to think some women feel entitled to free childcare from their DM/MILs just because they had help themselves?

[timetoban]

I’ve noticed this more and more lately on MN. Some women seem to assume that because their own mum/MIL head help with childcare that they’re now automatically owed the same from their DM or MIL. Why?

Just because one generation chose (or was able) to help doesn’t mean the next one is obliged to step in. Circumstances are completely different now. A lot of grandmothers are still working, have their own lives, health issues or don’t want to be tied into regular childcare. That should be allowed without guilt, expectations or criticism.

What bothers me is the expectation. I've seen people get annoyed or even fall out with their DM/MIL for not doing regular pick-ups and committing to regular childcare.

There is also a double standard. The pressure seems to fall much more on grandmothers than grandfathers. Even if a grandfather is retired and not working, the expectation is not there or much less for him.

Of course, if grandparents want to help and everyone’s happy with the arrangement, that’s great. I am not talking about those situations.

Also I know it is not ALL women.

I think people get annoyed when grandparents ask to spend time with grandchildren, but only on their own terms / when it suits them. Or they offer to babysit and then rescind it because they get a better offer.

I dont have children so zero skin in this game but: I suspect life for mothers today is A LOT tougher than it was for grandmothers in terms of work and finances. A lot of that is down to political choices made my the grandmothers generation. I sort of feel they owe it to their daughters if they can

I do think it's a bit weird when people complain that they don't get "access" to grandchildren if they don't babysit. Plus threads saying that you're 100% responsible for children in grandparents' house etc.

Prior to having my son, we'd see in laws every 3-6 weeks, no regular schedule. They wouldn't dream of not seeing their darling grandson for that long and provide regular childcare now, with MIL also getting to have lunch with her own son every Friday.

If my parents or in laws expected us to see them every weekend, whilst also assuming full responsibility for our son, I'd tell them to get to fuck, we have our own life and plans. I'm not some kind of grandchild concierge.

Fortunately our families don't have this weird concept of access to grandchildren where it's done solely for the benefit and convenience of the grandparents.

Well, I’ve never expected (or had) any help with childcare from my own mum or MIL. Dh and I have always done it all ourselves with paid childcare.

But I do think it’s a bit off to not at all acknowledge what a privileged life you had never having to pay £1200 a month for childcare or worry about taking a day off with a sick child or having to fill an entire summer with activities and childcare.

My mum went back to work when I was 3 months old. My grandparents had me full time 8-6 5 days a week from 3 months until I started school close to 5. Then I was with them all school holidays until 12. And they did the afternoon school run every day, fed me dinner and my mum picked me up at 6. I usually stayed for a sleepover one weekend a month too, sometimes more.

I loved my grandparents. They were truly wonderful people. And they 100% shared the load. My grandfather did all the school runs. He taxied me around everywhere. He taught me carpentry and how to build a model railway. He was totally as engaged as my grandmother was. Really I spent more time with them and was closer to them than I was my own parents. I don’t think grandparents owe anyone childcare, though I will certainly be happily providing it for mine if they live close enough and I’m able.

But what I think I would have appreciated was an acknowledgment of how much harder I had to work to build a career and a secure future for my family doing it all on my own. There were a few times in the early years when my mum asked what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday, and I said honestly, nothing, but I’d be grateful just for whatever you’d spend on a gift just in cash so we can pay for nursery and have a bit of a buffer this month. There was definitely some tutting and eye rolling and telling friends about how we can’t afford our child and she had to rescue us. 🙄 I wanted to shout at her, you had 12 bloody years of free childcare! I’ve never had you look after my child one day so I could go to work! My eldest is 13 and she still never has. 😂

It’s the hypocrisy that bothers me a bit. The lack of acknowledgement of how privileged it is to have full time childcare on tap. I wouldn’t actually want my mum or my MIL providing regular childcare. And I say our mums only because our dads both died before we even met. But I could do with an acknowledgement that I had to work a lot harder to do things myself and take a lot longer to do things like buy our first house because we didn’t get everything handed to us for free. That acknowledgement isn’t really there, I’m kinda treated like a spoiled entitled child (I am NC with my mum now for totally unrelated safeguarding reasons), but this is how she talks about me to friends. Actually, of anyone in the family, I’ve been quite independent, certainly more than she was at the same stage.

There are certainly a number of threads on here where the poster expects their mother or mother in law to provide regular care.

This has been done on here at least twice in the last week alone, we get it.

Exactly, why are there so many threads on this at the moment?

I think whether gets new and current mums annoyed is the expectation that they need to bring up a family, hold down a job and foster and maintain grandparent connections.

It is repeatedly said and acknowledged that changes over the last decades haven’t ment that women can have it all, rather that they need to do it all.

