To think the role of grandparents has changed in a generation?

[lifeonthelane]

I was listening to a podcast the other day which was discussing how we are one of the only species to live for decades past breeding age, and the theory was that we have evolved this way due to the way we support our children to raise their children (which other species don't do).

It got me thinking... are we losing this help due to the way society has changed? People having children older, or people working until they are older, therefore grandparents being too old or unavailable to help in the way they have with previous generations?

I've noticed a shift in how involved my own grandparents were in my upbringing compared to my children's grandparents; my (not local) grandparents would regularly have me for up to a week from around age 2 to give my parents a break (and me a treat!), and my husband tells me that he would stay with (local) grandparents most weekends for the same reasons. In contrast, my husband and I haven't had a child free night away together since becoming parents (our eldest is 7) because our own parents can't/don't do overnights.

Both sets of our parents have wonderful relationships with us and our children - they are present, loving and involved, and do babysit a few times a year during the daytime/evening so we can have a break. This is in no way a grandparent-bashing post and we feel very lucky with the support network we do have.

I'm just intrigued if others have observed a similar shift and have noticed a difference in grandparents' roles a generation apart?

Also when my GP were in their late 60s, they had almost teen - adult GC.

when I’m in my late 60’s my DC will just be adults.

you absolutely can’t compare the two.

Well not so sure. My parents moved a country away from their parents, but even with the kids that stayed they didn’t play any active role with their grandkids. Their own grandparents had minimal role in their lives too.
My parents had their kids in their 30s, I had mine in my 40s so yes a bit on the older side. But I know plenty of younger parents whose own parents pay an active role in their GK’s lives, having them for weekends etc. I dint think there has been a huge change, there were always people who played an active role, and those that didn’t.

I believe Orca whales get to be grannies too - this is to retain and share experience and knowledge, such as best routes/places to go or what to do in certain circumstances, but ultimately all this helps grandkids' chances of survival - not looking after them directly but looking out for them and their pod. It stuck with me after reading this, as I felt it showed how grannies are actually a valuable resource in nature which is a nice thought.
I'm not sure if this is an original reason for human grannies - sharing knowledge - but seems not unreasonable. Of course, we have a human spin on it and I think grandma often picked up the slack to the point of taking their kids' illegitimate children as their own. Society changes though - my Nan didn't work, and her life revolved around her home and small family so she had free time to see me and help out. When I knew I was going to be a Nan I still had 20 years of full time work and more to do generally and felt I couldn't be a proper Nan like mine - but times move on.
Overall Grans' collective wisdom, work and love probably still make the world a bit better for the younger generation- like the Orca.

I'm 60, I don't remember my parents ever even considering having time away without us. My Dad occasionally went away for work. I didn't have grandparents who lived nearby. From about 7 upwards I would stay with my auntie and cousins for a few days in the school hols.

My mum (widowed with 2 children, 4 & 8) got very little help from either sets of grandparents. This was late 60s/70s. Not because they didn't want to, but there was a bit of physical distance and also both my mum and dad each had 5 siblings, so there were a lot of grandchildren! They couldn't possibly have helped everyone. My children had a good bit of grandparent involvement, but not "childcare" as such, which was fine, just logistic issues really. I'm not a grandparent (yet) but hope to offer what help works for us all when the time comes. Still working full time at the mo, but that should change in the next 4/5 years

One grandfather lived abroad. I saw him 4 or 5 times that I can recall.
One grandfather was autistic and became a recluse when I was very young. He also lived two hundred miles away. I saw him three or four times.
One of my grandmothers died when I was two.
My other grandmother I didn't meet until I was 30 because my mum fell out with her and was none contact.

So the idea that change on this is new is bollocks.

If I look into my family history there's plenty of cases where the kids fuck off for a new life abroad and then never see their parents again. Or move to a completely different part of the country to find work.

Example: I have Irish family and when one of my great great grandmothers died when the kids where in their teens/early twenties they all left. One went to Canada. Three went to California. One went to Seattle. Three stayed in Ireland (but only one married and had children and she was the one who didn't remain with her father). And then my great grandmother went to America, the Belgium, then France before ending up in the UK when war broke out in 1914.

None of them had family support raising grandkids!

