to resent pressure on grandmothers to provide childcare?

[ReluctantGM]

I feel like there’s a real pressure placed on grandmothers that just isn’t there for grandfathers.

I work and I want to keep working. Partly because I need the income, but also because it gives me structure and some space. But because I’m the grandmother, there’s a clear pressure on me to step in and provide regular childcare so my daughter and daughter-in-law can return to work. I’m often told I could be spending more time with the grandchildren and building a bond with them.

I do understand that childcare is expensive and that life is more expensive these days. I’m not dismissing that at all. But I’ve said more than once that I can’t do it. I don’t have the energy or capacity for it, and I don’t want to take on that level of responsibility.

My DD and DS keep bringing it up and have even suggested that I go part time or rearrange my hours to make it work. It feels like pressure rather than a genuine choice.

I was exhausted by parenting the first time round. My DS had mental health problems and needed a lot of care and support well into his early twenties. I gave everything to that stage of my life. Yes I love my grandchildren, but that doesn’t mean I want to be responsible for them day to day.

I also find it really hard to tolerate crying babies and young children now and I don’t want to keep getting ill from all the bugs they inevitably bring home.

Yesterday I was out shopping and saw a toddler having a full tantrum and felt relieved that I don’t have to deal with that anymore. I walked away to get away from the noise.

What I find particularly frustrating is that there is absolutely no expectation on my husband. No one is asking him to change his work or take this on. It’s just assumed I should be the one to step in.

I’ve spoken to other friends and they feel the same pressure. Their husbands get no pressure and there are no expectations of them to adjust their work hours or give up work to look after children.

Why do adult children/DIL/SIL feel they can pressure grandmothers into providing childcare, while grandfathers are left alone or not even asked, especially if they’re working?

Do parents who send their kids to nursery hate them because they don’t look after them themselves
No
Of course not
What difference does it make if a grandmother does this then

Why the greater expectation.
She works

This is really interesting. It's been really different for our family. My MIL and FIL are divorced (30 years ago), both never remarried and both live alone (quite happily and quite friendly with each other). My FIL is older than my MIL and was partially retired when we had our children, MIL worked full time. He offered to have our children (had a big age gap so never both at once) once a fortnight. And this worked great for me as I could do compressed hours (10 days in 9, so had the alternate day off).
My DH used to drive to his house and work from there so he was around for lunchtime and they had dinner together etc. For us it worked well.
I would never have asked or expected anything and it was really kind of him to offer. I understand why my MIL couldn't help, these years of work are critical for her pension.

Except bring up your husband.

You were in your 50s?

I think though, you need to look at your partner. How hands on was he with your kids as a dad when they were little? Because if you did everything, and he was never really there, of course they’ll ask you and not him

He travelled for work so I did more. It doesn't make it fair to ask me when I did the bulk of the childcare when they were young and then I am being asked to do it again.

Regarding the sexist element, have you asked them directly - “why have you asked me to give up paid work to look after your children but not your father?”

They didn't ask him because he travels for work and earns more.

But PP are saying grandparents must do childcare to warrant elderly care – making it an obligation. Why is it okay their way but not the other way?

Schooling isn’t child care.

This reply is so patronising, ageist, misogynistic and offensive that it must clearly be a troll.
'30+ years in retirement, not working, yet being paid by the state for doing nothing'
The retirement age is now 67, most people don't live to 97 and many are in poor health long before that. They have also paid Nat Insurance which supported the pensioners before them, in many cases since the age of 16.
'to play bingo or go on saga holidays, walk the dog, read books, sit on their arse, or whatever unemployed retired people in their 60s and 70s do'
Also many women (and men) cannot afford to give up work entirely and so continue working. Those that have retired are more likely tired and entitled to sit on their arse sometimes.

I'm really glad to see more older women and grandparents speak up on this issue.

If you sacrificed your career to bring up your own kids it’s immaterial what your dh now does
Your kids need to appreciate this
and your dh should be questioned on why he won’t make that change as you have already done

That’s the conversation I would be having.

If he says you both need the higher salary then your children will need to appreciate that
The onus should not be just on you

It's not about it being an obligation in either direction. It's about a spirit of wanting to help your family rather than being rigid about saying "I'm done taking care of kids." If you care and want to help, it creates an environment where people WANT to return that, not feel obligated to.

I really don’t agree with the people saying that if you don’t provide regular childcare then you can’t expect a close relationship. You can still visit, treat them, do activities with them. My kids used to get so excited when my mum came for a weekend with a big bag of delicious food she had cooked, she would bake with them and play games. You can still be a fun grandparent and have a great relationship with them. You should not be ‘punished’ for not wanting to provide regular childcare. In any case it often isn’t even appropriate as it’s hard for grandparents to provide the tougher discipline needed when they hit the toddler years, having to say ‘no’, dealing with inevitable tantrums.

