AIBU to wonder why some grandparents avoid helping with childcare?

[oldFoolMe]

Genuinely curious why as a grandparent, you wouldn’t want to help if you could.
Firstly i am not a grandparent and can only speak of my own experience.
My father got made redundant at 60 so took an early retirement.
He adored my children, said it was an absolute blessing that he had a chance to spend time with them. He worked and commuted his whole life so he said he was making up for lost time as he wasn’t able to spend that time with us as children. He was so helpful and my children had an amazing bond with him until he died.
My mother however explained that she had given up her life to bring us up (didn’t gave us until she was late thirties), and now she wanted to do what she wanted to do and that did not involve small children. Her mother helped with childcare and she was able to work and again we had a real special bond with our grandmother. We used to pop round regularly to see her long after the childcare stopped. My grandmother was great and had excellent stories and we learnt so much from her. She taught us how to cook, and helped my mum with housework.
Now my mum is approaching 80, she’s lonely and surprised that my own children don’t pop round, but they don’t have the same bond.
She expects the same help that she gave her mother, but working full time the weekend is the only chance I have to catch up on housework and quite honestly I’m burnt out.
Secondly with so many horror stories of children being abused in a nursery, if you were able to why wouldn’t you want to look after a child you love rather than strangers?

I rest my case..:

I don't have a problem. I am happy they can enjoy their retirement - not everyone gets to retire or gets to enjoy it.

I find it amusing that they have a go about their friends' ungrateful demanding children who demand the grandparents provide childcare, but have forgotten that they themselves were those demanding children who expected childcare from one of their parents.

At no point in my plans for children or during their gestation did I ever intend on asking my parents to be childcare. I merrily assumed (as did DH) that we would use a nursery and crack on with life.

How have I suggested that I wanted to turn my mum or either of my parenrs into unpaid servants? Are you suggesting good on my mum for turning my gran into her unpaid servant?

Have a look at the responses on the other eleventy billion threads to give you an idea.

Maybe because they’ve done their time with young children and would rather enjoy the grandparent relationship without the ties?

I do think that some parents think their children should be the most important thing in the lives of every family member and they get affronted when they aren’t.

Er, because childcare is boring, thankless drudgery and the only good reasons for doing it are that you are being paid or the children are your own.

My mum was mid 40s she was working had a younger child at home and a difficult husband she didn't need any more on her plate. So like you didn't have the time or probably the inclination.

If I was a grandparent, I would absolutely help out wherever I could. Why would I not want to help if a family member - my own child - needed/asked it and I was able to?
I understand grandparents don’t want to do full time child care in their retirement - I’d not want to commit to all day every day - but those that won’t even help out when they are able are really a mystery to me.

They are your own - your own grandchild. I was lucky then that my grandmother liked me.

Me too - i get it if you don’t have the capacity be it working or no energy. But why not if you could .

What do you mean "if you are all set", @Teainapinkcup ?

I work hard, like you most likely do. My choice of career however has allowed me to pay for childcare options.

What I think is really happening is that the unspoken thing in British society today is that women with children who aren't high earners, rely on unpaid childcare from grandparents.

The same grandparents who, 40 years ago, were around when Thatcher changed the dial from a wages economy, to a "house prices" economy.

Which leaves us in a mad situation where

• Some people have been given house deposits by their parents, had children, but wages are low enough that they still want MORE from their parents and 'require' childcare to maintain the standard of living they expect
• Some people aren't happy with their life compared to others, and in order to go out and do the things they feel entitled to do, they want to palm their kids back on to their parents, so they can live the life

I know and it’s not my husband with the expectation either. I don’t work. My MIL & SIL have fallen out and at a family party his aunt collared me and said we can see she needs more help and it wouldn’t hurt me to take her shopping once a week. I live a 45 minute drive away! I did say she could get her shopping delivered but she wants to get out the house so buys her shopping every few days. She just said she needs the help and that my hubby is her son. The annoying thing is my MIL has actually done a lot for her in the past few years and I think it’s a damn cheek that she should then expect this off me. She owes her more than I do.

Oh my god what is wrong with people? After a gazillion threads about this this week, the answer (if you can't be arsed to read the multiple identical threads which, quite frankly, you should have) is that grandparents might still work, or they are too elderly, or they live far away, or they just don't fancy it. There is no obligation to look after grandkids, especially in a full time 'commercial' capacity, so you save on money on a nursery. Why on earth do you think they should? And, as I've said before, back in the real world plenty (most) people have wonderful grandparent/grandchildren relationships that last for years based on just weekend visiting/monthly lunches out/zoom calls/yearly stays. Seeing each other whenever we can as a loving, normal family, with ups and downs. You don't need to provide full time childcare (or even a set day a week) in order to have a good relationship with your grandkids; nor do relationships formed through regular childcare in the early years necessarily equal good, long-lasting ones. How difficult is this for you to understand? Jeez

When my kids start having kids, I'll still be almost 20 years from retirement age

I wonder why so many parents try to avoid paying for childcare for their own children?

