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 lot of woman over 60 have only worked PT or been SAHMs. They conveniently forget that their own daughters work full-time, commute and pay huge amounts for wrap-around childcare and will likely not get the opportunity to play bingo or go on saga holidays, walk the dog, read books, sit on their arse, or whatever unemployed people in their 60s and 70s do.

So those women should take responsibility for childcare? It is the like all these women are doing it on their own - do the fathers of the children not exist at all?

I said many, which has been my experience, not all. My DP also went to classes and parties with our DS.

Hmm yes and no.

Broadly I do agree with your thread by the way - there do seem to be a lot of unfair expectations around and I see a lot of women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who end up under pressure to provide a lot of childcare, sometimes even with the explicit threat of all contact being withdrawn if they don't toe the line, or with nasty comparisons being set up in a guilt-trippy way around how much different sets of grandparents offer. It's pretty rubbish. I also find it very annoying when parents rely heavily on grandparents for childcare but are then incredibly offended when said grandparents don't entirely toe the line around how they want their children to be raised (fair enough to dictate this if outsourcing to a paid professional nanny; not so much in my view if outsourcing to a relative doing it out of love so that you can have some extra spending money). Of course there are lines that grandparents shouldn't cross and examples of individuals being unreasonable in how they undermine parents too. But thinking you should be able to dictate every detail to a grandparent providing childcare? Just no.

On the other hand I also think some grandparents seem to take the piss a bit too. For example my own dad (who is lovely and wonderful - this is me being bitchy about one issue but I do love him hugely) has made it clear that he won't provide any regular childcare as wants to use his retirement to enjoy himself, go on lots of holidays etc. So far, so fair enough. But he also complains about not seeing my DD enough and not feeling like a proper granddad. Because DH and I both work full-time, our only options are for my dad to take our DD out of her paid-for childcare to spend time with her in the week (which he doesn't want to do - doesn't want to travel or feel comfortable enough to be with her 1:1 I think) or for us to use our weekends to visit my dad so he can see our DD that way. And we want some time to ourselves as a family, and have house things to do and other relatives to see, and don't always want the 2 hour round trip to my dad's. It's like we are just expected to fit our lives around him all the time when we are the ones with more obligations!

Based on some common threads on mumsnet, we aren't alone with this issue either. I think of it as a parallel to the absentee 'disney dad' trope of the bloke who doesn't take any responsibility for the day to day things in his child's life but expects everything to be dropped for him when he does want to see them, then showers them with gifts and vanishes again. Of course it isn't as bad because a grandparent should not have to shoulder the same responsibilities as a parent and to some extent the role of being a fun treat person might be a suitable one. Annoying when parents have to bend over backwards to facilitate it though.

Your own situation does really different and you are in no way unreasonable to put clear boundaries in place. The persistent pressure you describe sounds really disrespectful and annoying.

That’s awful

I’ve made it clear to mine that my childcare days are over. I’ve been a parent my whole adult life. That is enough.
My parents have never offered childcare.
Stand your ground. Your life.

I haven’t read the full thread but I think part of the problem is that this was, in recent memory, a lot more feasible. When I had my DC in the late noughties the retirement age was still 60 for many people and more mothers worked part-time, so it was more about filling in the gaps than providing full weeks of childcare, which I think is a huge imposition on anyone.

But fundamentally it is all about how you treat someone. My own MIL has been a huge help to us but I have been very careful to make sure that she is also included in the high-days, celebrations, events and holidays of family life. For example, we brought her on holiday with us long after she was providing any kind of childcare support. She is single and quite reserved, so would have been very unlikely to travel otherwise.

I think there are more expectations of grandmas for sure and that hopefully could change - just very, very slowly. I do know grandads that do childcare nowadays.

As it happens my kids never would have expected me to do this, but I think as I have been a single parent most of their lives and worked most of their lives and obviously still need to do so - therefore their environment and understanding of how I live meant they already knew it wouldn’t be viable I think. However one of my grandkid’s other Gran was definitely expected to ‘help’ - my daughter used to try and refuse mostly, but her partner was ‘oh my mum will have them’ so casually and so do his brothers. She was always married to their Dad and was very much the one who did/does all child and house stuff, although she always worked too and there’s always been that expectation of her - in some circles she may be considered the proper type of gran and I’m not. But for me they’re the old fashioned circles - she lives in a very traditional type area.

She does love having them but I’ve heard her wonder what about her own time and she’s tired a couple of times.

I will babysit and just helping a bit these holidays - it’s so exhausting when you’re older tbh though I enjoy it too - and think they do lol! But too much care and it would also no longer be as fun and my personal relationship with each of them would be altered by regular care - not necessarily bad or good that though.

My own Nan supported my Mum and when I learned I was to become a Nan I felt I wasn’t old enough, secure enough, retired enough ha! to be the Nan I had - of course it’s so different nowadays - my Nan never worked after marriage for instance. I will just say my parents never had my kids - they had their own life, which I’d always understood - but for some reason I still imagined me morphing into my own Nan when the time came - I didn’t! Interestingly my grandad also helped with school pick ups, appointments and general care - as he was born in 1908 I think today’s men should surely have come around to being a useful human and involved like the women!

Honestly Op if you work full time why are they even asking?

Unless they are also offering to make up the difference of wages lost in working less hours?

Neither of my grandmother's ever looked after me and yet we had a very close loving relationship, right up to their death when I was in my 20's.
I don't believe the two are necessarily connected.

think it’s up to you what you do but don’t expect to see or have a relationship with your grandchildren if you refuse to help at all

Guilt-tripping bullshit. The closeness of the relationship totally depends on the people involved and not how much free childcare a grandmother provides.

