To have told my late teens that I won't be contributing

[itspurplestripes]

.. to their childcare arrangements , if and when they have kids. They were really surprised!
Lone parent here, working full time and intend to retire in about ten years. Ie I'll be relatively young.
It was a light conversation but they fully thought that I would be a part of their childcare set up in time.
I will f course be supportive and help
Out when needed and look forward to

Spending time with my grandkids but travel and renewing relationships and rest are certainly at the top of my list !
AIBU. Or is this the norm/ expectation now?

lol, no way would want my family doing my childcare! If you don't pay then you get no say, so trust me, your kids won't want you to do it when they're older anyway. I would have to be very desperate if I'm honest

I agree. Nobody can force you to help out your children and you should be absolutely free not to if you don't want to. I do want to help mine though, I don't think I could enjoy all those things you list if I knew my children were run ragged and skint with work and childcare. I would want to take a bit of help pressure off.

Do you also think adult children should be free to refuse to provide old age care for parents? I do. As I think grandparents can refuse to help children out. I know a poster earlier said their children wouldn't be getting any inheritance if that was their attitude. I think it was you? Apologies if it wasn't.

Another one who's ignoring the hordes of posters saying they'll happily do emergencies/babysitting weekends/sleepovers etc. Show me one poster who has said they won't help at all. Go on...

Anyway, as I said earlier, it's all hypothetical, there's a very good chance our kids won't have children.

No it wasn't me and yes I agree nobody should be fored to do anything they don't want to do

It was me that said that, Kendodd and with the way things are going in the economy you'd be foolish to rely on your oh-so-cosy plan that your children will take care of you; they may not be able to do that even if they would want to.

I personally do not want my children to take care of me but if I had a child who was so brattish as to say "Do this or I'm not doing that" then they wouldn't have those cards to play. I would wonder what the hell I'd given birth to and raised.

Do what you like, run your family the way you like, we all have different perspectives and family set-ups to comparison is a waste of time. Most importantly, no woman (yet again!) deserves opprobrium from other women for making different choices. We should stop doing that entirely.

The number of threads on MN where posters are stressed about their pensions, I think there could be a lot of children seeing their elderly parents skint and run ragged.

With work they can’t give up.

I have said upthread that no way would I want my children looking after me when I'm elderly. I've seen the stress this puts children under and no way would I do that to my kids so I don't know where you got this idea that that was my plan. Also, regarding inheritance, any inheritance, if there even is any, would be no strings attached. I'm not trying to save money for an inheritance for them, I plan to live well before I die. I am lucky enough have a substantial amount I can give each of them towards a house when they need it though so they don't need an inheritance anyway.

I really have no view of what it is that you would do, Kendodd. I don't know your circumstances and they are none of my business. I was talking in general terms about what I would do if this or that happened.

You mentioned that children should be free to refuse to care for parents. I don't disagree with that view but for the posters who keep putting strings on care. I've not ever seen a grandmother do that, i.e., if you don't care for me when I'm old/ill then I won't do your childcare. It's very evident the other way around though and it's that loose blackmailing to which I have an objection.

It’s probably important to have these conversations before the child is conceived as it allows them to think about how much they would need to save or only having enough money from their salary for nursery. That way they can make an informed decision.

It’s certainly better than you moaning about never having any help from parents/carers etc and it would have been nice if they could have looked after the children especially as they looked after your siblings children weekly. If I am fortunate enough to become a grandmother I will certainly be putting my money where my mouth is. Although while the retirement age keeps on rising, I’m not sure I’ll be retired to actually follow through on this.

Completely agree, the younger generation believe they’re entitled to free grandparent childcare with no regard that the grandparents might want to enjoy their retirement.

Not unreasonable at all, I have told my children the same. With the age gaps I have got I will have been a full time mum for 30 odd years by the time my youngest is 18 and looking forward to some freedom 😁

Perhaps they just assumed that given you struggled on your own, that you’d be more help to them.
My mum had 5 children, no help from either set of grandparents, never slept over anywhere as a kid & my parents never went out,.
she’s agreed to have each of our kids one day a week to keep our costs down… and we’ve all had big enough gaps that she only had 1 child a time & only child sat one day a week.. my sisters were both at school when I had my daughter and she was at school when my younger brother started. My sister tried nursery and my nephew hated it, never settled, so the grandparents helped & he was happier.

This is just disgusting. It is like a lot of women don't see feminism as important for older women, their job is only to put others first, always.

I was more annoyed with their DHs tbh, the friends were often too worn down to question the “Why can’t your mother help” narrative their partners were feeding them.

I can’t help wondering how you would feel if the boot was on the other foot.

Ie, if your teenagers announced that they’d been thinking about it and they’d decided that when you are old, they definitely won’t be looking after you in any way, because they will have other priorities. Regardless of your circumstances: state of decrepitude, state of finances, availability of social care, standard/cost of care homes…

Said in a light hearted way of course…but they want you to remember that for the rest of your life.

Not very nice, is it?

Yes depends on the family I suppose

I would hope that no parent expects their kids to look after them when they're old. That should never be the reason for having children. It should also not be the reason for providing childcare for grandchildren - people should give care because they want to, not because they feel obliged.

Wow! You've started something here OP 😁

Some of these replies are so far from what the post actually said I don't understand it. She made clear she wants to be involved with potential grandkids and will be there to help out whenever needed. She simply will not do actual childcare - specific set days and times week in week out. Completely understandable!

The comments calling her teens entitled are just reaching! Seriously a teenager implied whilst discussing her future life that her mother would watch her kids while she worked (very common set up) = entitled, bratty kids. I said that as a teen and my mum would laugh and say "yeah we'll see". Since growing up and having kids my mum has been a great help but I have never used her for set childcare. If grandparents can do so and choose to do so that's great!

I completely understand OP how this came up from a light-hearted conversation. I'm confused at people's confusion around this part!
I have many weird and wonderful conversations with my teens. It can be as simple as watching a movie that puts you onto a random topic and a conversation starts from there.

I think most people have had this conversation.

But here we go again ... Equating care of your children's children to care of parent by children in their older age... if you were so inclined....
Not t an interest to me but if you were going to have a transaction of care , surely it would be parents raising their kids, kids minding their parents in older ago, no?

@Prettyinpink03 I think your confusion , which I also originally felt , is down to the posters who took such umbrage at the light hearted conversations that some
Parents have from time to time with their teens/ young adults.
It simply doesn't happen in their homes , clearly .
They don't do lighthearted ...
That's my reading of it anyway !

I think people who have made different choices feel that they have to justify their position. See just about every post on Mumsnet where someone has said that they don't want to do something, and then everyone who DOES do it has waded in to tell them how wrong they are.

Vroomfondleswaistcoat That's very true. It bothers me when people take just parts of what they read so they can turn it into something else, just seems like a waste of energy.