To not understand attitude on here to grandparents helping with childcare

[WhenWillThisEverEnd]

I see so many responses to posts on here from people saying that mums are ‘entitled’ to expect childcare support from their DMs. My mum helped with with my children when they were young and looked after them twice a week when I was working. she could have said I am enjoying my retirement and too busy travelling but she loves me and her grandkids and wanted to support us.
she now has quite severe health needs and can’t drive. I have to support her a lot which impacts on my life and work. However I don’t begrudge it for a minute as I am paying back her kindness - we are a family and support each other. I do not think it is entitled to expect support. You don’t just stop being a parent when your children reach 18.

People fall into all camps on here in my experience. Those like you, which is what I hope to have with my children, and those like me who had zero help from their mum and don't have a relationship with them at all.

I totally agree. There are a lot of bitter people on this site.

I don’t think I’m bitter nobody helped us with childcare. We managed and it has perks not relying on family.

However, that probably is why it sounds like CFuckery to me when people expect childcare from their parents - usually the Mum…

100% agree with you. I do feel that apart from exceptional circumstances one should help close family. I DO owe my parents as they are my parents and I love them. That’s enough reason.

I find it confusing as well. You don’t stop being a ‘tribe’ when you turn 18. I fully expect/hope to be a very helpful and involved grandparent if my kids (3) have children. The disconnect some grandparents feel is shocking to me - I do wonder if they expect the same response when they grow frail.

But it is “entitled” to “expect” childcare.

I say this as someone whose mother has been extremely helpful over the years with my DC, but there was certainly no “expectation” from my side that she would do it.

Agreed.

Agree. It is seen with money as well.

My parents are boomers as are my friends parents.

Mine helped me with my house deposit - they had made a lot of money on their house they bought for 50 pence afterall. 😂 My friends parents had also made lots of money, but it was a big "F U. It's our money and we are going to sit on it". My friend couldnt get on the ladder while i could.

I found it really weird - why wouldnt you help your kids like that if you could?

I don't have children, so no skin in this game, but I think it is about "social norms". All my friends - who now have adult kids - had moved away from the parental home by some distance, for either university or careers, so when the kids came along they could have easily be living a couple of hundred miles away from grandparents (and I would have been the same). So there was never any expectation of childcare, as it was totally impractical. They all expected to pay for childcare, which is what they did.
Now those parents are becoming the grandparent generation, and the now-adult kids have moved away themselves. So, again, childcare won't be happening. It's an alien concept to all of us to think that successive generations of a family might live in the same town.
But I agree that any expectation of childcare is unfair - grandparents deserve to just enjoy the relationship, not be unpaid skivvies.

I was a sahm so didn't need any help but Mil wanted to have her grandkids over because she loves them. I have two dc so they each took their turn and now as teens are very close to their grandmother and still go over to see her often. She never saw it as work (even though it is) - for her it gave meaning to her life and made her happy spending time with them. We're lucky to have her in our lives.

I do think that one shouldn't expect help, but I think depending on the circumstances it's understandable to feel hurt if it isn't proffered, in exactly the same way that one might be upset at not getting a present for a milestone birthday (in a family wherein birthdays are usually marked with presents), even though we shouldn't really expect anything.

It relates also to what people had growing up, as alluded to by PP. If you grew up going to your grandparents' house every weekend, you'd be annoyed if your parents suddenly had no time for your kids, given the help they had when you were a kid.

I do not think it is entitled to expect support. You don’t just stop being a parent when your children reach 18.

I agree that you don't stop being a parent when they reach 18, but equally, grandparents don't have any part in their adult child's decision to have children and they're not responsible for them.

So adult children need to be realistic about the support that grandparents can offer. I hope that I can help out if I become a grandparent, but it shouldn't be "expected." If mine have children in the next decade, for example, DH and I will still be working so we won't be able to offer much childcare.

So, to be entitled to support from you children in old age, it is not enough to birth them, to feed and clothe them, pay for their university, support them when they can't find a job straight after uni, pay for their hobbies whilst they are at school, drive them to their hobbies, help them with homework, fill out applications with them, etc. etc.? We need to be nannies to their children too, for you to support us and 'not to begrudge helping us in our frail age'? Priceless. Classic.

This
We had to move hundreds of miles away to London for jobs.
When we had our DC, our mothers were caring for their parents. Our DC's childhoods were a combination of nanny, sahm and au-pair. Grandparents helped in emergencies but were a day away.

DH and I are mid 60s, we have one 8 week old grandchild, but they're thousands of miles away. DH and I are also looking after our very elderly mothers, from a distance, and working.

