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.

I'm a boomer and in my day, a lot of women married and had kids quite young (I did). I never went to University until my 40s! And I never really travelled much or built a career as I was busy bringing up my four children. I loved every minute of it.
However, now my four children are grown, (I have two sets of two children...two millennials and two Gen Z) I feel like this is my time to travel a bit and do things I put on hold. I am extremely lucky that my children totally get that and tell me that this is my time!
However...I have been doing childcare for my granddaughter and I have to say I have loved it! It has given me a lovely bond with her.
I think balance in everything!

Indeed -- apparently that's the reason we don't all die off at menopause. We only continue to exist to do childcare for the tribe. 🙄

My mum would only help in emergencies and i found that very cold. However, i supported and cared for them without any bitterness. But i would like to helping children with their children. I find the idea exciting in a way she didn't

Surely it's the opposite scenario in @Stickonstars case?

She has absolutely no help from either set of grandparents but she lives in a small house in an expensive area to remain close to her MIL for when she needs help.

Her MIL is the entitled one, not OP.

And it's entitled to 'expect' elderly care from your adult children.

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

You do realise that parents are legally obliged to care for their own children to a minimum standard? Failure to do so can lead to prosecution for cruelty and neglect and their children taken into care.

There is no such reciprocal obligation to provide care for elderly parents, especially if they haven't been great parents. No-one has to pay their parents back.

My DH and I look after the GC on a loose arrangement, usually every fortnight, after school, but it isn't relied on. We will be taking them away for 2 nights in the school holidays. It them feels a treat.
Although we are definitely tired out! They are 3 GS, all close in ages. It is exhausting work, but they are not young forever.

We like the loose arrangement as we go on several holidays a year. It works for our family.

Nope, if you're transactional - as you are - that's how it works. You definitively do owe your parents care in their old age as a transactional person.

Since you're transactional there is nothing you can offer your parents that can pay the bill you owe them for raising you. That's how being transactional works. Threatening elderly people with no care unless you can squeeze them dry means you - as a transactional person - are 100% in the wrong.

You owe them, they don't owe you.

But I'm not nuts or transactional, so I already know old people aren't owed free labour from their adult children.

Anyway, look after your own kids and stop demanding free labour from your mother. She already raised you. It's your job.

By all means expect grandparents to provide childcare.

Providing you will too when your turn comes. No excuses either.

@WhenWillThisEverEnd I get where you're coming from but, as others have said, it really does depend on your family dynamics and how you were brought up. Some families are close emotionally but also geographically - and I guess you have to be quite close geographically to offer the kind of care to gc you're talking about it. Some GP see caring for their family as something they will automatically do in retirement. No-one would have to ask. The other perspective though, is that GP have already done child-rearing, maybe still work full-time, have their own dreams and ambitions for retirement. They have far less life to live than they've already had so now's the time to live their life. I can see both sides. My DP had virtually no interest in GC. DM carried on with her gardening and shopping, travelling, and DF carried on working full time until he dropped down dead. I never resented that. They were their own people of their own generation and had their own (very strong) personalities. They'd also brought up a large family. We weren't told when our GP died so there's no closeness or expectation. If you're from the kind of background I'm from, it's easy to support the individual and their dreams, because family members were mostly people you wanted to get away from and really felt quite alienated from. Every disaster that's happened in my life, I've handled it alone. It's not that I don't need help, it's that I've learnt to live and survive without it.

Not bitter at all. My mum helped sometimes but she lives 3 hours away. She often said it was a shame but I also thought it would have cramped her style. She had her own life to live (and was still working PT in the early years anyway).

People choose to have children. They aren't thinking that those children will demand childcare for their offspring in 30 odd years time. Maybe that should be taught as part of sex education - remember kids, when you have sex, you also need toconsider if you want grandchildren as well as a baby in 9 months.

Helping out is one thing - being expected to retire to look after the children 3-4 days a week like someone did on one of the other threads is madness. If you are in your early 60s you could potentially still have your own parent(s) alive as well if they make it to their 80s/90s.

Thanks for that. My mother died when my first child was three months old so I had no 'free labour' from her.

I provide regular childcare for my grandchildren. I don't expect anything in return.

Nah. Parents can and do hand their kids over to others and walk away. Repeatedly. Happens every day, no enforcement of parenting exists. It's a choice every parent makes.

Child abuse by parents is not the discussion of course. Dumping your kids for the state or other relatives to raise is perfectly legal.

When people say parenting is your job they always only mean ethically as it can't be and is not enforced.

Which means you - as a transactional person -owe your parents even more for being one of the decent ones who chose to stay and raise you.

So anyway, stop demanding free labour from your mother. She already raised you.

So what? Your choice is your choice.

