to think grandmothers are expected to shoulder too much childcare?

[catchingup1]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/24/grandparent-revolt-burned-out-childcare-birthrates

I’ve just read this article and what stood out to me wasn’t selfishness, it was how much of this seems to fall on grandmothers in particular. It feels like there is still this quiet expectation that women will just step back into a caring role, no matter their age or stage of life.

They have already spent years raising their own children, often doing the bulk of the emotional and practical labour. Then just as they reach a point where they might finally have some time for themselves, it starts again. Not always because they actively choose it, but because it is assumed they will.

I completely understand that parents are under pressure and childcare is expensive. That is real. But it does not sit right that the solution often becomes leaning on grandmothers as if their time is simply available.

There is also something about the guilt attached to it. Saying no can be made to feel like you are letting people down or not caring enough, when actually it can just be about wanting a bit of your own life back after decades of responsibility.
It feels less like a revolt and more like long overdue boundaries. Grandmothers are allowed to be more than just caregivers. They are allowed to rest, to have interests, to travel, to do nothing if they want.

AIBU to think this is not about grandparents being unwilling, but about grandmothers in particular carrying a burden that people are only just starting to question?

I know someone who went to her grandmothers every Friday to Monday. She then had 2 children, she moved back home after a few years and fully expected her mum to do the same for her. She wouldn’t and friend was furious.
As her mum said, she had no interest in entertaining a child all weekend then, same was true now.
Her gran also never worked whereas her mum worked full time and ran a business with her husband on the side so never would have the time anyway.

I think the problem is you see other people where GP are begging to have the children, but people are different. DH thought his mum would be a super involved GP as they used to have their other GC in the past - turned out it was actually his Dad who did it all and he’d passed away. His mum hated being left with GC.

Well the 80s was a different time and it would have been highly unusual for the grandads to look after the kids. In my own family's case, my grandparents were all divorced. One grandad lived abroad and the other died of cancer in his 50s so wasn't around to look after us.

Not sure why you're being so snarky about the comment about my mum getting free childcare when I don't. It seems highly relevant to your thread and all of the questions posed. Both of parents benefitted from my gran looking after us, my gran said she liked spending time with us.
If I was able to ask her for help, I'd fully expect her to as she benefitted massively from my gran's labours and it would be hypocritical of her not to do the same.

My dad still works so can't look after my kids, even if he lived nearby. I'm sure he would though.m

My mother provided care for my son, at her request. However, I then paid her the same amount I would have paid childcare.

I understand current childcare fees are through the roof. But if asking a grandparent to provide the care, offering at minimum 50% of what it would cost to have the child(ren) in daycare for the same time, seems like the bare minimum. Expecting someone to give up paid employment is totally unreasonable, unless you are prepared to pay them the same amount they would have been earning.

You're right.

It was originally 'having it all' which then became 'doing it all'

Thanks for the correction.

Both of parents benefitted from my gran looking after us,

You say that after pointing out your mum got free childcare. People just love pointing out when other women get free childcare.

If I was able to ask her for help, I'd fully expect her to as she benefitted massively from my gran's labours and it would be hypocritical of her not to do the same.

Women who get free childcare must pay it back. Meanwhile men are enjoying their retirement as it is nothing to do with them

I can't believe how many people are quitting jobs to raise grandkids. I'd be fuming if my partner quit his job to look after someone else's kid

This

I didn't ask my DM to retire to look after DD, she OFFERED! She absolutely loved having DD when I went back to work and the two of them are incredibly close now DD is 14 - their bond is something to behold

Over the years, as DM's health/mobility has deteriorated, we've lessened how much she does and our expectations of her - because I'm not a selfish twat and wouldn't ever want to put her in the position where she was doing too much and we just blithely let her get on with it

But I guess that's the problem, and some people bury their heads and let the grandparents do the lions share because it suits them....

Other Than if they earn too much there is fair more funded childcare than there ever was, so no idea why you think it’s got worse. No one I know looks after their grandchildren they all go to childminders or nurseries.

I think this is the tenth thread about grandparents and childcare in as many days.

So many of these threads it’s almost quite boring

back in the day intergenerational childcare was the norm - it’s just that now we want to have children later In life because we want holidays, careers and all the other material trappings of 2026 and so our parents are a decade or more older becoming grandparents than their parents were

we have to take some responsibility for that. We can’t have it all

What's new is grandparents having to do pre-school age childcare so that the parents can work.

I had my children in the late '80s and absolutely no-one I knew had grandparents doing this kind of childcare. Childminders were the main source of childcare, but they've largely disappeared due to Ofsted and all the extras rules involved.

Lots of grandparents might have stepped up in school holidays, but fewer mother's of pre-schoolers worked, back in the day, so there wasn't a need for the committed year round kind of childcare.