Bringing up a child to the age of 18 is a legal and moral obligation.

Care for an elderly relative is a choice, like caring for a grandchild or niece or nephew is a choice. When things become choices we expect a basic level of reciprocity- that isn’t necessarily hour for hour-rather a signal that I care for you so will go out of my way to help you and that builds a bond.

Your answer is spot on. That reply really is patronising, ageist, misogynistic and offensive!

So your immediate answer should be that the reason he earns more and gets to travel more is becuase he has benefited from male patriarchy all his life and you have suffered in your career for same reason. You are now rebuilding.

Its his turn to give some hours up along with your son and son-in -law. THEY all need to drop a day a week to provide care.

I think a lot of posters are making the point that you are enabling these attitudes in your family because you are not fiercely challenging them! Tell them to stop reducing you!.

So YABU for this.

I think “why is my career worth less than your career?” may be your friend here.

It is just a hypothesis about how humans might have evolved. It’s not some rule that grandmothers are meant to provide childcare in real life now.

Loads of things made sense thousands of years ago that we don’t base modern life on. We’re not living in small tribes where survival depends on everyone playing a fixed role. Most of us are working, paying bills, dealing with our own lives.

Also, it always seems to get applied very conveniently. If this is biology, why aren’t grandfathers being expected to step in the same way? They’re just as “post reproductive”, but no one is telling them to rearrange their lives.

There’s a difference between helping out because you want to and being pushed into regular childcare so others can work. One is a choice, the other starts to feel like an expectation dressed up as something natural.

Not every grandmother has the same capacity anyway. Some are still working, some are exhausted, some have already spent years dealing with intense parenting. It’s not as simple as saying “this is what you’re for”.

Not everyone can afford to give up work to take care of other people's children, no matter how much they love them.

Not everyone can physically/emotionally cope with providing regular childcare for other people's children, no matter how much they love them.

Not everyone wants to provide regular childcare for other people's children, no matter how much they love them, especially when they've spent their own entire lives caring for their own children, working hard, and just trying to make it to retirement so they can finally do something for themselves in life (travel, rest, breathe).

Punishing people for any of this says shitty things about the person doing the punishing, not the people who aren't providing free childcare in their later years.

You are, of course, absolutely right. The posters who misunderstand your point are overlaying their thoughts and their situation with yours:

'I don't expect XYZ so nor should anyone else' except you've explained your DD and DS do.

'Grandmothers who won't do childcare won't have a good relationship with their grandchildren' except you've pointed out that surely that poor relationship argument also applies to non childcare giving grandfathers.

You're absolutely spot on. Because of the cost of childcare I completely understand why your DD and DS are looking to you for childcare. If all childcare was 100% free, would they be guilt tripping you into providing 'free childcare'? Of course it's only free to them because it's you taking the hit on your salary. And realistically you'll be taking them on days out, snacks, lunch etc so it will end up costing you to look after them.

You have my sympathy.

Oh, absolutely. And don’t get me started on the way daughters are expected to be carers for elderly parents, too! Despite having a full time job and my own child I was somehow expected to be a full time carer to my (absent when I was growing up!) father! (I was more than happy to visit, organise his housing and help him every other week - but this was treated as if it didn’t count!)

None of the sons in our wider family had this pressure. There’s so often an assumption that women’s jobs and lives are unimportant unless they are in service to other family members.

Really? Currently 91% of the poll says YANBU so that indicates a societal problem not just my adult child problem.

Bravo !

They all sound very sexist
Including your dh who now needs to step up if you are being made to feel guilty

well said

The expectation is not feel like the kids are a burden. My mother didn’t want to help with my kids. I loved spending time with my own grandmother and wonder of she would now be mortgage free if she didn’t have the help from her mother. I feel like she missed out, but my mother didn’t have to work and I do understand some grandparents are still working and not able to, however its the explanation of kids being a burden that hits a nerve for me.

There we go with the guilt tripping crap.

I best get cracking on, give up my job, have a lot less income just so GC will care about me.

Ok your missing my point. They’ve defaulted to asking you because they don’t see him as being able to provide childcare, because they didn’t see him doing it as kids. Would you want to leave your children with someone you didn’t think was capable of looking after them?

The second bit I know you know the reason - I’m saying actually ask them because it will get them to challenge their thinking. I’m not saying to ask because you want the answer. Or maybe it won’t if you didn’t pick up on that…

Unless you speak to them and get them to challenge their way of thinking, it won’t change. But honestly, by allowing your husband to get away with not doing his share of parenting, what do you expect? I’m glad the younger generations are making it less acceptable for childcare to purely be the woman’s work. But we still have a long way to go.