To wonder about working grandparents?

[mantyzer]

It has always surprised me that so many people on here use grandparents for childcare. Don't they work? My parents and in-laws were still working full-time when our children were young. They could only have helped with childcare if we paid them so they could pay their own bills.

So those with grandparents providing childcare, are they early retired, never worked, or did they have you older so they are now retired?

I do understand the statistics around that but the circle of friends and I all hold a degree, we all hold a professional job and my mum holds a doctorate, my dad a masters. Also both In professional jobs. Maybe the area of the country skews it I don’t know.

My dad lives the other end of the country so don't use him for child care but he is very financially astute and semi retired from teaching in his 50s, taking on a part time job in a hotel for pin money. He's in his late 70s now and stopped working years ago and lives a very good life. My FiL died last year, he couldn't look after our daughter due to mobility issues but also took early retirement (was in the Royal Marines then prison service so a good pension) Both our mums died years ago but I moved away from my hometown after university so wouldn't have been able to use her for childcare even if she was still alive.

It’s not unusual in close knit small towns and communities. Most people I know here in North Wales have local grandparents, some work some don’t, most are in their 40s or 50s when they become grandparents. I live 5 miles away from my son an his family and I drive and so does he.

as for degree, I had my first at 21 after getting a degree. More and more people here are getting degrees after having children young and choosing to stay local. Not the same for everyone but it’s very common here.

My mum was 59 when my first DC was born, and she had retired early because she had cancer. All 3 other GPs were past retirement age although MIL was a SAHM/housewife from the age of 23 anyway.
My parents used to childcare once a week but IL lived too far for any regular childcare arrangements.

Depends entirely on circumstances I guess! My DH works away from home for weeks at a time but when he’s home he’s on leave and does the childcare. When he’s away I’m still working FT hours over 4 days. Luckily business is open 7 days so I work Thu-Sun.

My parents both work FT but come to mine and look after DS on the weekends that DH is away. My dad is also self employed and very kindly takes the Friday off on weeks DH is away and looks after DS. My sister works FT but does a Thursday childcare when DH is away. Works out usually that sister does 2 days/month, dad does 2 days alone each month and mum&dad do 4 days together each month.

Hugely grateful as it means we’ve managed to avoid childcare costs up until his funded hours kick in and it means when DH is home he gets loads of quality time with DS rather than him being at nursery while DH is sitting at home or us paying for a place and DS only being there some weeks.

A lot more grandparents are older now than was usual a generation ago - more women are having babies later in life. I was 67 when the first Gdc was born - dd was 38.

The downside is that older GPs, much as they love their Gdcs, will often find childcare too exhausting to undertake on anything like a full-time basis. And it can come as a bit of a shock to find that what you took in your stride with your own, in your 20s or 30s, is now just too much - because you’re getting old!😱

I worked compressed hours so that I could take an afternoon off to provide childcare which meant my daughter didn't have to pay so much for nursery. When the children were older I bought extra annual leave so that I could look after my grandchildren for 2 days of every half term, and we had them for a week in the summer holidays. We were both working full time.
I love my grandchildren to bits, but none of this was done so that we could spend more time with them, it was to help my daughter out. Quite frankly I found it exhausting and, of course, it's an extra cost to us!
There are grandparents who do it out of choice, but we aren't those. I think that anybody who EXPECTS help from the grandparents is extremely selfish. Any grandparent who doesn't actually want to do it but does it anyway is a saint!