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?

I think it's individual circumstances. I had far more grandparent help than my mum did. I'm not a grandma but if I was I wouldn't be able the offer much practical help during the week because I work ft and realistically will be working ft for another decade or until I pop my clogs, no doubt at work, whilst wondering why I never saved more when I was young.

Different families, different situations. I was born in the 1950s and hardly knew my grandparents as they lived a long way away in different places. My parents helped as much as they could and moved nearer to me when they retired. I have always been quite hands on with my grandchildren more so when I retired, by that time the youngest was 5 so I did quite a lot of school runs.

I agree with this. DH and I did not want or need overnight breaks from the DC when they were small. The only time we needed overnight cover was when I gave birth. I think our DC were 6 or 7 before they stayed overnight at my mother's and it was one at a time for the first few years.

My GP did not look after us much. We had a wonderful relationship with them but saw them mainly in school holidays, they didn't live close by.

My own parents are similar. You only get heavily involved GP in communities where people tend to stay living nearby. Where there's a culture of people going off to university they tend to not return as they go where the work is.

More people are waiting until their 40’s to have a baby so if their DC do the same then we’ll have first some grandparents in their 80’s.

Also agree ive never felt the need to be away from my DC. They visited gp for longer this year without me (5 days, aged 6 & 8) due to my work and i missed them so much

Agreed, it's difficult to know where that line is as well sometimes. I made dd well aware that it is a one off arrangement I won't be childcare for another if she has another.
Dd's partner left her part way through their planned pregnancy and has been nowhere to be seen since so I stepped in as support. Dd also has ankylosing spondylitis which impacts a lot on how much support she needs.
Do I think she takes advantage sometimes? Possibly, but if I was wrong then I'd be letting her and dgs struggle and I wouldn't want to do that.
For me though I was never under any illusion that my father or in laws would be anything other than visiting fun grandparents so would have had to get on with it if in the same boat.

I think it’s because people have to work later.

My grandmother never worked. My grandfather medically retired at age 50. My mum is in her 50s and still works full time. As people work later, they’ll obviously do less. And then want to enjoy their retirement.

So people's role in life is to have children then when those children have children their role in life to help raise grandchildren?

Considering a lot of people say women have to stay home the idea is women's sole role in life is children then?

Depends on the family / age of GP’s. My parents used to have my oldest and my oldest nieces a fair bit. But my brother’s late in life son, my mum never babysits as she says she is too old. She is 71 and in good health, but just doesn’t want to look after him. Which is fair enough. I’ve said i’ll have him for a weekend / week if they wanted to get away, but so far they haven’t. SIL’s mum is overseas. I’m hoping to be an involved GP it that’s what my DC want. We will see I guess. My Nanna lived next door, but my parents never once went away without us. Guess it wasn’t the done thing then.

It varies from one family to the next. I live too far for my parents to help. Dh and I are of the opinion that if you have kids you work things out between yourselves and that is what we did. We didn't rely on inlaws for help even when we lived with them. It's tiring taking care of young kids, evenmore so as you get older. Inlaws made it clear that they had done their parenting and couldn't commit to regular childcare I've never been offended by this but understand. They are still very loving grandparents and come to assemblies, nip over for storytime etc.

We make a lot of sacrifices for our own kids but I don't want to particularly do that for grandchildren who I don't see as my responsibility. This is all hypothetical as my kids are little but I'd like to be able to offer some form of help. What that would look like we would need to discussed at the time because it will be dependent on our health. In an ideal world we'd offer each child a day each of childcare but we will see when the time comes.

We are in our early 70s. For about 8 years we have spent 1 day a week on childcare for both our children, so 2 days a week. Our grandchildren’s other grandparents do the same.
Now the grandchildren have started to go to school we are very busy in the school holidays!
As our children and their spouses work full time, I don’t see how else they could do it. For our children, summer holidays are split between annual leave for family holidays, Camp and grandparents. As grandparents we do get very tired but we are very lucky that our grandchildren still like coming to us.

My children’s grandparents were helpful and involved. If I have grandchildren I will help where I can, depending on how fit and able I am at that point.

OP, @lifeonthelane , will you return to the thread, and join the discussion?

I’m 64. As a youngster, my grandparents were really involved because we had one family car and they live too far away.
I don’t remember any of my friends’ grandparents being involved with them either.
I was late to be a mother, but my friend had children in the late 80s/early 90s and it was still common for Mums not to work. So her parents were not involved in bringing up her children either.
From what I have observed, it is only now that it is the norm for mums to work full-time just as dads, coupled with part-time Mums earnings not covering expensive childcare costs that grandparents are so involved.
I have friends in their 70s who don’t mind helping out, but are quite resentful at the amount of grandparent duty they expected to do, especially when they live some distance away from their kids. I have asked them why they continue to drop everything upon demand and their responses are that they daren’t do anything else because that is the societal expectation these days.