The DC have properties, no student loans, and we will happily contribute towards childcare, it's quite a good tax wheeze out of spare income. However, I do not want to be committed to regular childcare from 8am to 6pm. I've worked for 40 years and the next ten are mine and DH's time. We would of course help at the drop of a hat in an emergency. We just want to be grandparents, not childcare. Also, we are ten years older than our parents were when GC came along.

I am.sorry if people find that strange.

Honestly I probably am a little bitter no-one ever helped me with childcare my mom never helped I had to beg her to watch my daughter so I could have a smear test when she was a toddler (not in nursery or school) my mom cancelled the day of so the dr did it while she was cranky in her pushchair behind a curtain ive had nurses hold her while ive been to hospital appointments and I need to be weighed by the time I had my second I had stopped asking for occasional emergency support she has never babysat so I can work or socialise or even do the shopping my kids are nearly grown now and don't know her at all

It must be very nice if you have parents that are the combination of the right age, local and interested to be involved in family life.

A lot of families don't tick all 3 boxes.

Family childcare was never going go be in the equation for us and that's OK.

I'm not falling over myself to do elder-care, but that's not tit-for-tat about childcare, it's an awkward combination of distance, being at a busy life stage, and the practicalities of dealing with someone with a difficult personality who is now facing the consequences of many poor choices over decades.

Lots of people don’t live near their parents.

possible over example: my mum lives in Lancashire and my brother lives in New Zealand. Clearly she isn’t going to be helping.

@HollyhocksandPeons I agree. We had very little parental support when our children were young, but DH and I are happy to help our parents (in their 80's) now. It's got nothing to do with whether they helped out with our children!

And yes I do have a dad he did babysit occasionally especially after he retired he is dead and my children are devastated but my moms refusal to help out in a blue moon was actually hurtful she had a lot of help from her family and in laws when I was growing up she was just very VERY angry that people expected her to have anything to do with her grandchildren

I think that it’s absolutely normal for grandparents to look after their grandchildren for the occasional day/evening/weekend. I think that I would feel quite upset if my parents wouldn’t do this, obviously with distance, free time and health issues allowing. My parents have only looked after my children on a very few occasions but this is because we live far away, I know if we lived nearby they would have loved to have them often.

I think that expecting your parents to become your free childminders is another thing entirely. I’m sure that lots are quite happy to do a day a week or a few school pickups but it’s such a huge commitment and when you’re depending on them to look after your kids so that you can go to work then it’s so hard for them to say ‘actually we’re not feeling great today can we give it a miss’.

I must admit I’m jealous of people who get help with childcare. We have no family close by / able to help so my husband and I have never had an evening off or night off together in seven years. I do sometimes feel jealous of friends who have a weekend away or even a night out.

I don't think it's entitled at all, but I think some people don't actually look at their parents properly and realise their expectations are too much. Many of my friends have parents in their 70s/80s and expect them to do nursery aged care, full days, multiple times a week, or getting school aged children ready for school, and doing the school run later the same day - while not noticing their parents are getting more tired and less capable. My children have one grandparent - I want him to feel he can have fun with the kids when he wants to see them, rather than being tied to times and full days and naps and meal times etc.

And bless you for that - v.rare for MN, where parents are expected to 'give', 'give', 'give' at all times. I get so angry when I read posts like the OP's post - but it is personal. Never had the chance to thank my Dad properly for everything he did for me, all I wanted to do what to graduate from uni, get a job, earn and send him on a proper holiday, but he did not live long enough. Would never inflict my dc on my mum - after the difficulties she had, working all her life, hard physical work. We managed somehow and only presented our dc to their grandma supervised by us, well behaved and reverential to her. This utilitarian approach, exploiting this 'love for grandchildren', as if it is not possible to love your grandchildren without having to be their servant or nanny.

Never had a day’s help from my parents with DS. He’s now 12. My mother told me, when I was about 13, that she didn’t want to be a grandmother, so as far as she’s concerned, she isn’t.

I had, I guess, the worst of both worlds. My DM had zero interest in helping me with childcare. She loved my DCs but didn’t look after them alone at all. I always had to be there doing the mundane bits & she would do the nice “treaty” bits.

However, when DM became seriously unwell, I was the one looking after her day in day out whilst looking after an autistic teenager, a 10 year old & a newborn baby. DM used to resent DD coming to her chemotherapy appointments because it meant I’d take DM in & then go for a walk with DD & come back. She wanted me to sit with her throughout as other patients’ daughters were. DD was 6 weeks old & breastfed when chemo started. She was allowed on to the oncology unit but not actually into the room where treatment was taking place.

I have always made a very conscious effort to parent very differently.