When I was a child one set of grandparents were deceased and the others lived 400 miles away. We saw them a few times a year, usually for a week or two at a time.
My DC had only one grandparent who was healthy and geographically close enough to see them monthly. We saw the grandparents who lived overseas once a year.
I look after two of my DGC every week, having moved after retirement to live closer. Other grandchild is 6.5 hours away. All the other grandparents are also a couple of hours away but visit and do overnights when needed.

Among my family and friends involvement with grandchildren seems to be largely down to geography. Most of us are providing childcare very regularly where possible.

When I was little my grandparents watched me all the time for my mum to work. I also frequently had sleepovers with grandparents.

As an adult, I live 5 minutes from my mum and 20 mins from my dad. My mum never babysits and sees my kids maybe 3/4 times a year- usually for bigger things like Christmas . My dad hasn’t even met my youngest (who is 2). We have no contact with DH’s family. My parents are in elderly- both are in their 50’s and in good health.

Tonight my husband took my son to a&e with a suspected UTI and it now looks like he might need emergency surgery. It’s not even occurred to my mum to come and sit here with my (sleeping) other kids to let me go over and sit with my son. She simply asked me to text her in the morning to let her know how the night goes.

I think it’s interesting as my mum relied so heavily on family support but it’s non existent for us.

I think it's down to the individual families. My grandparents never had us for an over night or even a few hours during the day. One of our parents was always there. My own partners were more involved, they'd take mine for sleepovers regularly, took them for days out, would always have them if we wanted a weekend away. Now I'm a grandma, I have my grand daughter 4 days a week so her mam can work. She's 18 months and I love every minute of having her, even though it's tiring by the end of the week.

YABU.

This is completely different family to family.
Your experience is nothing like mine.
I never, ever stayed with either of my Grandparents except when we did so as a whole family.
I'd say it seems much more common for Grandparents to have their dgc overnight now than at any stage in the past.

I heard that 1 in 7 kids aren't in touch with grandparents, sometimes because family breakdown (going no contact is a relatively new thing) and others are still actively travelling in retirement/don't want to be tied into commitments at home with grandkids.

My mum is no longer with us, so I guess that's part of the stats too. My dad seemingly cba to keep up with his grandkid, despite having email/phone/contact details. He has always been rubbish at keeping up with me too, so history repeats.

My grandparents (both sets) lived a long distance away so we only visited in school holidays. I stayed with my beloved Gran for a week as a teenager and loved it.
My own Mum only helped out twice, but again lived a long distance away.

I'm now a Granny and I look after my DGS several days a week and dropped to part time to do so. He starts school in September and I will do drop offs and pick ups and start again looking after my new DGD when my DD goes back to work. It's a joy to do so. His Nursery is round the corner from my house so on the days I work he still trots round with DD and is at my house when I get home :)

I had my kids in my 20s and DD is 31 so I'm young enough to cope with a 4 year old at 6am 😁 We've done toddler groups, soft play, all the usual stuff and have met so many other grandparents doing exactly the same... Certainly where I live Granny care is very much alive and kicking!

I agree with being older so the grandparents are too old which is the case in my family as they'd love to look after their grandchildren. But I also think there are lots of people who weren't even interested much in their own kids (I had many friends with parents like this) so it's not surprising they don't want much to do with their grandchildren either. I also think this varies by culture as many cultures are more people orientated, whereas some are much more insular.

My grandparents on both sides had very little involvement when we were children, we'd visit weekly, our parents done the parenting.

My own parents were very involved with all the grandchildren, helping me and my siblings.

Ime grandparents are more involved these days.

I grew up in the eighties. My mum (and all my friends mums) were sahps they would help each other out if one mum wanted to go to town or had an appointment another mum would have the kids. They also took turns in having kids round to play. My grandparents were all aged around 55-70 and all retired/never worked so they would help out with jobs in house/babysit. One set I would stay with for a couple weeks every summer hols.
when I had my eldest, grandparents were early ffties and all still working (my mum got a job when I was 12) they would do occasionally babysitting. By time I had youngest , three of them had retired one helped a bit (odd half day) but two had health issues so were more limited.

I think over the past thirty years we have lost communities due to services changing, more two income households, people working longer, children in childcare, more migration. Social media has changed how we communicate with each other and lockdown made people far less social. I don’t think the changes have been for the better.

