How much childcare do grandparents provide now compared with previous generations?

[TheCatSitterDM]

Inspired by a recent threads, i'm interested to know from current grandparents how much childcare they provide vs how much childcare they recieved as parents?

My Husband and his Cousins spent a lot of weekends and holidays at their Grandparents house as children.
My MIL spent a lot of time with my DC1 as a baby and toddler and offered to have him over night and weekends so we could have time to ourselves. After my FIL got poorly they moved abroad to a warmer climate so my DC2 hasn't had as much time with them but she is still very involved in terms of face time calls and sending gifts ect.
My Auntie in law (MILs sister / husband's cousins mum) has a "I've done my time looking after kids" attitude to her own GC and resents being asked to provide childcare.
Like I said, their mother had their children often and was also a source of emotional support such as being present at the grandchildrens births ect.
Current Grandparents do you feel you're expected to do more childcare than your parents offered you?

My grandparents lived on our street and didn’t do official childcare, but we were in and out of their house a lot.

I think they’ll be so many variables that aren’t just generational tbh.

I’m old enough to be a GP but it hasn’t happened (yet!?). We wouldn’t be able to do official childcare for any GC because we both work nearly full time, and won’t be retiring for a looong time, although would probably love to do lots of babysitting, I’m sure. My parents didn’t do any childcare bc they were quite ill and I lived far away. I guess it’s all so dependent on geography, health, retirement age…

I cared for my DM for many years before she had to go into a care home because she cared for me.

I have a much later retirement age so even if l wanted to then l couldn’t, as l will be working full time still. My dad retired at 55 and my mum retired at 62, in contrast my retirement age will be 68 or higher. Plus my husband and l are juggling 2 children and us both working full time, whereas my mum was part time for years

When I was a child in the 1980s and 1990s, my maternal GPs didn’t live nearby but helped on ad-hoc occasions, such as when my younger sister was born and when mum had to go on residential courses. We also loved spending time staying with them in the school holidays. My dad’s parents lived abroad so couldn’t help.

My mum helped quite a lot on an ad-hoc basis when my children were younger but died when they were 11 and 9. Many people in my local area have parents living nearby and I always used to see lots of GPs at toddler groups and on the school run.

My dad has babysat on the odd occasion but barring one sleepover about 9 years ago has never had the children over to his house to stay and hardly ever to visit. They forgot what his house looked like and couldn’t remember his wife. He just comes over to see us for lunch.

My DP's have always done 1 day a week of childcare for us, plus the odd emergency day and a couple of extra days in the longer holidays. My GP's lived >2 hours away and my mum didn't work for 11 years so we were never looked after by them.

My mum and MIL have probably watched our dc at most 10-15 times in 13 years. All of this has been coming to our house to spend time with them. Neither of them have ever taken them out for a day out or had them over to their houses for a sleepover. In fact, none of us have been to MIL’s house in a decade. She lives nearby. That’s another thread entirely!

My grandparents had me full time 8-6 from 3 months when my mum went back to work until I started school. Then they did all the school runs and had me after school every day til 6 and fed me dinner every night. I spent at least one weekend a month with them. They took me on holiday once a year. And I was with them all day every day for all school holidays until I was 12. I spent more time with them than my own parents!

It must skip a generation because I can’t wait to provide childcare when my dc hopefully have babies. Maybe not every day like my grandparents did, but I’d gladly have them a few days a week and for sleepovers and take them out for days out or away for the weekend. Dh and I are definitely different stock than our mums (I say mums because our dads were both dead before we had dc).

My mum died young. But up until then she'd been another mother to my DC. Always on hand for anything I needed . Saw DC everyday from birth and did everything for them I did. After her death my dad helped where he could while working full time. He'd do pick ups and the occasional babysitting at my home ( not overnight).
I work full time but do childcare around shifts. I've done overnights from birth. I take 'my turn' in taking time off to cover holidays and sickness. Basically I do all I can to provide the support I recieved, but with the restrictions of a full time job. So yes, still less than my mum.

Every family different
My grandparents lived far away so never involved.
My Mum looked after my children quite often
I look after my grandchildren regularly.
Different circumstances for each generation.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future now many women are having their first DC in their early forties. If their DC do the same there will first time DGP’s in their eighties.

Well something that’s also changed was back then people trusted their parents to care for their kids any way they wanted. Now it’s all about rules, schedules and people getting angry over dumb small things.
also back then my own GP’s had a life of a very traditional set up, so it was just normal for the GM to take care of lots of the kids.
Times have moved on. My own GP had us a lot, and we don’t want my mum to do that. She’s raised us and really should enjoy her life. I also won’t be doing any sort of regular childcare.

Then they likely wont do any childcare and hopefully their children would understand. My parents and MIL are GGPs and in their late seventies. No way would they be able to look after DGD all day and noone would expect them to.