If your DC’s GPs didn’t help with childcare…were you inclined to help with elderly care…?

[CautionConcealedEntrance]

Just that, really.

If your children’s Grandparents were unwilling to help with your DC, how do you feel about helping them in their dotage?

My own Parents made it absolutely clear that they had no intention or desire to even spend any time nor took any interest in my DC. Never sent presents, never remembered birthdays, on the few occasions they spoke it was always in an age inappropriate manner - using baby talk to the 6 year old e.g. As for my In-Laws, even though they were really quite elderly and unwell at times when my DC were little, they always took a huge interest in them, always making sure the books and toys they sent were age appropriate and looked after them when possible.
Now the in laws are extremely infirm and elderly, it has been an honour to be able to help them. My parents…? They get phone calls and very rare visits (they live in another country and are struggling over there). They are turning on the pathos, constantly complaining about feeling abandoned and always asking for help. I’ve not volunteered to help out, except for a couple of admin things. But that’s it.

Am I a monster for thinking like this?

Dilysthemilk · Today 23:54
I always smile to think of days out they used to take the children to, now the children are driving my MIL places!

That's so sweet!

Babysitting your grandchildren say, one evening a week, or taking them for a day out on Saturday, does not preclude you from enjoying your life. Normal people enjoy their grandchildren.

Conversely, most people do not enjoy driving their parents to doctor’s appointments, doing their shopping for them, or performing personal care for them. It’s almost like participating in family life has its ups and downs.

So really what you expect is some kind of babysitting service? Not genuine care and interest but an actual service? What if you're not close enough for regular babysitting or days out? Then what? Are you supposed to move?

What I'm asking is, whilst I'm young and healthy enough to enjoy life, why shouldn't I? Why is it my responsibility to care for my grandchildren? And if I don't, despite the quality of parenting I might have given my children, the sacrifices made (and they have been many) and the years of putting my needs and wants to one side, why do I not deserve some kind of support when aging and infirmity sets in? Why can I not be selfish and follow my dreams for a few years? Why don't I matter?

In your case, no OP don’t feel guilty. They didn’t parent you correctly in your childhood, so if it was me I wouldn’t help. And don’t agree with PPs saying just because GPs don’t do any childcare, that isn’t a reason not to care for their parents, OP didn’t mean that, she didn’t necessarily want childcare. She wanted her parents to just acknowledge and love her children, which they haven’t done. They are very selfish in my opinion OP

There's some very odd thinking on mumsnet that people shouldn't expect any help from grandparents or have grandparents interested in their grandchildren at all. Even if you can't offer proper babysitting, I find it strange and selfish for some grandparents who are able and willing to not show any interest in their grandchildren at all yet expect help and support back from their children back when they need it. Spending the odd day or time with your grandchildren doesn't stop you enjoying your life.

I work in elderly care and I agree with you OP. Parents bring up childen (or should be) because they depend on us and it shouldn't be done with expectations that childen owe us something in return or should be looking after us when we're older. But you get in what you put in. If my parents didn't show any interest in my children or offer support when they were able to, I don't think I'd be inclined to return the favour when they needed it.

I'm very fortunate though I have my own parents and fantastic in laws who relish in being grandparents and find that spending time with their grandchildren adds to their life than take away from it.

Partly for our family it's practical/geography, but when DC 1 had her first birthday MIL told me "the novelty (of grandchildren) had worn off" as she had 6 GC already.
SIL has always lived very locally to PIL and consequently they were very close to her DC and did lots of childcare and helped out with her DC even when they were in their 20s. Any childcare we had was quite sporadic simply because we were further away.
Although PIL much rather preferred, if they came to us, to do chores in the house or garden whether necessary or not than spend time with DC. And MIL told me she would bath them or take them our in the pushchair "but she didn't do playing"

In older age SIL has done more practically as she is closest (but I do feel that her and PIL have had mutual benefit if that makes sense)

Childcare and having a meaningful relationship with your DGC are 2 completely different things.

There should be no expectation on either side for regular care.

It’s about healthy emotional relationship and creating the bond with people. We create the bond by spending time with nearest and dearest. It’s investing your time and making emotional effort to be there.
If there’s no bond and no emotional connection then in a later years there’s no interest as there’s no healthy family relationship. It’s virtually a stranger.

„You reap what you sow” springs to mind. For some people it can look like tit for tat but if you put very little effort in building a meaningful relationship with your children/grandchildren you shouldn’t be surprised they are not interested in you in later years.

This is what I tried to say but has been put much more eloquently. My own grandmother lived far and was in ill health when I was younger. However while she didn't do any formal childcare she was still the most wonderful grandmother and I couldn't have asked for better and she loved and took great interest in us.

I was giving those specific examples because certain people are stubbornly persisting in stating that what people want from grandparents is full-time 9-5 childcare every day of the week or they're damned as terrible parents and grandparents.

