To think people will have to stop using grandparents for childcare

[Emmagainno3]

First of us I know this would be extremely difficult for some people, in particular single parents. But I can’t understand with all the talk about how dangerous it would be for kids to go back to school and passing it between each other, it also isn’t mentioned about how dangerous it would be to get children minded by older relatives.
The fact is covid affects older people more frequently and more severely than younger people. Surely there’s way more of a risk in getting grandparents to mind young children than for children to pass on covid between each other and to go back to their own immediate family.
( I’m aware some children are more vulnerable health wise etc but I’m talking majority of cases here) .
I’ve just heard of friends talking about going back to work but not wanting the schools to open but they would also be using grandparents for childcare. It just seems way more dangerous to me. Me and my dh have never had even 10 mins of childcare help from any of our families and of course it had affected our jobs and earning potential as we have to pay for all our childcare. Covid has had a huge impact on us financially. I just can’t understand the logic of keeping schools closed or having extreme measures put in and then having granny/granddad at the door collecting again.

The OP said they’ve never had even 10 mins of childcare from grandparents. She also said Covid has had a huge impact on us financially. I think the OP wants it to cost other people as much as it is costing her.

they hadn't really tried.

They hadn't tried? SARS? The common cold? People have been trying for decades! I'm not saying it won't happen but it's far from the sure thing people are making it out to be.

How would you explain your child that they basically killed their grandparents? For me that’s a no-go.
However, resent research looks like children actually don’t spread the virus (adults do very much though), so as long as adults stay away from each other, the risks should be minimal.

Many grandparents see their grandchildren at least once a week and that's without doing any childcare. I think it's just so cruel. Many grandparents live for their grandchildren and would rather take their chances.

Some people on here are genuinely seeming like they will never see parents or grandparents again! Is that really what you want to do?

I would be concerned about using grandparents as childcare at the moment and in the foreseeable future too. My mum used to do one day a week. We took the decision three weeks before the schools closed that we couldn’t do this anymore, so DH began WFH two days a week instead of 1. We were fortunate he was able to do that.

Once schools go back, we might go back to DH doing two days WFH or use mum depending on what is happening at that time, obviously only if she is happy to do so.

I think part of the reason schools were closed was to protect grandparents who were doing care.

How would you explain your child that they basically killed their grandparents?

Well you wouldn’t would you, because it would be absolute bollocks.

1. Unless the grandparent was completely isolating apart from providing childcare, how would you know definitively where they had caught it from?
2. One would assume the grandparents had made an informed decision to continue providing childcare, weighing up the risks to themselves.
3. Who would ever, ever say that to a child anyway?

Many probably shouldn’t but will because what is the alternative? We will be looking at alternatives but probably the only one is for my husband to ask to cut his hours and if that’s not possible quit his job . Luckily we can prob scrape by for a few months like that. But what if we couldn’t? It’s easy to say they shouldn’t but this situation is making us all make tough choices . ( plus as people have said not all grandparents are vulnerable)

I think it's worth protecting grandparents until it's clear whether we'll have a vaccine. The reality is, some GPS who care for their children will die if they contribute to do so. That's their choice to make but I personally would feel awful for everyone if it happened because there was a 9-12 month window of extreme vulnerability without treatment protocols or vaccine, and we didn't wait. There are always other options. If that grandparent dies, there will be another option for childcare and it will be found.

We'll know much more in the autumn about both treatments and vaccines. A more informed decision could be made then. At the moment people seem to be justifying using GPS for childcare on the basis that this situation is static and the alternative is permanent estrangement. Well, no. This solution is fluid and we're at probably the riskiest bit because we know very little about why people get so ill or what works to help them. But they're working feverishly on that. Also, having a daily exposure to young children who are just out of school, still in school uniform etc is different to a lower level of exposure to children who haven't just been in school.

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Naturally people will want to see their families in person again soon. It must be mutual agreement, without pressure from either side, with the risks weighed up, the older generation's preferences should come first. On another thread people are saying lockdown or no lockdown, they are intending to see their parents soon, in a couple of weeks - that's too soon. Going another 6 weeks or so till mid-June to see eachother would be much more sensible once the number of new infections has come down a good deal further. And research into and medical knowledge of treatments of severe and critical patients is increasing all the time, so if you're going to get the virus, better later rather than now.

