high level professional job that was higher paid than average full time salary, all of it went on those 3 days of childcare. There were no subsidies or government support even for over 3s or 4s. Ok, towards the end they introduce child care vouchers that gave you some tax off, in registered nurseries that was it. And there weren’t even nurseries readily available outside of main towns. You paid the full costs until your child went to school. And then a lot of schools didn’t have after school clubs or breakfast clubs so you needed a childminder for that too. My parents lived too far away to even ask, but I knew my dad would be useless and my mum had health condition that she retired at 55 from. I would never have asked them other than emergency even if they lived up the road.
the pre school years, imho, are the most expensive and difficult to manage financially. Wages haven’t matured in careers, often there maternity leave and part time periods. We , like most people I knew, went into debt at times. BUT: once kids are past that age things gradually get better. Generations of parents have just had to suck this up and deal with it. Working mothers existed before the 1950s ideal of housewife SAHM, and they always had to juggle and often pay informally for childcare. mothers were younger then and grandmothers were working themselves. No, women didn’t have great rewarding careers, they slogged away at the few jobs that working mums were still “allowed” to do such as nursing, teaching, cleaning, factory work , shift work etc.
If my kids have kids, the chances are I will be living too far away anyway. But I will offer “emergency” care especially as kids get to early years school. But there is absolutely no way , hell will freeze over, that I’d do it on a regular basis. I’m am not particularly interested in babies, love kids when they get to toddler age though. But I don’t love toddlers enough to put myself forwards to a hard labour regime of 7:30am to 6pm wrap around care 2-3 days per week, so parents can afford a holiday or a new car. Or even a mortgage on their home- I’d rather give some money towards helping them out if really needed.
I am not morally lacking. I am just not that into your baby. Been there, seen it, done it. Love my kids but no way would I do it again and I don’t really know how I did do it at the time. If you as parent, be to point of a baby sat on your knee for you to discover that you can’t afford, or haven’t sorted logisitcs of childcare out, then more fool you.
There are some very maternal or paternal grandparents who will agree to this arrangements, others that will offer and be delighted. We are all different. It doesn’t make some of us morally lacking or others intrinsically moral - it just makes us all different . Others parents support their adult children in different ways than providing the grunge of childcare day in day out, week after week, year after year.
when you are 60 you can look back on your post and have a good embarrassed laugh at your entitlement.