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.

Not in our friendship group. We are early 70s and most of our friends help with child care. Mainly it’s both grandparents together. Occasionally, only one is available as we also have social lives. The grandfather will look after the grandchildren alone. The grandmother too. Definitely not more the task of the grandmother.

I do the school run twice a day and there are a couple of grandfathers but a lot more grandmothers. Of the grandparents I know well who do a lot of childcare the men don’t do any of it. It does fit because it’s mostly mum’s doing the school run and child rearing. Society isn’t changing much. My husband works away all of the time and no one bats an eyelid, no one offers to help. My female neighbour (with the same age children) goes to once conference, once a year for 3 days and people are falling over themselves to help her husband with statements like ‘you’re so good to be juggling work with the children’. They don’t think I’m good to be juggling work with children.

More men are doing their share but it’s nowhere near equal. I’m lucky my husband has been in his team for years so has pushed to not have work trips in the holidays (he earns flexi in term time so he can do the bulk of the holiday childcare) and when he’s home he does all of the child sickness and stuff as I do it when he’s away. He has had a battle to get to that stage though.

They work, enjoy life and their retirement. They often didn't do the childcare the first time round never mind the second time round.

I know many GP's who are childminders that are very manipulative! I've been there when they've insisted that they will do the Childminding so that the little ones don't have to be in day care; then have heard the same ones complaining at toddlers groups that they don't want to do it and are forced to.

We don’t get much help at all and made to feel bad when we ask. We don’t ask anymore. Our kids are always let down and other grandkids are favoured more than ours. To prevent stress, we keep our distance. I was very close to my Nanna and slept there every weekend because my parents would be out, mine still go out every weekend and entertain their friends more than they do their grandkids. I would love nothing more than to go for a night away with my DH but that hasn’t happened in 9 years as was awful last time we did it and we were made to feel bad because our train was cancelled and we were ruining plans.

Not at my kids school it's the Grandfathers that do it. Several of them also volunteer to be parent helpers on their grandkids school trips!
It makes sense that you don't see grandfather's or even father's at toddler or baby groups because even now in 2025 there aren't many that aren't called mum's and toddlers or mum and baby.
In fact the group I take my own tots too occasionally has dads and granddad's but they're not made to feel welcome. The women running them suddenly only want to talk about women's things or insist on calling the dads "mum". There's even talk that a transwoman who has an adopted son can no longer come along because "it should be a safe space to talk about issues mum's are having"

I'm in my sixties and still work full time. I adore my toddler grandson, but he's exhausting! I still have several years before retirement ( hope I'll get there) but I've told my daughter there's no way I could do full time childcare! I have friends who do but both of them retired early, are very comfortably off and have husbands who participate fully.

Good grief !

There's no way I would be doing any childcare.

I'm now retired, I've worked all my life to be in this position, where I don't need to do anything I haven't chosen to do. I brought up a family in a very traditional setting so all the childcare, life admin, cleaning, cooking, clearing, school stuff was all down to me....eventually I was a single parent and it was still down to me, as well as earning a wage to keep us.
I feel I did my bit wholeheartedly, and now it's my time for myself.

I made it clear to my children that if/when they ever had children, I'd be a doting grandparent but wouldn't be on hand for any care/school runs/babysitting or anything else.

Funnily enough, none of them have produced any grandchildren yet anyway!

What I have noticed is that women need to state their position on childcare where men do not and are mostly free of expectations.

I'm not sure the women need to either. My mother seems to delight in rubbing salt in the wound, whereas my dad is rather ashamed of his complete detachment.
Neither of them have ever been expected to do a thing.

We were hugely fortunate that 3-4 hours a week from my mum could save us a day of nursery fees for two kids, but not a chance we’d ask for more. If she was away we’d take holiday.
We told her not to come once Covid started and when it all ended felt everything had changed and school was not far off anyway.
Can’t imagine asking her to do 3/4 days, gave her plenty of chances to say no, but it was always a bonus, never an expectation.

This .

My DH is good with his GC (he was always travelling when our own DC were at home so not usually available) and he enjoys having time with all of them. We've stayed at our more distant GC's home for a week when their parents were away and he enjoyes it when our local GC spend the evening with us too. He's probably enjoying and doing more with our GC than he did DC.

