To be sad about grandparents not helping childcare

[ChickenRacer]

Ive heard so many stories about grandparents not wanting to help/be particularly involved with their grandchildren.I understand it’s not all grandparents, but their is a big proportion who just don’t help and support their children when they have small children.

Explanations for this often seem to be that the grandparents did their time parenting and now it’s their time to enjoy life. Which I do understand.

But to me though this seems so sad.

They say it takes a village to raise children - but grandparents are a huge part of many peoples village, so if they aren’t part of the village that’s less support for parents of young children.

This might upset some people, but I also wonder those grandparents that do not feel they want to help with the care of their grandchildren- do they still expect their adult children to care for them in their old age when they themselves need care? Will they pay their children to care for them, as some expect to be paid for caring for their grandchildren?

Please don’t be all upset by this, they are genuine questions.

I have 3 children and for various reasons have ZERO help from grandparents. But I very much hope if I am lucky enough to have grandchildren that I will be able to help my children with them in the best way for them. And I wouldn’t want them to have to care for me in my old age. 🤷‍♀️

No emotionally healthy, loving person who actually likes and loves their family would want to watch their children struggle to cope with no break ever and turn down the opportunity to be spending time with their grandchildren for the occasional overnight stay or having them over for lunch or taking them for a day out or whatever is within their capabilities. Unless you are extremely disabled, a refusal to ever spend time with your own grandchildren/ nieces/ nephews etc and view it as an imposition is frankly weird and show you have a very messed up sense of what "family" means. It's not normal. No matter how indignantly these totally self-absorbed people want to argue it is. Mist of us would never dream of behaving like this, hence the regular threads on this topic because ultimately it is only very, very emotionally stunted or self-centred people who behave like this, unless they are extremely ancient or unwell so it's not possible, which is of course different.

It depends if you mean childcare so you can work or a couple of hours so you can have a break. If it's actual childcare you mean then life has changed so much now that many grandparents can't facilitate it. People work longer now also whereas years ago many grandmothers weren't working and helped but they now have full time jobs. Many people are having children later in life so their own parents are often a bit too old to help.

I agree. My family pressured me to move back to my home town from London and I did.

The first month I moved in, no-one visited/replied to my texts for a house warming party/ meet up., I had 2 wisdom teeth removed and was in absolute agony with an infection and not once did my mum call round, she actually said on the phone "stop whining the kids will be tense" (as my child was having a melt down and I just needed painkillers I was driving to pharmacist for)

She looks after my brothers and sisters kids when they ask but because she moans so much about it she knows I'll never ask for a break.
I won't ask, but I just would love her to offer "hey shall I take dd4 out while you deal with the toddler"

When I did finally ask last week if she would mind toddler while I had a hospital appointment she grunted and said can't dh do it. (He works) and tell him to take a day off.

But it's totally different for my brother and SIL.

Family can be shit. She minds my sisters kids while she's at work because her husband needs a hair cut while I'm here with grey roots because I have no one to help!

Because I'm always here to help no matter what I get taken advantage of so I can't wait to eventually move back to London in a few years and when they wonder why I left! I'll tell them exactly why!

It’s nice when GP’s are involved but completely unreasonable to expect or feel entitled to free childcare.

A lot of GP’s have their retirement, that they worked their whole lives for, swallowed up by their adult kids who want to use them to save on nursery fees.

I knew a neighbour once who M-F her son would drop off his ever increasing brood at her house for the full day. She’d just retired and seemed that he and his partner were more than happy to use her as free childcare.

They then went and got themselves a little dog too and dropped that off with the kids each day. That’s how some people take the piss out of their parents.

I do think a lot of the time people see other GP’s being taken advantage of and know they don’t want to even chance getting into that situation.

You chose to have your kids. You have to sort childcare and not rely on some mythical village to bend to your will.

I've not provided much in the way of childcare for GC because lm working. If I wasn't working, I still wouldn't commit to regular times. I do help out and do 'socialise' with my children and GC. I don't expect anymore help from them as I give though I'd say I probably give a bit more than I take. I don't expect them to 'care' for me in my old age but lm pretty sure they'll help me out. I certainly wouldn't be expecting them to call in a couple of times a week or consider me when planning holidays etc.

