to think many grandmothers actually do not want to do childcare?

[onlytwo]

I go to a regular toddler group and there are many older women there with their grandchildren.

Been talking to them and many of them do not want to do childcare but have been pressured into by mostly their daughters but also their sons. Their children often think they are delighted to be looking after their grandchildren but often it is a huge struggle for these women (and it mostly women). They feel like they can't take a break because their children rely on them for childcare because of the cost of nurseries and general cost of living. They no longer have the same energy levels and also often have health issues.

Also grandfathers are usually not pressured into doing childcare and are rarely expected to give up their job when grandchildren come along. Their life mostly remains unchanged,

I feel the expectation of women to keep doing childcare is unfair and is coming from their own daughters. Some of the older women are frail and struggling to keep up with young children.

When talking to the mums, they say their mums love spending time with their grandchildren and looking after them. That is not what they have said to me.

I take it you missed the part where the poster is recovering from cancer yet she's still being guilt tripped by her daughter into providing almost full time childcare at the expense of her own wellbeing. There doesn't seem anything "lovely" about the situation at all. Are women just expected to keep carrying on providing childcare to their children and grandchildren at the expense of their own health?

Apparently yes because the grandfathers were born in the 1920s and do not know how to care for a child or change a nappy 🙄

I remember Martin Lewis mentioning something about grandparents and childcare, but can’t remember the detail.

I really think it's depends on many factors age of gp, age of child, how easy the child is, if gp works

No, of course not, but despite her own huge health problems and still working herself, she is trying her best to help her family. Many people decline helping who are far more able to help. She clearly is a lovely, kind, generous person who certainly deserves a break! I never said she should be doing this, but is clearly a very good person to try to do all that she is doing. Not acknowledging that is ignoring her efforts and extremely disrespectful of how much she clearly does for everybody.

Where is her DD’s ex? Any other family members or members of his family helping? Who else has she got to help when she’s recovering from illness? Of course it shouldn’t all be down to her.

I've never understood grandmothers giving up work to look after grandchildren. I'd rather work and co tribute financially towards my kids raising their own children - I'm certainly not raising two lots.

My Husband and I have spent about 2+ days a week doing childcare ( we have 2 sets of grandchildren) for the last 8 years. We offered. My husband does an equal share.
My friends also look after grandchildren, so while I make plans with my friends, if one of my grandchildren became ill, depending on the occasion, I might cancel or rearrange. My friends would also do this so they don’t mind. Maybe if your mother doesn’t like this she should find new friends who don’t look after their grandchildren.
Our grandchildren’s other grandparents also do similar childcare. We all have long holidays and cover for each other.
Yes it can be hard work and very tiring sometimes but we do enjoy it. It is also an honour and a privilege to be part of your grandchildren’s upbringing. No grandparent who sees their grandchildren only on family visits will have the same close relationship no matter what they think.

@SomethingStranger

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/grandparents-childcare-credit/

I think it means that GPs can claim adult childcare credits towards their national insurance contributions if they are looking after a child under 12 and both parents are working so not using these childcare credits. This will help the grandparents if they don’t have enough qualifying years for a full state pension.
This did not affect me as by the time I started looking after my grandchildren, I already had done enough years to qualify for a full state pension.

Does your child ever look after their own kid it sounds like your raising them. I hope your the one claiming the child benefit

Sure.

I didn't say anything about what people "should" do. I don't think that anyone should provide childcare that they don't want to provide.

What I'm saying is that nobody is going to leave a child with someone who lacks experience of looking after a child. I expect that things will look different in 30 years time when the children who were raised by two involved parents have their own children.

It's not helpful though to talk about time with grandchildren as a burden. That's one particular experience of it, but if that is your experience, then you should be honest with your children and stop providing that care. Most grandparents who provide regular childcare are happy to do so, in my experience.

My MIL has made it clear that she has done her bit by raising her own DC so she won’t be doing childcare for us. She would be happy to do a day or night here and there but has lots of her own hobbies/commitments, especially since FIL passed. My DM however is impatiently waiting for GC to come along and has said she will do any childcare we need! She is brilliant with children; they love her as she is lots of fun. She is an amazing mum, so I know she’ll be an amazing GM. I do see both sides, but DP and I have had a frank discussion about how we will arrange things so my own DM isn’t doing too much and missing out on her own life - even though we know she would do 5 days a week if we needed! I have such fond memories of my own DGM looking after me when I was a child, so I think this has just been kind of what our family is used to. We’re very close and always have been.

My cousin is going back to work soon after her 2nd mat leave. My aunt (her DM) looked after the eldest when she went back the first time, and now feels obliged to do the same for the 2nd - even though she has gotten a lot older and has a lot on her plate. She has told me that she doesn’t want her DD to be paying extortionate amounts for childcare, and feels like the onus is on her as her DD’s MIL has passed and she doesn’t have anyone else.

I think the current rising childcare costs are a massive factor for some GPs at the minute - they feel like they should help in order to avoid these as everything else is extortionate too!

@Cynic17

I understand where you’re coming from, and certainly for my family it was different and we could have afforded to not rely on our family up until something incredibly unfortunate happened that ruined our financial situation completely.

This is the situation my NDN is in;she has 4 children who all have 2-3 children each;the eldest DGC is 19 and youngest a few months;all of DC and their spouses work FT and she’s been the free child care;she’s been doing it for the past 19 years and will likely be doing it until the point she physically cannot anymore and needs care herself.