Also I don't think any grandparents would be able to give a truly honest answer about whether they were happy to go back to child care duties if they're aware that their beloved child will feel panicked and possibly abandoned if they say no

Once pressure on the NHS is relieved, we need to be able to see each other again. It's human nature.

This virus isn't going anywhere. We need to learn to live with it. Once the NHS can cope, everyone should be able to perform their own risk assessment. Grandparents are adults and provided they understand the risk they are taking, if they want to see their grandchildren then that's their decision. Equally, if they no longer want to provide childcare then that is also their decision and should be respected.

I know which option my parents/in laws will choose

My toddler normally goes to a childminder 1 day a week whilst my husband is at college. We're seriously considering asking his parents if they'd have her for that day instead (they offered previously but it was impractical to get her there around my travel to work) rather than sending her to childcare when it's open again. As others have said, it would then mean we could see them as none of us would be mixing widely. If she goes back to the childminder we'd be nervous about then seeing her grandparents.

We don't use grandparents for childcare as they live away but I do agree that when the schools reopen many will use grandparents for childcare as usual and across the population this will increase the death rate. I'm not sure what we will do about visiting grandparents. We're both keyworkers so I am worried about us passing it on to them.

I find it concerning that some people don't have any other choice than to use grandparents, although none of us predicted there would be a global pandemic what would happen if they were unable to care for them anymore due to illness or change in circumstances?

They hadn't tried? SARS? The common cold? People have been trying for decades! I'm not saying it won't happen but it's far from the sure thing people are making it out to be.

The development of the SARS vaccine was halted because it was contained and is no need for it. The common cold isn't one virus. There are about 200 cold virus. They would have to develop vaccines to cover all of them and not worth the cost considering it is a mild illness which goes away after a week or so usually. It doesn't mean they couldn't do it.

They hadn't tried? SARS? The common cold? People have been trying for decades! I'm not saying it won't happen but it's far from the sure thing people are making it out to be

There is not one ‘common cold’ virus, there are around 200, of which I think coronaviruses make up 4 or 5 of them. There is absolutely no impetus (or funding) to research and develop 200 separate vaccines for an illness that is, in the vast vast majority of cases, mild.

How would you explain your child that they basically killed their grandparents?

Only a complete arsehole would tell their child that anyway, even if it happened to be true. Although the only way you'd know for sure would be if the grandparent hadn't been in contact with another human being at all for weeks, except the grandchild.

I knew a man whose mother died giving birth to him. When he was well into his 80s and dying himself, he still carried the pain of being told as a child that it was his fault his mother was dead. No one should ever have uttered those words to him.

“ How would you explain your child that they basically killed their grandparents? For me that’s a no-go. ”

Pleased to hear you wouldn’t dream of telling your child such fucked-up nonsense!

I haven't read all PP but it seems some parents consider their DC irresistible for GPs even if their (GP's) lives are involved. ''My mother would rather be dead than not see GC..'' or words to that effect! I expect 6 months or so will show whether masses of 65+ year olds die as a result of this sort of contact. Hope they all have their Wills and affairs sorted!

I had to scroll back to see who'd posted that outrageious, Howwould you explain to your child that they basically killed their grandparents comment. Wow. Yurona, you'd really say that to your child?

That is the province of social services and anybody who says something like that to their child needs help. It's utterly disgraceful and only a negligent and cruel person would say it to any child.

Sorry, Yurona, the original poster of that witless comment wasn't you! Sorry!

The fact is, we just don't know.

There's promising evidence that not only are children less likely to be seriously effected but also less likely to infect other children OR adults.

But we can't state conclusively yet.

Oh... it was you. Still, double-jeopardy,Yurona, did you mean it in another way?

I suppose I don't think people always know what's best for them. Doctors are used to people making silly decisions and trying to prevent the consequences of these decisions-diabetes, lung disease, non compliance with treatments - people aren't very good at weighing up short term pain or restraint against longer term gain. I know it's not my natural way of thinking.

I'm sure grandparents fit into this category as much as anyone but it seems very sad that some may die as a result when we finally have a global community of scientists working around the clock to give them a way to have what they want without risk-seems crazy not to give them a year, say, when there's a lot of confidence about the outcome in the scientific community. At the very least, you'll have access to better treatment if you catch it in a year.

If grandparents are so indispensable to our lives, that means we put them at less risk because the potential consequences of losing them are at grave.