Well I've been a huge part of my dgs life for the last 8 years as they lived with us for the first year then I've done childcare and now school pick ups. We have a regular sleepover. I do find though that now we have this routine I am tied down to it. But I wouldn't change anything. He's a massive part of our family life and although I still have one at home myself we just all get on with it. My dd needs help with childcare now she's full time and still struggling with cost of living. This is dgs second home and he will always have his own bedroom here. In another life though things would have been different and my dd would have had a supportive partner and dgs would have his dad around. Due early issues he's not allowed to see dgs unless he agrees to supervision and he won't do that. So really I guess that's why we have been a huge part of dgs life. My in laws are in their 70s and we hardly see them but they would always be willing to have the kids over night or for the day. It's just trying to catch them with their hectic schedule of living life to the full in their retirement and good for them xx

I bet when you say grandparents, OP, you really mean grandmothers, don't you? Because it's well known that adult women should think nothing of devoting their life to small children - and possibly to elderly parents - and never consider having an effing life of their own. It's pure misogyny.

Women used to have children when they were 16 to 18 (the ideal biological age for having children), so grandparents would be in their late 30s, maybe not even 40. I.e. they would still have plenty of energy.

These days, a parent might have had a child at 35, and their child might have had a child of their own at 40, making them mid-70s when the grandbabies are little.

Society has evolved, so it's socially acceptable to have children later in life, but the consequence is that more and more children have increasing needs as pregnancies are more complicated. (Apparently, a pregnant woman in her 30s is having a 'geriatic' pregnancy!)

Whilst I agree society makes a case for women waiting until they've completed their education and established a career, the inconvenient truth is biology can't be overridden. If you want to delay having a child to 20 or so years after the biological sweet spot, you can't then get uppity about your parents being 20 or 30 years older too.

We all want to see our parents as fit and healthy and living forever, but the truth is, we're not their age. We only see what they want us to see, and even when we're adults, they're often still protecting us. Do you really your 60-something or 70-year-old something parent is going to tell you about how much older and wearier they feel compared to when they were in their 40s?

FFS, I'm only in my 30s, and I can feel the difference from when I was in my 20s. With each decade, we get closer to the grave.

Give your parents a break. When you get to their age, you'll realise how much of an ask you were making.

I think also equating childcare with gps being interested is not healthy. The childcare isn’t for your kids it’s for you.

We’ve never had childcare it’s not easy but thats also why we have one child. We had the number of kids we can manage, financially and emotionally (we are both introverts who seem to have made an extrovert). I wouldn’t expect DD’s elderly gps to babysit here. I’m knackered and I’m significantly younger than them.

I imagine there are plenty of people with perfectly lovely relationships with their gps who have never actually been left in their care. Dd has a lovely relationship with one set of gps conducted pretty much entirely over facetime. They show an interest in what she likes and what she’s doing and she’s happy to talk to them regularly.

The regular topics on this thread are not about the extreme situation you describe though.
The vast majority involve people being 'sad' not because GPs don't want to see their GC, but because they don't want to sacrifice large chunks of their own lives to provide free childcare to the level their own children require of them.
In the last week we've had people 'sad' that an OP was paying her mum £20 a week to provide childcare. Because its so so sad if the grandma doesn't realise she's the lucky one in being permitted to have the children!
Its interesting to me that while most parents would be in agreement that looking after children is very hard work, that can be tedious, relentless and exhausting (hence their own need for help), somehow when this same work is done by someone a generation older, it transforms itself into pure pleasure.
Oh and can we at least have a little honesty when we say 'grandparents' in these discussions? Because that's not what we mean really, is it? I have not seen a single thread with am OP complaining that their father isn't offering them a childcare service. Its always women. Women who've already done it once, being painted as unnatural, unloving, bad mothers, cold, unfeeling because they don't want to do it all again in their middle to old age.

Lol. I am disabled, in huge pain every day, much more ill than my parents. And I'm a lone parent. My children's grandparents have still done fuck all, ever, with them. Not babysat while they are in bed, not taken them out for the day, never had them to stay without me there. All these excuses. Some people are just utterly selfish and care for nobody but themselves.

@imnotsadyouresad I agree with this. Expecting to burden elderly grandparents with young children on a regular basis isn't on. I'm likely to be 70s/80s if I have grandchildren. Who knows what my health will be like? At the same time I wouldn't expect them to look after me in old age. I'll like to take an active role in any grandchildren's life but not as a free childminder. I don't expect it from my parents.

