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?

Im the same. Id love grandkids, would love to live nearby, spend time with them etc but I dont want to be chained to being a reliable requirement.

My husband and I took early retirement at 55. We are now 58 and 61. We have 2 grandsons aged 22 months and 3 weeks. We have looked after eldest grandson since last April. He comes every Monday for 10 hours. His brother will start doing that once he is weaned. Eldest one goes to nursery Tues and Wed. His mum ( my DIL) is on mat leave until next January. I was a single parent for years after my first marriage ended. It was very hard as they were only 3 and 2 at the start. I was a Primary school teacher and always loved working with the youngest children. I am having an absolute ball looking after my grandchild. We go out and about. My mum visits every Monday afternoon. She has a lovely relationship with her great grandchild. It's not the same as being a parent. You have time to chat and to look at things and to people watch and read and play. My second husband and I couldn't have children of our own. He is a brilliant step dad to my children ( now 29 and 31) and is loving being a grandad. His grandson adores him. I appreciate that it isn't for everyone. My SIL is happy to see her grandchildren once every 6 months. That's fine. Both my sons live close by. It's lovely, in my opinion, to have a the chance to be involved but we do Mondays because it suits us. We can go away from Tuesday to the following Sunday. We were lucky to be able to retire early. I absolutely appreciate that ,if you can't do that until you are much older, you may not be able to manage the physical effort of being in sole charge of small children. As long as everyone knows where they stand then they can't have any complaints.

I’d be disappointed in my children simply assuming I would be doing it if I were you. Your children are very entitled, why is that? Why would they assume this at all, especially at such a young age? I would question my parenting if my children thought like this about me and tell them to stop with the entitled bratty behaviour.

I’d happily never engage with a toddler ever again, so it’s a no from me! I’d rather pay the nursery fees…
Teenagers however, I find great company so I’ll do the party pick-ups when they’re older!

PP is right about generational gaps - some of us wont be grandparents till we’re 80 or older if its still the done thing to wait till you’re older.

The entitlement of posts like this just absolutely baffle me. How dare you expect the grandparents to provide childcare. Is it not enough for them to be involved but not providing 'childcare'? To actually admit that your 'friends' who weren't given free childcare, don't make much effort "in return". In return? Bloody hell.

Ridiculous comment. So anyone who doesn’t do childcare for their grandkids don’t see them?

I'm intrigued, what do you mean by your 'late' teens? To me it reads like they've died!

Oh I've just twigged- they are in their late teens! If I could find the face-palm emoji, I'd be posting that.

@AngelinaFibres I suspect you are some of the last early retirees and you are in a couple which also makes it easier financially and emotionally. I reckon only those who have some level of defined benefit pension or cashed out of one/in a couple are the only people that will be able to afford early retirement. I've never been offered defined benefit/final salary in any of my jobs and I am masters educated in jobs with career paths and 50, there is a definite pension gap for those before auto enrolment came it.

All my DC are well aware (and have been for a long time) that my child rearing days are over and I won't be doing free childcare for grandkids! I don't have any DGC yet, but my DC range from 18 - 32 and are well aware that I have spent the last 30 odd years 'doing my bit'. Still have the last teenager living at home, and whilst that obviously doesn't involve me in 'childcare' there is still quite a lot of financial helping out I do, plus a bit of help in organising stuff.

I am looking forward to having to consider no one but myself for once. (Apart from possibly DH) I have long Covid now and my health is pretty poor. I've had to give up work - but frankly even if I hadn't I am too knackered to look after toddlers all day. And I found my own pretty boring at that age, if I'm honest. I don't want to start again.

Absolutely a conversation worth having. My teenager would be wondering why we are having it though, given she has at least 15 years to go before having a child.

None of mine have kids yet but I'm 66 and not the fittest so there is no way I could physically do it and honestly I wouldn't want to be that tied. Doesn't mean I don't love my kids.
I have a lovely friend in her early sixties and she works three days a work and has two adult kids both with health conditions and four grandchildren. She spends every day including her working days running round after them, school runs, shopping, appointments everything. They are both married so do have others to support them. I have noticed how tired she is getting and making excuses to get out of stuff, but I don't think she's realised herself yet. They are all incredibly close (I would even say enmeshed) but it's too much for her.

Yes, I've seen this.

I'm so confused with this thread. Spending time with grandchildren = childcare?My grandparents never provided childcare. We visited them, they visited us. We would spend occasional Saturday nights with them. We were so close to them and miss them dearly.

I'm 65 and my dcs are late 20s. No gc on the horizon for at least 3 years. I live 300 miles away from them so will not be available.
Dh has 3 gc under 8 who live about 30 mins away...we don't do childcare. We both still work and have very busy lives.

You are correct . My husband was also married to a police officer who died in service. He was able to pay off his mortgage because of her death in service benefits......but he was left widowed at 38. We are lucky now and we appreciate every minute of it but it wasn't achieved without awful things on both sides in our younger years. I appreciate that others aren't in that position. I wouldn't have been able to retire until 67 if I hadn't remarried.

We get zero help including babysitting. if my 3 have kids i will do whatever it takes to help i won't see them struggle

I'm the opposite and my DC know I'm fully on board with providing childcare where I can. I'm fully supportive of their careers and will help if I am able to.

What a bizarre and overtly angry response to the thread

My dc and I talk about all sorts of things.
If we happen to be at a wedding, or talking about a wedding (even seeing one on TV or a film), it would be quite normal to say "I can't understand why anyone does X for their wedding". Same with childcare. It might be that friends are doing one thing (or, again, something they are watching, or I might mention someone at work who is retiring early to then become childcare for their dgc), so then, you talk about it.
We've talked about weddings / childcare / funeral arrangements / Dignity in Dying / looking after / not looking after any pets they might choose to have too, in our house. It's not like a pre-planned 'We must have a talk'. It is just discussing life, arrangements other people have, and chatting through as normal conversation.

The relationship between grandparent and grandchild is invaluable and I look forward to helping bring up my grandchildren when they come. The cost of childcare these days is ridiculous. A labour government helped me immensely when they were small so nursery fees were much much lower in 90s. Yes, I will travel and have my own time, but also hope to help them out a few days a week.

I will babysit anytime. I will visit regularly. I will take children overnight at weekends. I would even take them one day a week to save on childcare costs but I will NOT do more childcare than that. I do not want to be tied down every day of my life in my older years getting up every morning at cock crow to mind children all day long until evening. I don’t want to be tied to nursery drop offs and pick ups every single day. Not a chance. I think if you dump your kids 5 days a week on your parents and kid yourself that “they love doing it” you are an absolute disgrace.

I agree with you and it's best to get it out there now . I'll be the same . I currently have my mum and ds who has SN and if my dd has children I'll be way too done to be free childcare . I've told her too!

I do think five days a week is an extraordinary imposition - thinking about it, though, I've never actually encountered anyone with this arrangement in real life.

YANBU to tell them this.

My mum helps me a lot with childcare and I hope to be able to help my dcs if they choose to have kids. However it entirely depends on circumstances at the time. By the time I had my first dc my mum was self employed and was winding down anyway. Obviously I don't know what age my dcs will have their own kids but say ds1 has a child when he's 30, I'll only be 58 by then and still working full time.

Plus mum and I still live close together, obvs dcs may choose to move away

I know at least 4 sets of grandparents who do this. They have aged overnight but their kids have put pressure on them and told them they cannot afford childcare or they cannot work. I would still say no.