I’m going to have to work full time until I’m 67 to pay my mortgage so that pretty much counts me out for any childcare. Fortunately DS and his girlfriend seem more interested in travelling and enjoying themselves than they do in having children as, if I’m totally honest, I find kids quite dull and annoying.

Surely you’d want to help your own mum?

this again.

I have put in the hard yards raising children. I want to enjoy my life. Grandkids are not a chore and i won't ever ever ever agree to restrict the my retirement by agreeing to a childcare schedule.

Can you clarify what you mean by caring for grandchildren though? Are you talking about babysitting, having DGC to stay in holidays, staying over so their parents can go out or go away for a weekend, coming round in an emergency, occasional school pick-ups? Or are you talking doing set days a week every week while the parents are at work?

Because I'd be happy to do the former, but not the latter, and I wouldn't ask my mum to do the latter either. I wouldn't want to get into an unpaid childminder/employee situation with close family.

A fair old amount of women in their 50s and 60s are still working, sometimes choice, sometimes financial necessity . There are more single /divorced people around in this age group . People often don’t live near family , some simply don’t want that tie week in week out, it’s a very mixed picture

I was a SAHP.
My parents are amazing and have always loved and been involved with all their grandkids but never did any regular childcare.
None of mine went to daycare/nursery as I was at home, and for some of those years we were not in UK. I would never have expected my parents to do it. Either I did it, or they would have gone to nursery.

My kids have a wonderful relationship with grandparents, nothing to do with whether or not they did childcare.

My youngest is now 18 (and is autistic so has needed a lot of support), I am slowly ramping up what I am doing at work so that I can really enjoy the last few years at work. I would be really unwilling to take on any regular childcare once they start having kids.

As well as work, my parents are now mid 80s and needing more and more suppport.

When I was a kid, very few grandparents did the childcare, that was mostly because very few mums worked long hours. It is yet another thing that is dumped on women's plates. Oh you need to be a perfect parent, work full time and now just when you thought you might be able to prioritise yourself, look after grandkids (and don't forget the aged parents) Honestly it isn't hard to understand.
Your kids. Look after them yourself.

Of course I want to, but I have a limited capacity to be able to.

As so many people have said on other threads, @oldFoolMe - grandparents have a range of reasons not to want to do childcare.

For a start, there is a massive difference between the energy you have as a young parent and the energy you have as a 60-something. I had no problems chasing round after three energetic kids when I was in my 30s, but it is very different trying to do that when you are in your 60s. I have known people who were doing pretty much full time childcare for their kids, and it was seriously impacting their health and wellbeing.

Many 60+ people are still working - the state pension age has gone up, so they need to work, to keep a roof over their head and food on the table - they probably can’t do childcare in their time off.

Grandparents have done their time raising their kids, and frankly we deserve to be able to take things a bit easier now we are older, instead of working ourselves to a shred looking after the grandchildren.

Also, as many posters have said, the worst judgement falls on the women who aren’t stepping up to do the childcare for their kids - the men pretty much get a pass.

Every family has its own circumstances. I can think of loads of reasons you might not help from your children being very particular about lots of rules and making you feel like they don’t trust you to not wanting to be tied to always having to be around for a specific day. They might just really not enjoy the care of very young kids (which isn’t to say they wouldn’t be awesome with older ones). They might find they get really anxious at idea of something going wrong. There will be dozens of reasons. In your mum’s case it sounds like she spent a good portion of her life carrying the domestic/mental load and she was very happy to let your dad take some of that on and claim a bit of me time. My parents always split things fairly evenly when we were kids and have done the same now they help with grandkids.

I do understand what you mean as knowing the relationship I built spending so much time with my grandparents and the ones my kids now have with my parents I’d want to ensure I found ways to spend regular time with any grandkids I eventually have and feel like doing some childcare, assuming I’m able, is likely the easiest way to manage that. Not everyone has that same experience though and even if they did not everyone will want to replicate it.

Why are you blaming your mum for the fact you have to work full-time? Most of us have to work full-time, it's pretty much down to house prices, lack of wage growth and a poor economy. Blaming your mum because she wouldn't give you free childcare is a bit pathetic.

Because they do not want to? They do not enjoy it? They want to do something else? Can you really not imagine any reason at all? Even with all these replies? You may not agree with it but can you really not imagine it?

Given that the retirement age is heading towards 67, so many grandparents are working and bloody tired by that time in life they maybe do not have the energy or the time to offer regular child care. My mum was only late 50's when I had my child and retired at 60 and she was a great help but on her own terms and I respected that. She had worked for decades and brought up 3 kids so she had more than earned her free time. She died while stlll in her 60's so only got a few years to live life on her own terms.