I’m sorry for your situation and it’s genuinely sad but if you were disabled prior to having children that should have factored into your decision to have children, should it not?

Your parents aren’t selfish for not wanting to cover for you for a decision that you made. That might be harsh but it’s the truth. It’d be nice if they offered no doubt but they’re not obligated to.

This is true. I'm a 'parent' GP, as in DCG practically lives here. I do the drudge stuff, the eat your veg and tidy your toys stuff. I get told 'I don't like you nanny' when I say its pyjama time but am the lap of choice for the pre bedtime cuddle.
Nanna Paternal on the other hand, who they see 4 times a year, is all fun, like a child herself with them. They get 100% of her when they're with her, never tired or distracted, and they adore her.
Two very different ways of being a GP, each bringing something different to DGCs life. Both loving and both of us loved.

You are likely the one she will speak most fondly of as an adult though.

I kind of agree with you OP. I have friends whose parents look after their grandkids a lot and are so close to them and it makes their lives so much easier and allow them to continue working. We don't have any grandparents help and it is fine but then they complain that my DD doesn't want to hang out with them or are not close to them when they rarely see her or play with her!!

Not this old thing again.
I signed up to bring up my child. Didn't sign up to bring up her children. As a parent, you need to be prepared for all possibilities and emergencies. It can be very hard but asking your parents should be something that's an emergency, not an obligation. I got no help from DM - she lives in another country and had no family around. It taught me to be self-sufficient and be able to sort out all sorts of emergencies.
DM deserves her child-free time now, she did a good job, now she can have her hobbies and freedom to choose what she does with her own time.

Its a few things. Hard when they dont show much interest in gc and wonder why theres not much of a bond in later years. I dont think its too big an ask maybe 2 nights babysitting a year lol. But I agree set days childminding is a big ask.

I think if you expect to ask for help from your children when you are older- if you have done nothing for your grandchildren (for no good reason)- then you are truly taking the piss.

I also think if parents received help with their own children then don’t pay it forward then that’s pretty gross.

I am obviously excluding anyone who NEEDS to work to financially survive or is physically unable.

The people around me- the grandparents either seem to do far too much or nothing at all. There seems to be little healthy inbetween.

You're right Mary46.
There's a big difference between not showing any interest in grandchildren and not signing up to provide year round childcare.

It's hardly surprising relationships are more distant where there's limited effort. Grandparents can be engaged and loving grandparents without having to provide childcare.

My mum always said you don't have children with the expectation that they'll take care of you in old age. My dad's mum took the opposite view; she had 11 children, as it was the done thing back then and to ensure you 'had someone to look after you in old age'. At the end of my gran's life, my Mum was the person who visited most regularly, despite this lady being fairly nasty to my mum for being a divorcee before she met my dad.

When we had our DC all 4 grandparents were still working. Once MIL retired we would ask her to help cover sick days, help when DS broke his leg and couldn’t go to school etc, but never regular hours. They saw days with her as a treat then. They could also spend the odd night with my parents.

I now have a 5 year old GS and would love to be able to look after him, but I also still work full time and cannot retire for another few years. They also live too far away to visit without stayimg over! We do however travel up to babysit so they can go away for the odd night or weekend, and I have taken leave to help in a half term etc.

Yes lola works both ways. Then you get told on here you petty about it! We dont bring my mam on breaks as I do feel we just ploughed on over the years 0 help. Thats how I feel about it

I also think if parents received help with their own children then don’t pay it forward then that’s pretty gross.

See, I can't agree with this.

Nobody should be obligated to provide any help - the fact that they happen to have received help themselves 30/40 years ago is totally irrelevant IMO.

I’m sorry for your situation and it’s genuinely sad but if you were disabled prior to having children that should have factored into your decision to have children, should it not?

I wasn't.

Your parents aren’t selfish for not wanting to cover for you for a decision that you made. That might be harsh but it’s the truth. It’d be nice if they offered no doubt but they’re not obligated to.

This is exactly the problem. Viewing children in the family as solely the parents' responsibility and nothing to do with anyone else, and that spending time with them is some kind of imposition or inconvenience. Most cultures are not like that. It's very unhealthy and unpleasant. To describe the idea that someone might be expected to very ocassionally, at their own convenience, spend a few hours with their own nieces/ nephews/ grandchildren as an "obligation" is really messed up. It's the whole point of family.