Surely tho if GP don’t want to do childcare the time to say that is well before a pregnancy. Ie when dc flies the nest/ uni/ first big relationship/ when it comes up in conversation / years before an actual gc appears That way everyone knows where they stand

my mum did mine (3 half days a week) but she offered and we had an understanding that if/ when she didn’t want to or couldn’t she’d say straightaway

I think grandparents should be asked. Your post states that people have to declare their attitude to caring for grandchildren before they are even conceived/born. It’s the potential new parents who need to plan ahead to look after their offspring. I say this as a doting grandmother to four boys and we help as often as we can, willingly. The onus is on those considering becoming parents to make sure they can look after their children and make arrangements for their care.

I never asked my mum to do childcare but she did used to help out watching them for a
couple of hours so I could get stuff done. More often than not it was watching 3 of them while I took the fourth to an appointment rather than me going to get my hair done or whatever.
She was great when they were younger but now I very rarely ask her she seems to have lost interest in them. They seem like an inconvenience to her which is a shame.
It Has made me realise that I want to be hands on with my grandkids and I will happily help as realise how hard it can be without any help.
DHs dad used to love spending time with them and would always take them off in a day out even when they were little but he died a few years ago.

I felt pressure from my mum to have babies so she would have grandkids in the first place. We used nursery for a couple of years when I initially went back to work after maternity leave, but now my daughter spends afterschool on Monday and Tuesday with one set of grandparents, and Wednesday and Thursday with the other (unless my husband has worked night shift and can do it instead. If either set weren’t happy with the arrangement, I would hope they’d tell us so we could sort something else out.

The only help i ever had was when my Mum died, my MIL travelled overnight to collect my children so i could go and be with my mum during her last few hours and for that i will be eternally grateful for. Many of us had no help a all and didn't feel entitled to it anyway.

Don't forget this generation has had their pensionable age pushed to 67 with a cost-of-living crisis on top. The days of a woman retiring at 60 and helping her children with her children while still fit enough have gone.

I'm with you on this. I see older grand mothers pushing kids around and the look on there faces say it all. Tired out. Not got the strength they used to have.
I was a grandmother at 50 and iwas still fit enough to du the care of my grandkids. But as I've got older I've not got the strength. But thank fully my daughters have never put pressure on me and husband.
We now love having them because they're older and and can come and see us when the want to. They drop on from school have tea. We love it.

I think people need to work out what they will do for childcare and how they will afford it before they have children. Thinking you have an entitlement to put upon grandparents for childcare isn't really acceptable. For the odd weekend babysitting if you want a night out, I don't see a problem, a lot of people are working still as grandparents and it unacceptable to ask people to give up work to suit your lifestyle, or even impact others to suit you.

My grandmother adored looking after me BUT she was a registered childminder and my parents paid her as such! Whilst looking after me she also had other children at times.

But yeah, I think grandparents doing regular, frequent and unpaid childcare is unfair unless they're desperate to do so.

I'm grateful that both sets of my children's grandparents enjoy spending time with them and choose to have them for weekends or a few days in the school holidays - totally at their request.

Absolutely.

My sister in law was looking at returning to work after having her baby and was so shocked at the price of childcare. They hadn't even looked before having kids! She then asked me and my sister how much childcare our mum had done when ours were little and she was gutted when we said none! I think they were expecting 3 days a week free childcare.

When our children were little my in-laws cared for them on a Thursday and my mum on a Friday. Now they are all at school and my mum now lives further away. We still need help mon- wed before and after school, which my in-laws provide. We are very grateful for their help, and they do lovingly. But they’re now in mid 70’s and I feel it’s becoming harder on them. My older children are at high school but my younger child is just 7. I’m hoping my eldest will be able to help with little one more, soon. As the school doesn’t provide wrap around care. It’s difficult being a working parent, and we’ve been very lucky to have our parents help. But when the time comes for us to be grandparents, we won’t be available every day ( if we’re retired) I’ll be happy to help out in a similar way our parents have. But that’s it! I want to relax and paint, go to yoga, go hiking and go on city breaks and drink wine. Can’t wait!