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.

My parents did not help with childcare and most of the mums I knew when mine were little got no help either. There were very few of us that worked full time, typically we'd work evenings and weekends or not at all.

I’m grateful my mum told me when I was pregnant with my eldest that she was very happy to do the odd night’s babysitting but she wouldn’t be looking after my kids when I went back to work. She rightly feels she’s raised her kids and now it’s my turn

It’s a personal choice isn’t it. I totally get why people might not want to spend much time with their GC. But you reap what you sow. Disinterested and distant GP’s don’t have much of a bond with their GC.The GP’s then become a second thought to the GC. Out of sight, out of mind.

My parents made it clear when I was pregnant with my daughter that they wouldn't be available for childcare. That was fine, I didn't expect it, but they never babysat or provided any help in emergencies either, which I found disappointing. A bit of occasional help would have been very gratefully received.
My PILs bleated on and on about wanting to become grandparents, but as soon as my daughter was born they moved house 200 miles away (which they didn't have to) and then complained they never saw her.

My neighbour has her 2 pre school grandchildren 2 day's a week (8am-6pm) & overall enjoys it BUT she did say that the relationship is different from a usual nan to grandchild as she has to discipline them, not give them too much chocolate etc & she notices how much they enjoy their other nan who is 'fun' & does no childcare.

Are you me? 😆

When I was born my grandparents were in their early 50s. When my children were born their grandparents were late 60s/early 70s. Age makes a huge difference.

This was our plan, but ILs pulled out.

too late to find nursery places so my mum and dad ended up doing two days.

They were ridiculously excited about it. When my first was born, my mum was 64 and still working. She continued to work while I was on mat leave for a year, and then she dropped from 5 days to 3 to cover Tuesdays and Wednesdays for me.

her and my dad loved it. I don’t think it was too difficult for them as there were two of them, just one kid and lots to do locally, although it is still hard work.

Not long after, my brothers wife had a little boy. They lived a little further away so the commute was harder but the decision was made for mum to retire and that was 3 days of her week doing childcare.

when the first two grandkids were 3, I had a second (and final son).

Tuesdays Wednesdays with them could be challenging, but manageable. The day with my nephew was always easier.

my son and nephew now at school and my youngest will be starting in August. He is largely at nursery during the week. My dad very sadly died last year which has devastated us all. So my mum just has my youngest one full day a week, but she finds it much harder than she did when my dad was here.

so she now does school pick up 3 afternoons a week, 2 local, one in my sisters town.

I see where a lot of posters are coming from on this post. It’s been a real labour of love and I have never, ever taken it for granted.

one the one hand, do I feel dreadful that my dad should have been enjoying his retiremtn
more instead of doing childcare ? Sometimes, but not really. He just loved being with them
and would load them into the car and go and take them to see places from his childhood, introduce them to old friends of his, he took them everywhere. He still had loads of holidays as well. Anytime they wanted to go on hols I would take annual leave or book after school clubs.

eveybody is different. But my parents were obsessed with their grandkids. And I genuinely think my husband is going to be the same when the time comes for us to be grandparents, purely seeing how my dad was. My husbands own dad is petty disinterested and makes minimal effort. My husband accepts it for how it is, but I think he will be much more like my dad.

In answer to the question, it depends on a lot of factors. Age, distance, money, fitness levels.

we moved to be close to mum and dad
we could have afforded paid childcare (although it would have hehe right,) so they knew we were not fully dependent on them
recogbition. With the money we saved on childcare, we would book holidays / trips for my parents / give them cash so they could choose.

mum was 64 when my elder was born and didn’t do much that year as I was on mat leave.

shes 72 now and I’ve just turned 41. Part of me sometimes thinks I’d love another child but a big part of not doing it is that my mum is just too old. Not only too old to help, but will possibly be needing more
help
herslef now, now that dad gone, and I couldn’t deal with that plus another child.

ultimately, I think we got these years really well and am so glad the kids had the relationship with the grandparents they had. If only my dad had died, these years would have been perfect.

edited to add: now that my dad is dead, I think the school picks up are good for my mum. It’s a good bit of exercise, it’s a bit of socialisation, and she cooks dinner for them, which I encourage, because otherwise I don’t think she would eat as she wouldn’t bother cooking for one.

so I do think it’s paying it back a little
bit in some strange way.

Well to some pwople that is women's sho life, breed the first generation, stay home and raise them till the girls on to do the same and help raise the next generation and the boys go off and have careers and the cycle continues

They always used to say that being a grandparent was your reward for doing a good job of raising your children. You did the hard work and now you get to have fun with the grandchildren.
If you didn’t do a good job of raising your children, then you get to raise the grandchildren instead.

Somehow this seems to have got very lost in translation.

My MiL considered moving closer saying she wanted to be close enough for a day trip but not close enough to babysit, thought this was a bit cheeky cos my husband was always looked after by his nan and (apparently) she was happy to do it

So it is cheeky if a grandmother does not want to babysit although she had her nan babysit? No mention of the men in this situation. The MIL has to pay back the help with the next generation that she received?

