Grandchild free, and thankful

[ThisWiseRobin]

So I have grown up kids but thought I could throw something in the mix here.
My kids DSD50, DS45, DD41 are all childless and for the most part the ship has sailed.
Dare I say I'm hugely grateful.
The world is turning into a really dangerous place. I fear for kids growing up in society that seems to have lost its moral compass with the exception of a few pockets here and there.
I occasionally look after my Goddaughter who is 2. I was asked to be Godmother because there was pretty much no one else who could and I do a bit if childcare occasionally.
I find it exhausting and boring.
I wondered if there is anyone else out there who is hugely grateful not to have grandkids, or am I weird.
For info Stepdaughter is a professional athlete and chose her sport over children.
Sons wife is older, also 50 and has never been interested in kids, she is a highly respected academic and my son is so far away with the fairies he would forget the kid on the bus.
Daughter has a highly competitive and responsible job and she and her husband agreed that no kids was the key to their lives, which are enviable.
I support them all in their decisions.
I'm interested to know if there are others out there like me.

Yes I am relieved not to have grandchildren, they look exhausting! However I think this would be better posted in AIBU. You’ll get more responses from people who have children but no grandchildren.

OK thanks for that advice. But glad there is even one other person who finds them tiring.

Not everyone should have DC or GDC...

I don't have children (not through choice) and therefore no gc. I have two good friends who are grandparents, and they seem to do an inordinate amount of childcare, almost like substitute parents. Their freedom seems much restricted by the needs of the gc as the parents are at work.
now they may be happy with all this, I am not decrying it as they love their gc. It just seems a little sad to me that they are having to do all the things that our parents used to do, due to modern work situations, and that they have already done with their own children.

I’m 65 and hoping to have grandchildren some day. That’s partly because I love the idea of them, but also because I know my daughters hope to have children.

They are both in their twenties so there is still plenty of time but I’m hoping that I will still be young and fit enough to play with grandchildren when/if they arrive. I loved playing with my own children when they were young - didn’t find it at all boring - and look forward to doing the same with grandchildren.

I as m childfree and 50+. My sister has 1. We both live 2 hours away from parents.

mum says she it’s nice to have both sides. I go visit often and we do adult stuff. Sister visits with kid and it’s different. She rarely goes alone. I do 50% of the time.

so they enjoy being grandparents it also enjoy still being parent to me at times.

I do hope my only child has a child or two because I’d love to have grandchildren. She’s only 12 and I’m only 47 so all that is a while off yet!
Hopefully I will be able to provide some childcare because I know from bitter experience how expensive childcare is. It prevented me having more children tbh. I won’t, however, be doing more than feels comfortable for me and I won’t be putting my life on hold. There are things I want to do in later life. I hate seeing grandparents give up their whole life to babysitting. My next door neighbours have four very young grandchildren and seem to have them all the time, for days on end. My husbands great aunt has five children, all of them with at least two children, and all of them work full time and this poor woman who is in her seventies and a retired headteacher has her house full of multiple children every single day. Sorry, that won’t be for me. I want to be able to spend time on hobbies and travel more when I’m retired.

We have four children in total (2 bio and 2 steps each), three are now in their early 20s. I genuinely don't mind whether they will have children or not, although would caution against more than one per couple due to the state of the world and sheer expense. One of ours is already categorically ruling it out. One thing we have made clear is that while we would babysit and help out occasionally, we would absolutely not bring up more children and provide weekly childcare. We were both single parents at one point, without practical help from grandparents, and used nurseries and childminders. My older son and his same-sex partner do want a child one day which will likely be adoption. I am happy with whatever they all decide, no expectation.

I'm childfree by choice precisely because I find children tiring and I don't have the right kind of personality to be a parent. I make a much better aunt than parent or grandmother.

In the last decade, I have noticed lots of grandparents in my area doing daily childcare all year round and looking tired out by it. There's a particular older woman, local to me, who I see out on daily walks with 4 grandchildren (one in a pushchair, 3 more under the age of 10) and my heart goes out to her because she just looks so exhausted and fed up. Managing that number of young children would be hard as a woman in her 20s/30s but for a retired woman it seems excessive.

I really don't think it's fair on older women for their adult children to rely on them as childcare. I understand it's not easy to find nursery places but I think adult children need to consider their own parents' needs and wants before asking them to provide childcare.

If you and they are all happy with it then that’s the perfect situation!
I had kids and my parents adore being grandparents. They also loved being parents and we don’t overload them so it’s fun.
Every family is so different!

It’s up to you what you like and don’t like, lucky your kids didn’t have any for their potential kids’ sakes. Or maybe it’s because it’s your goddaughter, not a granddaughter. My kids are mid and late teens, so not in that position. However the only reason I wouldn’t want them is bringing them into this world and it’s many problems, but the main reason is the earth’s uncertain future where we’ll most likely have climate refugees, food shortages, famine and war. I worry for the children I have and their lives ahead after I’ve gone. Not really thinking about whether I’d be bored or not if I ever had grandchildren lol.