What's truly bizarre is seeing the claims from younger mothers on here that grandparenting has changed - well, yes it has. Granpdarents of 40, 50, 60 years ago almost never did any babysitting, beyond the odd night to help out. No idea where they get this from, must have been watching too many completely fabricated TV shows.

My gran, who died 25 years ago aged around 83, would have us all over to visit once a fortnight, on a Sunday, for lunch. That was it. And it was most appreciated and a very normal expectation, I knew nobody whose gran was looking after them full time, or even regularly, it was a working class environment and all the women were working for pay, as they always did. Only a tiny minority of women were ever privileged enough to stay at home not working for pay - they had to work in case the men died, drank it, whored it or refused to part with it.

Women had kids with the expectation they would look after their own kids. These days, at least the expectation is that dads contribute too (even if it happens a lot less than it should).

I did know one girl whose gran helped a lot more, but that was because her mum (her gran's daughter) died when she was 5.

When I was really young my grandfather walked me to nursery school once a week for a year. They had worked their whole lives and enjoyed their retirement. We used to go to theirs for Christmas lunch as well, but that all stopped when I was in my teens as they were getting old, felt the cold, and started going off to Spain with a bunch of their friends every winter for three months and kept doing that through their late 60s and 70s until they became too frail to travel.

This was in the 1980s.

Women are often bullied and bulldozered into this sort of stuff, more so now than ever because the cost of living is incredibly high and housing is incredibly expensive. Women have always worked for pay, of course, they absolutely had to and that has happened all through history. But rarely has it been so absolutely necessary for two parents to earn a full working wage just to get by, so I can see why young people are trying to off load some of it onto their parents.

If your parents want to, and are in a position to look after YOUR children regularly be very very very very grateful and understand that this is NOT the norm, it never was and show them your genuine appreciation.

That is sad. Can't help with your grandchildren once in a while?

It's now how I feel, but it's how she feels, nothing sad about it. Why pretend you think it's sad?

My own GM used to have me and my sibling overnight sometimes at weekends when both my parents had to work. She was retired at the time - retired at 60 and was still very active. When I had my DC my parents who were in their early 60’s helped with school runs when I was working which we massively appreciated (DF had retired and DM had reduced her hours by this point). They always said they would help when they could but would say no if they weren’t able to help. We never asked for overnights etc to “give us a break” because they helped out so much when I was doing shift work. They were amazing and DC still have an amazing relationship with them. IL’s weren’t hands on GP because they were much older and didn’t live locally so it wasn’t feasible and I don’t think they would have wanted the responsibility. They loved to see DC but when we all visited them. They are sadly no longer with us but DC loved them equally.

DH now has a GC (step GC for me) but doesn’t wish to provide childcare as we both work full time so can’t physically do it and we both have probably still 10-15 years of working before we will be in a position to retire so we aren’t in the same position as GP as my GM and parents were.

We enjoy spending time with GC but we are limited as to the help we can offer.

every one is different with different circumstances. I absolutely take my hat off to those GP that can help out and make a difference

When my sister got married, I was sat at the same table as her new MIL, as was my mum. My DSis had a baby, and my god... the snippy comments from the MIL were unreal. Lots of passive aggressive stuff about "making oneself available for the grandchildren", She was long time retired and loaded.
My mum works and has a small business that employs people. She is not going to chuck that in to look after grandkids... especially when their parents are not after any childcare to start with.

My mum has always said if we want kids then that is our choice. She has done her time and wont be looking after them.

@skirtingcurtain 1 day a week each is allot of help actually! We’ve not had as much as 1 hour childcare form our parents so it’s a bit grating to see you dismissing 2 days a week of free childcare

@PomegranateVase why did you have had children then? we have no free childcare or babysitting from grandparents which is why we had one child.

There’s no point saying why aren’t people saying this about granddads. Maybe they will for the next generation but a lot of this generation simply haven’t the skills for babies and toddlers. They didn’t bring them up and they don’t know how to. I wouldn’t leave a baby with my fil, if with 5 children and 10-15 grandchildren no one has ever left a small baby alone with him before then my baby is absolutely not going to be the first.

Nonsense. A 60 year old man was born in the 1960s, not the 1860s. Besides which men have ALWAYS known how to look after babies and toddlers, it's actually not that tough to learn at all, they just don't want to. I wouldn't leave a baby with a lazy man who didn't want to care for a baby either, but not because he can't do it. Because he will choose not to.

My fil would agree to, and isn’t lazy, but has never had to change a nappy or care for a baby. Hes at least 75 and not starting with mine. He is a wonderful fil and does a huge amount with them now they are older, but mil is a total martyr and never had him do the basics with babies.
My dad is very caring and helpful but also has near zero awareness of babies and paying attention to toddlers non stop- he is an abstract ideas man. I did have him look after my 6mo old once on his own, in a small room upstairs at a wedding reception due to no other choices. I went up to check and he was reading and baby had rolled over to the wall, dad had no idea. It’s just him- no surprise there’s hyper focus and adhd in the family. I was staying at theirs with a 6mo and bad gastro once, miserable for days and walking up and down with a baby regularly and dad came in to see if he could help. By chatting about some feature of the original Oxford dictionary. Maybe if these people were women they didn’t have children??