My family is extremely close to my kids despite living on a different continent.

Totally agree. I actually just posted on another thread this morning that for some people grandparent support = committing to regular, long term, unpaid childcare and nothing else will do!

The idea that if GPs won’t sacrifice their time and energy (and in the OPs case her earnings 😮) then they should be sidelined and expect nothing in old age is just horrible.

Like others have said, I'd agree best to have a proper sit-down chat and clearly say that you don't want to and can they refrain from future requests. BUT keep it friendly, remember to smile, (and you could add that you could sometimes maybe do a one-off when it suits YOU. You don't want to accidentally shut doors or risk being shut off from good times with the kiddies. )

You are absolutely not being unreasonable and I completely agree. We have one DD and are quite lucky we have flexible jobs and don’t need to use the grandparents for daily things like pick up etc. what’s great is they can do it when they want, there’s no pressure. I know this isn’t the same for everyone though but I know so many people who have children and just presume their parents will provide childcare. Stay strong - say you can’t afford to go part time and suggest times you can have the kids sporadically rather than expectantly.

What pressure? I said nobody should be expected to dedicate time to regular, set childcare whilst parents work. To be honest I think anybody who has this from grandparents is extremely lucky.

I also said that grandparents are within their rights to refuse to provide any help at all or ever have one-to-one time with their grandchildren, but of course the relationship just won’t be as close. That’s just facts, not pressure.

My own parents made it clear they wouldn’t be providing free childcare for me whilst I was working and that was fine, no pressure. However, they like to take my (primary age) children on days out, are happy to have them over for sleepovers every now and then, offer to do the occasional school run or have them over for an afternoon. They genuinely get joy from this because they enjoy having grandchildren and being grandparents.

Say no and don't feel guilty about it.

Applies to both. We don’t see FIL at all since he doesn’t bother with the kids. We see my parents and MIL because they do

You need to be firm and direct at this point.

"Yes, childcare is expensive. Life is expensive. It's why I'm still working myself to pay for it and so I have a proper pension down the line. And I'm a lot closer to retirement than you are. If you really think going part time or giving up work entirely to provide childcare is feasible financially, then YOU do it. I can't and I won't."

You don't need to justify this at all. "I have a job; I'm not looking for another" should be a once only conversation.

I had a close relationship with all my grandparents but my relationship with the GM who did lots of childcare was different. If I talk about my granny it is her I'm talking about. I loved and respected my other GM but it was different.

Also add this applies to BOTH my parents equally. My dad is just as hands on as my mum when they look after my kids.

There is a pressure from some entitled adult children for there own mothers to give up there jobs, income and stability to stay home and care for there grandkids. Its a ridiculous sense of entitlement and totally unfair. My mother is retired and I still wouldn't expect her to look after my kids. Keep saying no, stand firm and remind them you have financial obligations, they are not your children and you will not be giving up your job to care for there children.

Hi, I’m a daughter/DIL, and I thought I might add a different perspective for you to consider. I have two young kids, one is 2 and one is 7 months old. When we were looking at childcare and me going back to work, we soon realised that if we used a paid setting, i.e. nursery, even with the “free” childcare hours and tax free childcare, my salary would be spent on paying for childcare (and yes I completely understand it was our decision to have children but costs are extortionate). So we approached my MIL and asked her to look after our kids and we would pay her for doing so as it would mean giving up her job. We also told her that if she said no, it really wouldn’t be an issue, we would just have to relook at our options. Now I do appreciate that not all people want to give up their job to look after grandchildren but luckily my MIL was overjoyed to be able to do so. We cover her previous salary which has actually worked out cheaper for us. My kids do also go to nursery and take advantage of the schemes available. But they don’t go full time so it doesn’t cost us much. If my MIL ever came to me and said she couldn’t do it anymore, I would respect that but also be disappointed. My kids have the most wonderful relationship with my PIL and they are not the easiest kids at all! My own mum doesn’t live close enough to us to be able to help much but she would have them in a heartbeat if she could. I do think there is a middle ground if you want there to be one. However, it does rankle a little when our parents generation used our own grandparents for free childcare but a lot seem so reluctant to help in the same manner.

I do agree that there is a lot more pressure on grandmothers other grandfathers but I think some of that is down to trust. A lot of grandfathers weren’t really around much due to working when their kids were small so apart from the “fun” things, they don’t really have a clue about all the hard work. I can see it from my own FIL and for example, how distracting he can be during mealtimes, his own wife has had to tell him off on multiple occasions. So we place a lot more trust in my MIL to provide regular childcare than we do with my FIL. It’s not to say he’s not capable but when it’s your babies, you want what’s best for them. And for us that is their grandmother. I hope I have offered a different perspective for you.

As an older father, I can’t see myself doing any ‘duties’ with my grandchildren if I live to see them. I would just like to enjoy them when they are brought around to visit.

My (late) mother equally made it very clear that, except for a few hours in emergencies, she wasn’t going to do any childcare for her grandchildren.

I don’t think that there should be any obligation on grandparents to provide childcare at all. Clearly, if they are young, energetic and keen to help, that is another matter.

I do think there are a lot of people who struggle to maintain healthy boundaries, though. If you are polite yet clear and firm, no one can make you do childcare. And, if people withhold their family as some kind of ultimatum/punishment, they are just not very nice people.

I'm sorry you are feeling the pressure! You are under no obligation whatsoever. If I were you, I would tell your family, rather bluntly, so there is no room for confusion, that you will NOT be providing childcare. Even if it fumbles feathers. Maybe then they will stop asking/insinuating/pressuring.

I'd like to know where that quote came from, as well.