It's still never acceptable to demand free labour from your mother.

"Parents" or "mothers"?

It seems to me that fathers can bugger off but if the mother then neglects the child it's all her fault.

I realise I am digressing from the thread here.

But it's also the mothers should want to be grandmothers but nobody really cares if grandfathers step up beyond a game of football once in a while.

Funny how this does not apply to the same extent to grandfathers.

It's fine to be grateful for support. It isn't fine to feel entitled to childcare support, you chose to have kids - it's your job to figure it out.

My mum and I are extremely close but she made it clear that she wouldn't be providing any sort of regular childcare (she still works FT to be fair) she would happily do occasional evening babysitting but only if DD was already in bed and she just had to listen out.

She has however provided loads of emotional and financial support, and has a fabulous relationship with my DD.

Why on earth would I be so entitled as to demand she look after my child? That's mine and her dad's job surely 🤷‍♀️

My mum was in her 40s when I had my children and needed to work herself . By the time she retired at 59 my children were old enough to take care of themselves while I worked.
However I was a nurse who cared for my mum while she was dying of cancer .
My MIL was also in her 40s and working full time when we had our children . She had been widowed in her mid-thirties and had to support her own children . I also helped care for her when she was dying of cancer .
I believe in helping those that need my help .
Both these lovely ladies did a lot for me and my family just not child minding .

Well I see totally the opposite response on here! That grandparents have their own lives, that taking care of youngsters is a lot, that people take advantage etc etc.
However I do not like your assumptions (and yours @TheBlueKoala) that a grandparent (particularly grandmother) is happy to help because ‘she loves me and her grandchildren’ as if those that don’t help don’t love their children/grandkids?
There are many reasons why some one doesn’t want to or can’t take care of their grandchildren, and it often has nothing to do with ‘love’.
In fact your post reads that you believe that parents are ‘entitled’ to the help, and if not on offer then the relationship is flawed.
I found it hard to spend the whole day looking after my own kids, let alone doing it 30 years later! I’m not naturally maternal. I find babies boring and small children exhausting.
Im likely to be into my 70s when my children have kids (I had them in my 40s), and if fit enough will certainly be on hand (though my son lives some distance away). But I don’t foresee having them regularly for full days while my children are at work. Collecting them from school and keeping them for the afternoon is more likely; going out as an extra pair of hands sure. Having them over as well. But give meaning to my life? My life has meaning.
And I have an excellent relationship with my children (one still at home when not at uni), in fact a friend said I was too close to my daughter!
My mother lived in a different country to her mother and as she had 7 siblings there was no question (nor was it the norm) to help out. I lived in a different country from my mother the majority of the time. My in laws would not help even if I was desperate (that actually was a flawed relationship with all their children and grandkids).
I thinks it’s wonderful for kids to have a relationship with their grandparents- sadly my parents passed away while my children were quite young. I’m happy to be on hand and indulge them, but I’m not daycare.

JFC you have the thick skin, sensitivity and empathy of a rhino.

Why the hell do you keep telling me that it was never acceptable for me to demand free labour from my mum when I've just old you that she died when my first baby was three months old. Therefore I have never had any free labour from my mum. I hope that's clear now.

It absolutely is my choice to provide free childcare for my grandchildren. It was very hard for me without a mum and I want it to be easier for my adult children than it was for me.

Oh fuck off my daughter didn't need to be with me to have a smear test she was cranky as hell teething and not napping my mom could have met me there watched her for ten minutes and driven off leaving me to walk home she didn't need to agree to help then ditch me the day before the appointment if she needed to go to the drs when my sister and I were young she would have dropped us off for hours she sent us to our nans for most the day every Saturday so she could do the shopping shevwas spoiled it was a smear test I wasnt going to be long

Fucking "resilience" bullshit like my mothers generation ever had anything not handed to her on a plate by her in-laws her parents her friends her family 🙄

My dad helped as much as he could

No I won’t fuck off actually. It’s a vagina and a cervix ffs, you need to get a grip if you need help with shit like that. Your mother likely gave birth to you unmedicated but you’re mad she wouldn’t watch your kids while you accessed healthcare.

@thepariscrimefiles Similar situation here as my Mum died before my children were born. Knowing what it was like without her support (and very little from my Dad and in-laws), has made me want to help out my children if they decide to have families.

I'm not prepared to martyr myself to help them, but I'll offer to do something!

I never got help from grandparents with childcare and I'm not remotely bitter. We love 100s of miles away from grandparents and that was our choice. Similarly my parents never got help from their parents. I do see a lot of entitlement on here from people expecting their mothers and mils (never the men) to care for their kids and feeling aggrieved if they don't. They've done their childrearing and are under no obligation to do any more.