Bear with me…I think it is definitely a favour every time, whether it is for work or so you get to have an occasional glimpse of a social life. They are your children and when you decide to have children, you should assume they are 100% your responsibility 100% of the time, anything else is a bonus.
However. It baffles me why someone wouldn’t look after their grandchildren even if for no other reason than just to give their own children a well deserved break from parenting. Surely they remember how hard it is and how relieving it would be for an unforced offer of help. They are still your parents. For me, I think I’ll always feel a sense of duty to help where I can to increase the quality of life of my children regardless of their age. Even though I find looking after mine tedious, boring, frustrating and tiring at times, I will offer to help as much as I can when the time comes. Hopefully I’ll enjoy it but even if I don’t, I will be there to help my children.
Aside from that, I think time with grandparents is precious, and it is a huge shame for the children when grandparents just aren’t bothered. My husband and I have great memories with our grandparents but ours won’t have those memories on one side of the family because they basically can’t be bothered with the hassle of taking them out etc. Their memories of things they’ve done together i.e. seeing them sat on a settee with a cup of tea at their convenience won’t be treasured unfortunately.
Admittedly it is hard work as we all know. For my parents, it is a chore to literally sit in the house whilst the children are asleep so we can go for a meal once or twice a year, so it might just be laziness / fear of being out of their routine. We get summoned home so early it is barely worth going. But if they aren’t bothered, that’s up to them, it’s their loss ultimately because the children will get to an age (quickly) where they don’t want to visit their grandparents because they’d rather be with their friends / video games etc. The opportunity to build what I am told can be the most rewarding relationship will be lost forever. They therefore won’t have a solid relationship when the children become adults and their grandparents have lots of time to kill when they are elderly.
It is frustrating for the parents in the equation, especially when (like me) everybody around you seems to be doing things, going out, wedding days, trips away without their children because the grandparents actively seek to spend time with their grandchildren because they actually enjoy it. We know people who literally convert bedrooms ready for the newborn as soon as they hear their children are expecting. Our children haven’t spent a night away from us in the 8 years we’ve had them. But you have to live with it because it is the hard truth that we decided to have children so shouldn’t expect help.