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.

For me it’s not black and white that people seem to think.

My parents have no interest in helping, even in emergencies. I remember when my son had chicken pox mostly scabbed over and back to normal. I asked my parents if they could watch him that day as he still couldn’t go back to nursery. They said no as they had planned to paint the bedroom (they are retired and could do this any day). That’s really stung and I have various stories like this that I never ask them for anything now.

They also went 4-5 months without seeing my kids last year even though they could have.

For me it’s not a lack of childcare or helping. It’s a lack of interest in my children. It’s stings.

My PIL live too far away to provide childcare but they make more of an effort to visit/ video call etc. They seem excited to visit and I have no resentment towards my PIL but I do my own parents. Regardless if someone does childcare it’s about showing an interest in your child and wanting to help them of you are able.

My parents live over 200 miles away, my MIL died when eldest DC was very young so we’ve had zero help on a day to day basis. Am I bitter about it? I was, I’m not now though. It was the little things that frustrated me and people claiming to have no help but in the next sentence saying they were going out with their partner that weekend. In many ways the hardest thing was the strain it put on our marriage in the sense we could never go out for dinner and even just have a few hours away. We made that work though and now they’re old enough to be left for a while we can do some of those things.

My DC going to nursery never bothered me, they loved it and going to school wasn’t even a minor step for them. It was more the lack of understanding of things. So for example if you’re out and need to go the toilet you have to take the pram with you but if you’re with a parent they look after it. Those sort of unseen things that people with a lot of help just don’t understand.

It’s not a transactional competition it’s just how things pan out for obvious reasons. It’s normal to invest in relationships & for there to be give & take.

One of my friends moved to Yorkshire, the main reasons were house prices & to be closer to one set of gps. I still see her mum as she lives locally & all she does is moan that her daughter abandoned her & can’t take her to appointments & how lucky my mum is to have her dc close by. She never even did one evening of babysitting or helped them
financially in any way despite having the means. Of course my friend can’t take days off work & drive down to London to take her to the GP & why should she.

I know, it annoys me most days.
We’ve had the talk many times and it’s a loooong marriage rocking conversation with my husband who is absolutely devoted to her. She’s not a bad person - very pleasant, but too flustered and risk adverse to help with practically anything.

"I think women are resources to be used up like a worn out dishrag and I'm pretending not to understand the problem with demanding their free labour till they drop dead"

Fixed your title for you.

I think it is entitled to “expect” support, but also think it is lovely when it is offered and enjoyed. But I absolutely think that elderly parents who need help and have given children should in turn be helped.

Agree.

I was under no illusion my parents would help. DF pretty much ignored me growing up & was/is only interested in DB & his DC. DM was SAHM & didn't do anything for us (recently said it 'never crossed her mind to know where we were/take us anywhere'). So I knew she wouldn't ever skip her social outings or tv programmes to help, even in an emergency. If she did, you'd hear about it for months.

MIL did help sometimes. We didn't have a great relationship, but I appreciated it. IL's always turned up for things, too, like DS's primary school graduation (DM didn't want to skip her walking group). DM used to whine that the DC went to MIL if they were both in the same room. When MIL died DS was distraught as he'd spent a lot of time with her. He barely acknowledges my parents as he doesn't know them well. DM also complains we don't take her on holidays like her friend's DC do. I now, gently, tell her why. You reap what you sow.

We've done it alone. We are missing the free work dinner 'thank you' next week because we have zero childcare. I was always jealous of a friend whose MIL - that ran a business - dropped everything to help, had the kids almost half the time, took them to activites, paid for everything, because my SAHM friend was tired & needed a break (kids both in school).

Look, I’m all for acknowledging women as an unpaid resource, but that’s a gas 😂

It's fair and made my point quickly and effectively.

You certainly noticed it 😊

@Stickonstarsfrustrating.

Tip of the iceberg, let me assure you.
Something will have to give. Thanks for your sympathy

I think there are two quite distinct scenarios.

I completely understand why GPs might decline providing regular childcare for working parents. It's a big commitment that will limit their own freedom in the long term, and not for everyone.

I do, however, think it is very strange and quite miserable that some people think it is "entitled" to expect occasional help from GPs in an emergency or, God forbid, to allow them the odd night out. I can't imagine becoming so selfish and distant from my adult children that I wouldn't want to make their lives a bit easier from time to time.

My mum died recently too. She was in her 60s. I hear you on that.
It’s not the childcare I’m sad about, it’s just another human who would care to be interested in my kid.

It's entitled to "expect" childcare from anyone.

It's fine to ask. It's fine to say no.

Agreed. My parents and in laws never offered any help with the children which is fair enough. I’ve cared for my mum when she ended up in a wheelchair. I’m still caring for my father who is now blind. I think it would have nice to help me out occasionally as it swings in roundabouts! These grandparents seem not to understand that they’ll need help too! I’m not offering care to the In laws though.