What about the grandparents that do no childcare OR spend time and have any fun with the GC? 😆

My step daughter puts on her own mother (who still works part time and has her own parents to help out), in such a way that her own dad - my DH is struggling to have a relationship with her. We both have an excellent relationship with his ex-wife and she is a lovely lady- and was a wonderful mum to her kids.
Step-daughter is a lazy mum if truth be told and an entitled bully. She has already alienated her MIL, who like us, will not be dictated too about childcare and notwithstanding an emergency, will offer support on her, and her terms only.

This is so my mother! Refuses to say no to brother and SIL, then moans incessantly! She’s 83 FFS!

I adore looking after my grandson and have reduced my working hours to do so. You get a much better relationship when you have them to yourself. I think a lot of older ladies get fed up of the endless rules some parents have and feel that it's a reflection on how they brought up their own children. There is a huge amount of negative comments on MN about mothers and MILs. Yes things change but we are treated like our views are victorian rather than 1990s onwards!

I’m not a grandparent but I have young adult children.

i’ve seen both sides of it.

my parents lived 100 miles away and both worked full time when my kids were born until they were about 7 or 8.

my ILs lived 60 miles away and FIL also worked full time until they were about 5.

so my kids only really saw them occasionally until they were older. My parents were great with them as teens though - they’d come down and stay with us and help keep them entertained over the holidays when it was more a case of drop off at tennis club and pick u after swimming sort of thing,

my ILs were massively taken advantage of though,

my SIL had her first and mil looked after him while SIL worked (mobile beautician). Then she had her second and mil spent a lot of time looking after both of them, SIL now has seven kids. Mil up until recently was doing five days a week with some combination of the kids (they are all home educated) which was either childcare or trying to teach them to read. They are currently 16,14,12,10,8,6,4 and 2. Mil has been doing childcare for a very, very long time at this point.

FIL got ill with cancer recently and mil is now looking after him and has refused to do childcare any more.

Not in my case. My parents were 350 miles away. I raised my five as a single mother, with absolutely no help at all.

If I didnt get any help from GPs- they were too far away- is it ok to want to travel and do hobbies in my retirement for the most part? And spend time with DH, who has been sorely neglected.

As awful and threatening as this sounds (and not applicable to me as I don't live in the same country as my DS grandparents), I wonder if there's a bit of expectation that if you want to be looked after in old age, and not dumped in a shitty care home with no visits, then you need to help out with childcare. If my parents or in laws flat out refused to help, I have to admit that I might be less inclined to help them out when they need it.

The women I work with (all early 60's) do a huge amount, often heading home after work (we start hideously early so finish around lunchtime) to a full afternoon/evening of childcare for their GC, I don't know how they do it! They do seem exhausted by it and somewhat resentful and their DC's seem to put an awful lot of pressure on them to do it even when they tell them they're exhausted and need a break. One lady came into work in tears a few weeks ago having been threatened by her DD with being cut off from GC completely when she tried to say no to babysitting on one occasion because she had plans.

I don't have GC yet but already know I'm not prepared to provide childcare if I do in the future and am secretly praying DD decides not to have kids tbh. I enjoyed DD when she was little but I definitely don't want to do it again, being around small children is just not how I want to spend my time these days. I didn't want, expect or get any help with childcare from my parents or in-laws so my colleagues' set up is very alien to me, and their DC appear selfish and entitled to my eyes.

There is no way I would dump my child on my mum to save on nursery fees. If we couldn’t afford them, we wouldn’t have had children, end of.
Both grandmothers offer and do do childcare/illness cover etc but they are not and will never be used as an unpaid replacement for actual childcare throughout the week.

My parents have done one day a week since I went back to work (and now collect the children from school once a week) as they believe that this is how they’ve developed a really strong bond with them that you don’t get if the children’s parents are always around - I can see what they mean as I volunteered to collect my niece and nephew from nursery once a week and have them for a few hours and I don’t think I’d have the same relationship with them if I’d only ever seen them with their parents around.

Saying that, no one should do any childcare that they don’t want to. My in laws have almost zero interest in our children in general and that’s their choice.

I think it’s a bit of a myth that previous generations of grandparents did a lot of free childcare.

My memories of being a child in the 70s and 80s was no grandparent childcare, not my own and not my classmates.

My memories if my own children in the 00s and 10s was only one family with grandparents providing childcare. My inlaws watched my SIL’s children a few days a week. They enjoyed it, but it wasn’t easy. They sacrificed retirement dreams and were tired. (We lived too far away and never asked!)

In truth, this generation of grandparents is older and that makes a difference. Also, people don’t always live nearby.

The ticktockers are a bit entitled and indulging in quite a bit of “motivated reasoning.”

All help is a gift.

This is a societal problem and it’s not a problem that old women should have to bear.

So basically you have to provide two sets of childcare to get a visit?

Yes I’ve come across this with people I would be friends with where by before they have even had children the assume their mother will be minding there child when they go back to work. I’m sorry but your parents raised you their work is done.