We have stories about new excited grandparents wanting to turn up hours after labour with no thought as to the new mother wishes. We had a poster recently asking how she could stop her mother coming to stay immediately after giving birth and was told by one how about offering her 2 weeks instead.

Many of us completely get grandparents not wanting to offer childcare. But then resent that they then want to see grandchildren 2, 3 or 4 times a month- which takes up valuable family time from the nuclear unit and is a big proportion when balanced again in-laws, other friends and when most parents are both working full time.

We then hear many grandparents asking for sleepovers or to take the kids on big fun trips on their terms when they have done both previously to show that they are responsible, know the child’s routine or can be trusted with sole care.

I think there is a huge level of entitlement amongst grandparents in many cases. And at the very least very little understanding on how much pressure societal shifts have put on women in recent years.

Oh dear

the women who are of the age to be grandmothers today (age 40s to 60s) had much much less maternity leave and pregnancy rights

Typically in the 80s 90s and early 00s you had no more than 8- 18 weeks off and none of it was full pay compared to a lot of employers giving 6 months full pay and up to a year off

career breaks after maternity leave were rare and women were treated with contempt if they had a child care issue. It was very commonplace that employers and colleagues expected them to take mat leave and then just resign.

no financial help with childcare. Very few nursery options
No emergency care days in contracts. No paternity leave. No breastfeeding rooms or working from home.

This is not that long ago up to early 2000s and most women becoming grannies now will remember this.

it was THESE WOMEN and their mothers before them who fought for the better conditions mothers today enjoy

Migration from Gransnet. They are setting out their stall here.

It's the hypocrisy that's frustrating people I think. "We didn't have help either"... Yeah right. I must have imagined all those holidays with gps then...

Also i don't get why there would be a specific focus on MIL or mums, granddads are as useless as grandmothers.

And no one in their right mind would blame someone working for not helping with their grandchildren.
I don't know where you get that grandparents are more likely to work now, boomers are actually the last generation of grandparents that are unlikely to work in their 60s.
None of grandparents on either side of our families work. They all retired in their 50s, with good pensions and own their home.

1 of them has watched our kids for 1 day in 4.5 years.

Obviously, if grandparents are still working or have an illness or disability they won't be able to provide childcare to their grandchildren and shouldn't be made to feel guilty.

If grandparents are retired or, in some cases, were SAHMs who didn't go back to work and their adult children were regularly cared for by their grandparents, it's rather hypocritical of them to categorically refuse to do any childcare at all, even in emergencies. If they then complain that they don't see enough of their grandchildren or if they go on social media pretending to be grandparents of the year, they are being very unreasonable.

Of course they can do exactly what they want but they can't complain when it has a negative impact on their relationships with their adult children and their grandchildren.

In my family everyone is responsible for their own children. There’s no childcare babysitting arrangements like I read about on MN. I find it fascinating but really weird. As far as I know my families been like this for four generations at least. We love each other. Would definitely help in any emergency but all stand on our own feet day to day.

I think there are certainly a great number of people on MN who think they are entitled to childcare, yes. Whether that is because the previous generation had help, I don’t know. Because, I don’t know if they did!

What I do know is that my parents didn’t have any childcare help because we didn’t even live in the same country as any of my grandparents. And then amongst my peers, it was quite common that the mothers stayed home (I’m mid 40s) so a lot of childcare wouldn’t have been needed. Any mothers who did work were usually nurses, and the nature of nursing (shift work, easy enough to find part-time work) often means that childcare is easier than it is for someone working a full-time 9 to 5 job, as many do these days.

For us, we just help each other. And yes, there is an expectation that the rest of the family will pitch in with childcare, and that is based in the fact that you have always been part of looking after other people's kids, but it isnt as simple as "my granny did it so my mother has to do it for mine".

I'm the 2nd youngest. My mother's grandmother took care of me and my siblings a lot when I was younger. Then she got older and, and my grandparents retired and moved in with her. Then my grandparents looked after GGM, and the three of them (GPs & GGM) looked after all us kids (cousins too) when our parents worked or whatever. By that time, my nephews and nieces were showing up.

The older kids were like middle management, so they had some responsibility to the youngers and making sure they didnt get injured or make too much mess. School stuff was ready etc. So it wasnt all on the grandparents and many if the older kids obviously become young adults. They then have their kids and those youngers they watched are soon watching their kids.

We do live differently now but this is pretty much the expectation you can have. There will be someone to have your kids at least some of the time. It may not be parents or grandparents because life is different now and they work or arent around. Who can help will help, though.

I don’t expect childcare. In fact I barely trust my mother or MIL to look after my children. I do envy people who have more helpful parents, and I plan to be more helpful when I become a grandparent.

