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?

A decision to not undertake childcare because of the years involved, level of help and responsibility is no different to the help of an elder member of the family.

In families where they don’t help out- they will look upon others to help out, so they can opt out themselves. It happens frequently. It happens in families where the example and expectations are set to put your own needs first. It’s the natural behaviour of that type of family.

Huh? Why the snark??

She says the childcare would enable her DD and DIL to work.

I know women in their 60s who have taken a big role in providing daily childcare for grandchildren. I assume they're happy to do so, because they seem happy and are certainly not forced into it. These families have the financial ability to pay someone else to do it, but the grandmothers choose to do it themselves. That's wonderful for them, but obviously no grandparent should be pressured into providing childcare if they're working or simply don't want to do so.

You'd be unreasonable to promise you'd provide childcare then change your mind after the grandchild arrived, but if you've never made that offer, you certainly don't owe it.

I was close to my grandparents who didn't provide daily care for us. If anything, not being burdened with childcare every workday probably made it easier for them to maintain a special, less stressed relationship with their grandchildren. Both ways can work.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't do it if you don't want to, and your children should stop suggesting it.

DD asked me to do childcare so she can go back to work.

DS asked me to do childcare so his DW can work.

This has got so heated - you are under no obligation to look after them. If you’re feeling pressure to do so, explain that to their parents. I am sure they’d be mortified if they realised how their request is making you feel.

9:03am

Question - are OP’s children also supposed to pick a crappy care home for their dad, or just their mum?

Either way, the parents are better earning money, building pensions and savings so they can pick their own care. Because however transactional some people see life, who knows what will happen? The DC could get jobs far away, or be unable to keep working for some other reason, or have the other grandparents move in etc etc.

So if OP and DH have their own money, they can rely less on the happenstance of their DC’s lives.

Does he not work then? Or your SiL?

I think this is very common. Maybe when you become a grandparent for the first time, you don’t think further ahead to when other grandchildren will come along. You’re carried away in the moment. As said upthread, I look after my toddler dgc once a month overnight on a weekend, despite working full time. But I haven’t really given thought as to what happens if my son and future girlfriend/wife have children. That the expectation would be the same, so it’s fair, and would be expected to offer up the same arrangement. I’m honestly not sure I would cope, either with managing both dgc, or alternating so I had two weekends a month taken up. It’s a potential minefield and I can absolutely see how it could create a problem.

It's entitled behaviour.
Rather than some people questioning if they really can afford children and childcare, their own personal wants over rule everything else and using GPs as free default childcare allows them to have children. Horseshit of 'it'll give you time to bond'. The GPs aren't getting the nice bits, they're parenting.

@Emerald95

She assumes they don't ask their dad as they need reliable childcare and he works.
But she also works so that doesn't add up.

Of course it adds up. Because the adult children are asking her to go part time or change her hours. They're not asking their dad to do that.

Jez this is the most pointless thread ever. So basically you’re pissed off for your children asking you to help with child care. When people say speak to them to say no, you say I have done. you say you’re pissed off the same pressure was not put on your DH so when people say ok suggest that this is done you say ‘oh he works away’.

So what’s the point?

Just say no. End of. Leave your kids to arrange child care, just as many of us have.

You’re allowed to have a boundary. Better to say no and keep everything clear from the beginning.

It's not for me to judge what you have agreed with your DPs. Maybe everyone is very happy with this. But I'd be wary of using it as a benchmark for what other parents should reasonably expect. In some families, GPs would feel upset, and maybe a little used, if the only time they saw their adult daughter was when she was dropping off & picking up her children.

I'd agree with your comment in your original post if you'd said instead: 'don’t expect to see or have a relationship with your grandchildren if you refuse to help at all make any efforts to see them'

Offering childcare is not the only way to help and support adult DCs (DIY, emotional support, financial support?) and not the only way to develop a good relationship with GCs. That's awful to think a GP who didn't feel up to having GCs for 2 days & overnight would be denied seeing the GCs because they have failed some kind of moral obligation. But perhaps you didn't mean that.

Quite. There seems to be very little acknowledgement in this discussion that people get old and their bodies give in. I found that I couldn’t even continue my desk-based job after 65, my neck and shoulders and hips simply couldn’t take it.

I could do exercise classes and long walks, but an afternoon looking after small grandchildren, with all of the lifting and squatting involved, is extremely demanding for most people in their mid-to late 60s, never mind later.

They sound very entitled and shouldn't have even asked given you work.

Have they even considered that (workplace allowing) all 4 parents could consolidate their hours and share childcare between themselves? Are DIL and DD even offering to have each others child when retuning to work (if part time).

I didn’t. Both my osrents were working anyway. I just paid for any childcare. 🤷‍♀️

.

Jez this is the most pointless thread ever.

Why do you keep engaging then?

@ReluctantGM haven’t read the full thread, but just wanted to add I don’t have any expectations from my mum or mil

They’ve raised their children and fulfilled their responsibilities, I’ve never asked them
to step in

This is your time for you to do what you want, don’t be pushed into anything

Many who are grandparents now did not have help from their parents in childcare. They either worked part time or not at all.

Those mentioning age are correct to do so.
There is a reason people retire. The body ages. And you cannot do what you did at 45 or even 55 when older.

Something parents will realise if they get in turn asked to take on childcare when they themselves are over 60 !

A lot of elderly people have money to support transition to being cared for in a home - usually tied up with property they live in. But many children are reluctant to see their inheritance used to pay for care home fees, so reluctantly try to do a bit of care here and there to support them remaining at home. People’s mentality should change to understand that their parents’ assets primarily should be used to pay for their care, not as something that should be protected to pass down to family. So obviously if people don’t want to help care for their elderly parent due to them not being there for dgc is fine, but they should also then be happy to release their parents’ assets for them to be cared for.

ReluctantGM · Today 16:16

Both of them work

Right but you're assuming the men (your son and son in law) work by default but the women need to find childcare for them to work. Because children are the woman's responsibility.

You're doing the exact same thing as them!

And these things are not always direct request, often just vague suggestions of what might be possible. I’ve seen this in my own family, where a great deal of interest has been shown by DiL and daughter in one grandmother’s working days, as in ‘oh, you’re free on Wednesdays and Thursdays, are you?’. Making her feel slightly guilty not to offer.