I didn’t live near my grandparents so they had no involvement with looking after me (I’m late 40’s so grew up in the 80’s). They were lovely grandparents though, we visited etc. But no practical help.

I had DD late (41) and my parents are also not involved with looking after DD, partly geography but also because of age/health. If I moved back to them I still couldn’t get them involved (much as they would like to).

So for me there’s been no difference really.

My grandparents, born 1890s, did not look after me. My parents did do some childcare for my niece and nephew in their early 60s.
I will not have gc but dh as 3...we don't do childcare. ( late 60s)

I wonder if the shift has been that GP now help during the day so that both parents can work, whereas years ago when women worked part time or were SAHM GP weren’t “needed” so staying over at weekends was seen more as a treat than a chore IYSWIM?

When both parents are working they understandably want to spend weekends as family time.

also as PPs said, often GP are now still working themselves in the week so can’t help out!

My grandparents didn't ever look after me despite my dm being very young when she had me, she was just left to it. By the time I had kids my dm still had caring responsibilities for her younger children from a second marriage. We don't live near either set of gp's either so they can't really provide any support.

There are differences generationally too. My mother and grandmother were 23 when they had a child. I was 35. My grandmother was only about 47 when I was born, mother was about 59 when DS was born. I expect to be knocking 70 when I have grandchildren.

It's also cultural. Two of my neighbour households are Indian. In one house the mum and dad host his parents for six months of the year and the mum (my age) does all the domestic stuff and has not worked for 30 years. Their daughter, who is professionally qualified and married, now has a child. The child arrives at 7.30 every morning. The son, who is also married to a professional woman has similar help from his wife's family. I'm not sure if this younger generation of professionally qualified women will be in a position or willing to give up clinical careers to provide their own parents and grandchildren similar care whether it's culturally expected or not.

In the other house, resources were pooled and the mid 40s couple, with teenage children, have her mother and sister living with them. The mother and sister do the childcare.

The grandmas in each case are my age. Whilst I still work, I honestly don't think I'd manage to chase a two year old from 7.30am until 6.30pm. It exhausted me in my late 30s.

If I'd lived with my mother or been that reliant on her, one of us would have ended up in Holloway. But despite that tongue in cheek comment, DH and I achieved what we achieved and managed without help.

I don't think this has only just happened.

It started when large numbers of people left their home villages to work - so the industrial revolution. Far fewer people live near their grandparents.

I'm in my 60s and never met my grandparents. My DS never met his. I had my DS at 45, so he'll have to become a dad fairly young for me to be much use to his children. For us, it's nothing new.

My grandparents on my mother's side were very supportive but more in terms of helping my mum rather than doing care for us so grandma cooked, cleaned and ironed at ours and grandad helped with the garden. They played card games with us and read to us but care was always done by my mother. On my father's side grandma treated us to new clothes and toys and gave us pocket money but no real involvement outside that.
I'm now a Granny, I did childcare for Grandson from as soon as dd's maternity leave ended. He's in school now but I cover holidays, inset days and illness, I'm default childcare I suppose. I also iron his uniform every week,feed him and dd a couple of times a week and do whatever is needed to support dd.
I would have loved to have been the Granny who was visited and had fun with (although dgs would say I am that as well) because I never envisaged being default childcare tbh but I would never let dd struggle so it is what it is.

My grandparents lived a fair-ish distance away, so we saw them 2 or 3 times a year. If I'd had kids, their grandparents would also have lived a minimum of 100 miles away. To me, this is completely normal.
In my world, and that of all my friends, you move away from home for college or work. You may move several times. So the concept of grandparents being around for childcare just wouldn't happen. And, yes, there is an age element too - GPs might be 70 when the kid is born.
Is this about social class? Mobility? The economy? Whatever it is, I don't think it has changed much in 50 years, tbh.

@hiredandsqueak a dear friend does that for her dd, despite still working a couple of days a week. The dd has just had her third child and my friend is run absolutely ragged at 67 but won't let her dd know she is crying with tiredness. There's a fine line between a helpful grandma and an entitled daughter who is taking the P imo.

Another thought OP. I wasn't away from my DS overnight until he was 8 and went to PGL Why would I want to be away from my child?

Also, having nights away together, mini breaks, is a fairly recent trend, except for the very wealthy. Family holidays involved everyone. Overnight cover was really only for medical emergencies.