To me it's all about give and take and being reasonable. I think expecting that a close family member will help you out with childcare for example if you have an appointment, an emergency, an unusual work trip, a wedding, you're ill etc - in those situations they are a bit out of the ordinary and awkward, it's OK to expect family to do you a favour.

People that expect regular childcare aren't expecting 'help' or a 'favour' though - if you're looking after someone else's child for a few days a week you're making a huge financial and practical sacrifice that will significantly affect how your retirement looks, how flexible you can be, how tired you are etc. To me, that goes beyond a bit of help and creates other problems - for example people who have kids on the basis the grandparents help out as they can't afford childcare and then the grandparents get ill and there is no backup at all.

I'm not applying this to cases where grandparents genuinely offer and really want to help out for the joy of spending time with their grandkids. That's different and everyone benefits. But it's clear on here that some grandparents are taken advantage of and end up agreeing to childcare that they really don't want to do because they feel obliged, because for example the other set of grandparents help out, or because they'll get the blame for their child not being able to work,, or because they helped out one of their children with childcare 20 years ago and now their other child expects the same and complains it's unfair, or because there are threats to stop contact with their grandchild if they don't comply

This post is on the back of another post where the OP admits she gets regular help from her Mum once a week for 9 hours in OP’s house. I agree that occasional babysitting because you want to and enjoy it is lovely. Expecting someone to travel to your home using their car and fuel on a regular basis, thus preventing them from ever volunteering on that day, accepting an appointment or invitation on that day or even working when times get difficult (as they are for many of us) and adhering to all your parenting rules is an entirely different proposition. In the original post OP admits that her Mum set a boundary and that she still asked her to cancel her plans! And yet the OP of this post clearly thinks that not wanting to do that for your children (and have them slag you off on here) is wrong.

I think whether adult children help out their parents in old age is more to do with their upbringing than whether they received help with childcare tbh.

If your parents were kind and loving and did their best to provide you with a stable and happy childhood, you'll want to support them if they ever need it. That's how my DH sees it anyway - his parents haven't been particularly involved grandparents, but they were very good parents to him and still are - they just didn't particularly want to do childcare!

My parents didn't want to be involved in their grandchildren's lives. I got very little actual support from them and knew not to expect any.

It was drummed into me as a teenager to never ask my mum for help with childcare and I remember those conversations clearly. That said, my mother did come and look after my older children whenever I had another baby, so it wasn't total, it just didn't extend much beyond that.

My parents showed basic interest at arm's length, such as during a weekly phone call with me. They did visit us for a couple of weekends each year and we visited them too, but other than that they just wanted to exist inside their own little bubble, which they seemed to think would go on forever. The result was that they didn't really build a proper relationship with any of their grandchildren.

Personally, I hope to strike a much better balance should I be fortunate enough to have grandchildren. I would like to be involved in their lives more and provide more of the support to my own children that I feel was largely lacking for me.

At one stage my mum who had recently retired had my nephew one day a week. This was ok but stopped when my sister in law soon became pregnant with the 2nd and said to Mum. that she should have both of them when the baby was 3 months. Mum was furious and gave them 2 weeks notice to give alternative childcare on that day. She never did do childcare apart from occasional babysitting for and more grandchildren

I'm another that doesn't understand why grandparents have to 'earn' any help they might need in later life by caring for another generation. They brought up THEIR children (ie, you), so why does giving a hand with shopping or driving them to appointments when they are in their 80s have to be contingent on them helping with children that they didn't bring into the world, that they couldn't plan for or have any say into the timing of?

I love my grandchildren but I have an unpredictable job which I will continue to do until I am physically incapable and I'm not available for regular childcare. I don't want or need 'a bond' with my grandchildren, we love each other and that's enough and I would be most put out if one of my kids told me that they wouldn't help me with something I needed them for because I didn't help them 'enough'.

I just think it’s a really sad state of affairs when grandparents who are able to, choose not to help, or “don’t want to be grandparents” - Wtf is that about?!

”Wtf is that about?!” I’m quite incredulous that you’d even need to ask this. Have you had times in your life where you didn’t want children? You were too young, or wanted to focus on your career, or enjoy travelling or wait until you had a bigger home or more income or whatever. The point is, you choose a time in your life to have children that is right for you. We didn’t always feel that it was the right time, or being brutally honest we may have had long periods where we absolutely didn’t want children but subsequently changed our minds.

Yet older people are expected to automatically want to have grandchildren at any given point no matter whether they are at a point in their lives where they are ready or able to take on childcare responsibilities. It’s double standards. Of course many do want grandchildren but there is no more wrong with a woman who says that she doesn’t want grandchildren than there is with a woman who says that she doesn’t want children.

So your title says "grandparents" but then the rest of your post shows that what you actually mean is just the female ones. That's part of the problem.

I find that absolutely bizarre. I mean, these people brought you up (usually). They fed you and clothed you and read you bedtime stories and toilet trained you and changed your bedclothes when you’d thrown up and helped with your homework. But you think they need to help you raise your own child in order to ‘deserve’ your help in old age?