I don't understand why it hasn't sunk in for some people that parenting their own children is an obligation that they took on for their own enjoyment. They decided to have children because they wanted the experience of being a parent. That's great, and it ties you into 18 years of obligations. This goes, of course, for your children and their kids, if they decide to have them. Grandparents have no obligations to their grandchildren. However when you're a member of a cohesive family who helps each other out and shares the load, you will want to help your children raise the next generation of their family. If you're not a member of a cohesive family who helps share the load, you don't get to reap the benefits of that, which would be your children sacrificing their enjoyment of life to help you, which, unlike caring for grandchildren, they are unlikely to find very fun. Each person in a family helps set the culture of that family, and if you as a granparent are detatched and unhelpful with your grandchildren and adult children, you are helping to create a culture of detatchement and disinclination to be helpful in your family that may come back to bite you in the bottom.

It's hilarious that the two subjects guaranteed to get grandparents riled up on MN are suggestions that they should try to be involved with their grandchildren, and people not wanting grandparents to be involved. Almost like they feel they have all the rights of a parent without the barest suggestion of responsibility.

I have to laugh at posters without any DC saying it's 18 years of responsibility. It's not any more. Have a look at the parents of adult children board. 30-year-olds are still at home, thanks to the CoL.

Horrid, horrid attitude
Did it not occur to you that they sent you to boarding school for a good education?
The level of selfishness on MN toward elderly parents who do not drop everything to look after their grandchildren is appalling

This is being said in response to those like yourself who are saying that you have no obligation/duty towards the children your children chose to have. This is of course true, in the same way you have no obligation/duty to your own children post-18. Anything you choose to do for them after that point is out of love, care, and fostering a great adult relationship with your children . . . much the same as building a positive relationship with your grandchildren.

The same can be said in reverse. You can get a perfectly to get a good education without being packed off to boarding at 6 years old. If my parents had done that and been absent for vast periods of my childhood, you can be absolute certain I wouldn't be helping them out.

Sorry @batt3nb3rg I am just reluctant to take parenting and grandparenting advice from people who have not even had DC yet. It's like all those people who say " Oh, I would never let my DC watch TV or eat junk or do this or that" before they have kids. When the kids come along, they have to eat their words, and they are happy if "everyone fed no one dead"!Really, these things are far less black and white than you think.

Except in OPs case where she is justified in going fully NC. Sending a toddler to foster care is abusive, unless a back story.

The level of selfishness displayed by elderly parents toward their middle-aged children who have just got done with the hardest years of raising their kids without help and don't want to drop everything to care for them is appaling. Don't they know that only their parents are entitled to have no family obligations post-50? What do you mean they would rather spend time fostering great relationships with their own grandchildren instead of caring for their parents who never bothered to engage in their family??? How could they be so selfish!!!

@batt3nb3rg
Please don't - you aren't funny

I may not have children, but I have an amazing grandmother who luckily did feel an obligation towards me, and cared for my brother and I by herself from when I was 11 years old. Unfortunately she has extremely nasty children who don't feel like her years of sacrifice to help them with their kids entitles her to support and kindness, but she does have two grandchildren who she sees or speaks to almost every day, and who she will be coming to live with if and when she needs extra support. I have had an excellent model of the way you care for your family in bad circumstances, and I will be applying that example in the hopefully more conventional in my own family in the future.

Ah. So caring for your grandchildren doesn't mean your children will appreciate your sacrifice. You then have to rely on your grandchildren to reap what you sow. You will forgive me if I prefer assisted living.

You are planning to have your own children and take in your grandmother at the same time @batt3nb3rg plus hold down a job? . Sounds a bit idealistic, if you don't mind me saying. But good luck with it.

I personally made the decision to marry a man who was happy for me to stay at home before we even started thinking about having children, which enables me to be of better service to my family and his, and will continue to do so when we have children and God willing, grandchildren in the future. I would recommend all women who are family- oriented to seek a husband who values the contributions of a homemaker to the culture of their family, it truly is an inter-generational blessing as I and my husband have observed with his mother.

Ah. OK. Everything you say now makes sense. I guess I am not very family oriented, I don't want to be of service to anyone any more, and I like working outside the home, though I have been an SAHM in the past and it drove me mad.

This. Its all about the relationship.

What rubbish. You don't need to be a homemaker to be family orientated. I come from a long line of woman who worked. All of us worked and all of us helped our families out and all of us have been valued by our husbands and extended families.

I certainly won't be doing any elderly care, and I don't even have children.

You're quite right. If you, as parents, raised your kids, looked after them, gave them a reasonable quality of life and nurtured them and enabled them to become good adults, then they will obviously be good enough adults to help you in your time of need. If, however, they tried their best but raised adults who judge their own parents on whether or not they babysat enough for their grandchildren, then perhaps they DID fail a little as parents.

And yes, both of mine died before the grandchildren came along, and the other GPs lived hundreds of miles away so never really had any GP support. We did, however, move hundreds of miles to help look after elderly FiL when he needed us, because, well, he needed us.

If you and your female relatives did any more than 50% of the childcare, home tasks and life admin for your family in the time you were not working, you were taken advatage of by said husbands. Considering that even in 2024 working women do more childcare than their male partners, it seems likely. It's not rubbish to not want to do the majority of the work of a full time homemaker while also having to earn a wage.