I totally get where your coming from here. I am only 40 and my DD 17 (18 in a couple of months) but she has already said she doesn't want any children and has no interest in them at all and although plenty of time to change her mind she does seem to have her heart set on it already, I think she is going to be too focused on her career tbh. People have asked me if the thought of no grandchildren upsets me and honestly it really doesn't! My husband feels the same. I have spent my whole career working with children, I don't want to spend my retirement looking after grandchildren! Maybe it will change for us one day but if it doesn't that's absolutely fine with me!

Same here. Would have loved children and grandchildren, but I see so much expected of grandparents these days.

My mum is in her 70s and is forever grateful that she isn’t a grandmother! But we aren’t a child centric family anyway.

I think if your children don’t want children then it’s really great that you’re happy & at peace with no grandchildren. I don’t like it when parents are nagging their adult children to give them a grandchild.

One of my closest friends has four grandchildren, three of them girls under the age of 13. She is always being called on to do something whether it's look after them, pick them up from school, take them out or have them over night plus she has other family caring duties with elderly relatives and often gets asked to babysit in-law kids as well.

Sometimes she says she is knackered with all the child caring. I really don't know how she does it.

I'm so glad I don't have to do any of that.

Myself and dh have 4 grandchildren and we are very involved. We enjoy being with them and they enjoy being with us. All under 10. We do lots of transporting them to their activities but don't mind. We do however set boundaries as dh and I like to spend time together as a couple. It works for us but I have every respect for people who have decided against having children including some family members

Is there a reason you need to post multiple threads about this?

I’m not a grandmother but I would imagine one has more invested in one’s own grandchild so it might be a different experience.

Im a grandmother and I love it, I wouldnt have it any other way. However, I do worry about the world we live in today which is a lot different to when I had my children.

I have adult dc - still young enough to have children but no sign on the horizon. I don't think I want grandchildren either. Obviously, if my dc did want kids and couldn't have them, I'd be desperately sad for them, but on a personal level, I think I'd be okay with having none. I suppose the thing which gives me pause is the idea that all my ancestors survived long enough to reproduce and overcame such adversity that I feel so grateful to be alive (when you think of the odds of not being here), there's some guilt about letting the line just end. Maybe that's a human survival instinct thing, idk.
I just think that the emotional responsibility and weight of it all, when you have dc, the anxiety you feel about their wellbeing and the never ever truly being free to just worry about yourself, is so massive and no one can really warn you because pre kids you wouldn't believe it - I want to spare my children that!

I also want to spend my old age pleasing myself - I see so many grandparents taking on huge responsibility for their gc and I just don't want to do it. But obviously if those kids existed, I would love them and would want to help my own kids. That's what I mean by the responsibility never ending.

Whether or not to want grandchildren is obviously a completely personal choice. Fair play if you’re happy without. Fair play if you’re happy with.

but come on… are we really rolling out the tired old ‘isn’t the world terrible now for children’ cliches? Of course there’ll be pros and cons to different periods but life in many ways is measurably better for children now than 20 or 40 or 60 years ago. And the idea that kids themselves are somehow worse… well that cliche is literally as old as the Roman Empire.

and respectfully, perhaps some contributors aged 60/70+ might reflect on WHY there are so many grandparents involved in childcare these days. Could it possibly be because policy choices have led to it being impossible to survive comfortably without two FT wages AND the cost of childcare remains fairly astronomical, especially for 5 days per week and especially with multiple kids. And perhaps reflect on how these policy choices came to be made and whether in aggregate their generation might bear some responsibility for those choices.

She could say no. Tbh people are weird. If you don't want to be more or less in a parent's place for four young children say no!

Most people wouldn't agree to an arrangement like this because it's pure madness.

It’s not unreasonable at all. It’s your life and your children’s lives.
I never really thought about grandchildren because my DC are still young — 25, 22 and 16. However, my DS became a dad last year at the age of 21. We were really upset at first, as he and his partner had just moved into their own flat, but it’s life, and things moved on.
The baby was born and things were okay. I helped a lot, as his partner didn’t have a mum. They split up when DGD was just four months old, and my son moved back home. Since then, DGD has stayed here from Thursday lunchtime until Sunday evening. I mind her on Thursday afternoons (I do the pick-up) and all day Friday, and I absolutely adore her. She really is the light of our lives.
She changed things for sure. It wasn’t expected or wanted, if I’m completely honest, but I genuinely couldn’t imagine life without her now.
Our eldest and youngest have both said they don’t want children, but you just never know what life will bring.

Maybe she feels she can’t say no because her adult children tell her they have no other childcare options and they need her help.

I see a lot of grandparents caring for more than one young grandchild around this area (because we have a primary school and nursery school in the area).

If all of these grandparents said no, as you suggest, what are the options that their adult children aren’t currently using as childcare alternatives? And why aren’t the adult children using those alternatives rather than asking their retired parents to provide the childcare?

Did their adult children need to organise their reproduction in a way that is financially sustainable/feasible in terms of the childcare they need, rather than relying on grandparents to provide it?

I agree that grandparents can, and should, say no if they’re unable or unwilling to provide childcare for their grandchildren. But are their adult children bearing this fact in mind or are they assuming that they will receive help from their own parents?