I too, spent lots of time with my grandparents, but it wasn't childcare. It was just hanging out with my grandparents. And I think some people on here are recalling that kind of time with their grandparents in a false equivalence with the kind of childcare commitment that's expected of them these days.

Preschools don’t offer wrap around care. A 3.30 pick up is middle of the day for most working people. This is why a lot of grandparents step in. This is true in my case.

Presumably your child also or step child?

What?

To clarify, when I said pre-schoolers, I meant children under five. Not children at pre-school.

When I was picking up my children from school at 3:20 (early 1990s)I don't recall ever seeing grandparents there. Just parents and childminders.
Nor when I see children coming out of school, there's loads of grandparents there, including lots of Grandfathers. So there's definitely been a big change.

Lots of people have childminders to do pre svjool
pick up. Grandparents don’t have to do it.

I suppose a lot of women end up as the default parent and it seems it continues. I wonder if it’s because proportionately more baby boomer women didn’t work and this ‘sets’ the roles.

The thing is most of us can only comment on what we’ve seen before us. My mum always worked full time, though she didn’t enjoy it. My MIL didn’t work again after kids as FIL didn’t want her to. She regrets this now.

FWIW my mum and dad looked after my first child one day a week (not the second or third as didn’t feel up to it. They offered, I didn’t ask).

It is so boring yet you still participate.

But then the parents would have to pay. Better to get granny to do it for free.

Both set of Grandparents lived a distance away from us. It’s was never expected that they would offer to help, as it wasn’t an option so we organised our childcare and put it in place.

My parents both worked so holidays help once at school wasn’t really there and my in laws retired and offered the odd day, it was difficult as they had committed to supporting my husbands brothers and sisters. It was just easier to work it out ourselves.

My parents didn’t have the support of grandparents either all still working at the time , latchkey kids and bored home alone in the summer holidays. Same for my husband they didn’t live near his grandparents.

A very small group of people lived in the world of SAHP and support from Grandparents. I come from quite a poor background so everyone was working.

Saying all that - if both my girls have children and stay close by then I would consider dropping a day to help. I remember how tough it really was when balancing young children!

Voted YABU because I don't actually know any grandmothers in real life who are providing large amounts of unpaid care for their grandchildren. I've had none myself and certainly never 'expected' it.

Also, as the oldest child, I was expected to provide my mum with unpaid childcare for my younger siblings. She also did have a lot of help from my grandparents, who I lived with for a while when she and my dad divorced. The point being, I think some baby boomers think they're being put upon to help with their grandchildren, and have conveniently forgotten all the help they had with their own kids.

Yes, there’s definitely a bias here specifically toward grandmothers. Often, it’s an unspoken expectation: “You’re a woman, so you’ll help,” even after they’ve spent their whole lives taking care of others.
And the point isn’t that they don’t want to help, but that it should be a choice, not an obligation accompanied by guilt. Setting boundaries here is perfectly normal.

Yes, there’s definitely a bias here specifically toward grandmothers. Often, it’s an unspoken expectation: “You’re a woman, so you’ll help,” even after they’ve spent their whole lives taking care of others.
And the point isn’t that they don’t want to help, but that it should be a choice, not an obligation accompanied by guilt. Setting boundaries here is perfectly normal.

Voted YABU because I don't actually know any grandmothers in real life who are providing large amounts of unpaid care for their grandchildren.

Seriously because you do not know any, that means you voted YABU??

80% of people have voted YANBU

Childminders were the main source of childcare, but they've largely disappeared due to Ofsted and all the extras rules involved.

This is true. And it is part of the problem. Gone are the days when you could make an unofficial pact with Pat across the road, or Barbara's mum who is also looking after Barbara kids for a bit of extra cash in hand or out of pure altruism.

The government felt the need to step in and regulate it. Now I'm sure part of the reason was maintaining a standard, I'm sure some children ended up coming to harm and some parents have zero awareness. But as a woman who strongly feels that systems largely regulated by women have all been co-opted by male power (including medicine and midwifery, but I digress) and big government, I suspect at least some of the motivation was extra tax revenue and diluting the female 'village' forcing them to turn to institutional childcare. Oh but they failed to replace that with childcare similar in affordability or access.

Before this system was brought in, I looked after some my mother's friends babies once a week for cash as a teen and my Aunts' two children (one a baby, one a toddler) were unofficially child minded by her neighbour, who was a university student from Vietnam My (eldest) nephew learned a few Vietnamese words as a side benefit my neighbour looked after several school children after school for a bit of side cash.

I have no idea if such arrangements are completely illegal now (I guess they are) , but if it is, perhaps we ought to reexamine if it ought to be, though I suspect the fear of god has been put into parents regarding child carers now.