There may have been less maternity rights, but as a family you were much more likely to be able to support a household on one or one and a half incomes.

My own mother, never went back to work full time after having children, but at least through primary school most of the mums were stay at home mums or part time.

At 3:30 pick up it was always parents in the school yard, not the grandparents you see today. Occasionally through the week we would pick up friends because that was the day their mum worked, but they would reciprocate on other days of the week - not because we needed it but to make the favours fair.

Whatever you might hope or think, it does damage your relationship with your family if you don’t show some interest in supporting your kids with your grandkids. Obviously health and work situation and location all play a part. But if you never offer to babysit, ignore the kids when you see them or too busy to visit but are retired and super, super busy gardening in your lovely detached home whilst your kids work FT to buy food… then your kids might well be a bit sad. That’s a natural consequence. Of course you can make that choice. It’s just a really sad one. I don’t think anyone thinks grandparents should quit their job to be a full time unpaid nanny. It’s about showing care and love with the time you have.

Is it though? I'm Gen X and a grandmother. When I had my kids it was 18 weeks max of maternity leave (I could only manage 6 weeks each time). No Equalities Act. No childcare from grandparents. I worked during the week and my husband worked at weekends. No childcare vouchers. No working tax credit.

However, what we did have was affordable housing and utilities. This went completely sideways from 2008 (financial crash). In other words, anyone who was 18 or above then (so around 36 years old now) is as responsible as my generation for the political situation that allowed this to happen. There have been 5 general elections since 2010 and a referendum (Brexit). So, you know, this isn't just on grandparents.

@Bringbackbuffy what years are you talking about. I’m in my 60’s, had my daughter aged 31, went back to work as did the majority of my friends, we all relied on grandparents, after schoolcare and flying by the seat of our pants. We did this without any type of flexibility from our employers, there was definitely no such thing as worklife balance or mental health awareness, and at times we certainly needed both.

I am now looking after my gorgeous grandchildren twice a week but I am also taking a financial hit by going part time, unlike my own mum who retired at 60. Women today work until 67, which means less time to look after grandchildren.

I don’t think you can say someone who was 19 in 2008 was in anyway culpable for the financial crash 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Why is everyone obsessed with “boomers” on these types of threads? Boomers are now age 64 to 80. Why does everyone’s mind jump to little old boomer grannies with curlers in their hair?? Sexism and ageism

BOOMERS ARE THE GREAT- GRANDPARENTS NOT THE GRANDPARENTS!! IN THE MAJORITY OF CASES

And I hardly think a few holidays with your boomer granny amounts to reliable and sustained childcare for your mother

Today’s grandparents are mostly early GEN X and very soon even will stretch to some millennials. They will be working until 67 or 68 and the women therein will need to rebuild pensions as they didn’t enjoy the same parental and maternity rights as those nowadays

This doesnt reflect my experience at all. Im in my 40s and most of my friends have kids from babies up to secondary age with retired boomer parents (age 60s-80s).

Only 2 families i know have had regular childcare help from grandparents and in one case thats because they were axtively v keen to be involved. In the other case they were reluctant and like to moan about it, but they weren't pressured in any way and seem like they enjoy it and then complain to their friends about how put upon they are...

Myself and most of my other friends have no help at all with our childrem and have no expectations or even discussions with parents about it, we just crack on. This trope of the entitled millennial trying to constantly guilt their parents into childcare reminds me of Julia from Motherland, but it's something I've never seen in real life!

I suppose it's all down to entitlement, if you expect childcare from grandparents with a huge list of rules, lots of running about without any acknowledgement or real relationship, I wouldn't want to be treated as unpaid childcare for grandkids as its obviously a strained relationship and very difficult to maintain, with the fear of not seeing kids if parents demands not met.
Grandparents expecting kids to be woke up, taken away from fun activities for their last minute drop in are wrong also.
Times have also changed, women are expected to work to 67 easily, due to cost of living, life is far more stressful in that aspect. If both grandparents and parents are working same hours, one set of them have already raised kids and knackered. Women are older having kids too, I'm not a grandparent yet at early 50s but I could within next 30 years? My levels of energy are really going to change over that time realistically.
My parents where so involved/as much childcare as they could handle whilst both working, they where nearly 10 years younger than me now. I fully trusted them, to make good decisions without me there.
In law's, not interested, older, lots of other grandkids, favourites, wanted kids presented and removed without any involvement. Now I'm older, I understand more of how things were, but at time I just seen huge difference in involvement and obviously was better at resolving issues with my own parents without added stress.

"Boomers are now age 64 to 80."

Yeah aka standard grandparent age 😵‍💫 Unless you are from the kind of family where people have a long legacy of popping kids out in their teens, today's grandparents are mainly boomers