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.

Oh for goodness sake, I didn't attend appoinntments like that with my babes/DC, I paid somebody to mond them, or DH arranged to go in a bit late.

The posters being rabid over this and coming across as vulgar need to shape up.

The only thing I am surprised about is when somebody asks their mum to help in an emergency and the parent won’t cancel a cancellable golf game or a gym session to help their child out. I find that quite strange and uncaring. I would do that to help a friend, never mind my child who I love.

I’m not bitter. We had very little help. Childcare cost us a fortune, as it should. Now our parents’ care and help will cost them the same fortune but it leaves us free of elder responsibility to live our lives as they lived theirs, and that’s priceless!

The thing is, you will never be entitled to support from your children in old age. You chose to bring them into the world, and they were entitled to all that you had to successfully launch them into the world. You owed them the best of yourself, your resources, your time. That is what you signed up for, and by giving them that, you gave them what they deserved, and what you owed them.

And in having children, you also signed up to the creation of a family, who should continue to support and care for each other throughout life to the best of their capacity. That absolutely does not mean at all that grandparents have an obligation to act as unpaid childminders for their grandchildren. That is a wild exaggeration of what most people are mourning the lack of - which is real, intergenerational support that some people are very reluctant to give, and not at all shy about expecting from other people. I'm sorry, but being an involved grandparent, taking your grandchildren out, having them to stay for the weekend sometimes, being able to be relied on in an emergency, investing in your family when you have the capacity to, is not an unreasonable expectation. And it absolutely is unreasonable if you decide to not invest in your family during those years, caring only about what you are obliged to do and what others are entitled to from you, for you to turn around and expect your children, who owe you nothing, to invest into you when you need it.

Sorry, in real families it is a two-way street. We are not an animal kingdom.

Which is...exactly what I said? But it's a two-way street when your children are adults. Everything you do for your children when they are children and young adults is your duty, your obligation, and they are entitled to everything you have to give them. Your children will never owe you or feel like they are beholden to sacrifice their time in adulthood to support you in your old age. They will almost certainly want to help you, to, in those same crude terms, sacrifice their time when the have no obligation to do so if you have also done the same for them. Again, not when they were children, as you had children due to your own desire to be a parent, which they fulfilled.

My kids are 20 plus and I won’t be doing regular childcare for them when grandkids come. I have three children and I will be very happy to take any grandkids for weekends/holidays/help out in emergencies and just see ad hoc . What I don’t want is to be tied down to (eg) every Monday and Tuesday. I plan lots of things in my retirement and don’t want to be tied down. We would help financially if we needed to but a definite NO to regular help. My step mum does it and it’s a real tie for them. I think that’s fair enough.

Sorry, no, cross purposes. My parents helped me with school, clothed and fed me, tried their best for me when I was in their home. Then I left, built up my own life and when they became old, I looked after them, because I owed them, it was my duty. But it was also my privilege and pleasure, but it was my duty too. I owed them.

I agree with all of this.

We had no help from our parents raising the children. We have both worked full time all our lives, and paid for childcare as we needed it. I also spent several years looking after my mother who had Alzheimer’s. I’m still working full time, and will continue to do so for several years. When I finally retire, I don’t intend to be tied to looking after anyone else. I’ve done my share.

"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" - just reminding you that I fixed your title for you.

So anyway, look after your own kids, it's your reponsibility. Never expect any childcare from anyone and especially stop demanding your mothers drudgery. They already raised you, job done.

For the excessively transactional amongst you - you have put yourself in an impossible bind. You think life is a transaction and your mother's resources, time and free labour can be owed out, in a transactional way.

Unfortunately for you, this means you owe your mother - forever. You can never, ever repay the massive debt you have incrued to her by raising you. That's how it works in transactional world. This also means you do, in fact, owe your parents aged care. No matter what you do, you can never repay the enormous debt you have to them.

Fortunately, life is not transactional, and I'm not a nutty self entitled twit - so I understand that no, you don't owe your elderly parents care. Although certainly any care you give them is simply a repayment of their endless time, money and attention to you, the fact that you are still alive is testament to their parenting. But still, it's not owed.

Your mother, of course, is not your servant, so stop trying to force her to do even more work. She's done her bit, say thanks and behave better.

Oh, and let's not pretend your mother was abusive to you, because if that was the case and you wanted her to do your parenting job that would make you a monster.

Think that about covers it. Look after your own kids, and stop demanding your mother's free labour.

If she offers, be very very grateful indeed.

When you stop making ridiculous demands on your mother (and it's not your dad you're asking, we all know that) and accept that she's not your resource to be redistributed, you'll turn into a much more pleasant person. So everyone will win. You're welcome.

I think this comes down to what you think of as an emergency. My mum would absolutely help out in an emergency even though she lives more than 300miles from us. But an emergency is someone being seriously ill and in hospital. She wouldn’t come because I was a bit ill and needed a break. And I would never expect her to. When you have children you expect to have to look after them when you are unwell. If my or my husband were too ill to look after the children then the other one would have had to take the day off work. Otherwise you just get on with it.

The posters who get upset when their mums won’t drop everything because they are ill and don’t want to look after their children are very unreasonable.

I completely agree that family who refuse to help to help in a genuine crisis are strange. I would drop everything to help for anyone in my family or friends in an emergency. But I mean an actual emergency, not a slight inconvenience!

Should have read accrued, tried to update it but it wouldn't post. Oh well, typos😅