Parents just ‘using’ the grandparents

[Twilighthour]

So when I was a child we would go
and see our grandparents or they would come and see us rather in the same
way you may go and see a family friend and as grandchildren this was fine and we looked forward to the visits whether they be once a year or more frequently depending on what was going on with everyone’s lives.
Why is it that parents these days seem to expect so much of the grandparents, sounds like a really onerous task to be a grandparent these days with such expectations, whereas I always thought being a grandparent was meant to be the grandchildren popping around with posies chocolates and cuddles after years spent slogging it out as a parent and you both just enjoying spending a bit of time together

Because when you were a child, far fewer households had both parents in full time employment. It now takes two working adults to pay an average mortgage thanks to huge house price inflation (which many older people have benefited from hugely) so some grandparents are choosing to step up and help their kids rather than just waiting for cute visits with posies.

I think there is a huge difference between the GP who hasn’t seen their GC in 6 years and your MIL who visits 6 times a year and has babysat when you’ve really needed her to, if that were any other relative I’m sure you would be much more positive about that level of involvement so I don’t get the resentment at all? In fact I don’t know many friends or family who visit us 6 times a year and what more do you expect from any visitor but to stay for lunch and then go for a walk afterwards. Although it does sound like she’s doing it out of a sense of obligation from how you describe so it’s ironic that it’s not even appreciated

Most parents I see both working full time do so to pay for things they don’t necessarily need but in most cases just for the lifestyle they think them and their children should have or to live in the southeast etc. Obviously some parents might genuinely need a bit of help, e.g both parents shift workers there may be occasions when they are both working e.g nights despite making their best effort to avoid doing so by doing part time etc but can imagine wanting to help out so they could keep their careers if they only needed help occasionally and no alternatives

Just to clarify, you think 6 times a year is a normal amount of time to see your children/grandchildren? Obviously due to distance that can be the case, but genuinely the vast majority of grandparents I know want to see their grandchildren (and their own children!) more than 6 times a year. My in laws live abroad and we see them about that.
And you don’t have any friends, or other family, who you see more than 6 times a year? I would suggest that that is quite unusual. You seem to have quite a formal/stilted relationship with your family and friends. In my circle we pop in on each other and help each other out all the time. I don’t really see my our family and close friends as ‘visitors’.

Yes that’s normal for us, I’d love to see family
and friends more but they don’t live locally and we’re all so busy. Even friends who live very locally to us, we only meet up every 6-8 weeks as we’re all so busy. We do message and call each other a few times a month

Because both parents work hard full time jobs now

I grew up with grandparents living a bit of a distance away, so saw them 2 or 3 times a year - to me, that is completely normal.
When I think of all my friends with children, they had pretty much all moved away from the family home for university or work so, again, none of them had (grand)parents close enough to do childcare.
Now my friends are becoming grandparents, and the next generation lives somewhere different again.
The concept of every generation living in the same town is just odd to me (and I think I'd have found it totally suffocating), but think proximity or location is definitely what makes the difference re grandparental childcare, or not.

Normal for you isn’t normal for a lot of people though.
My dad lives round the corner. We moved to be closer to him when my brother was killed. We are very close, I see him most days. He helps out with DIY, I take him lunch some days and eat with him, we have him and his wife round for Sunday lunch etc, and sometimes he looks after his grandchildren. I have friends scattered all over but have also made an effort to make friends here, because I think everyone needs a community (my youngest is disabled so it feels especially important). I think you need to consider that a lot of families help each other out because they want to, so it can feel galling to others when their family don’t want to spend time with them/their grandchildren. Of course no one is obliged to, but it’s not unreasonable for people to hope that their families want to do these things.

I should say we’re also all very busy, everyone I know works full time (I think you said you work part time?) and we all have multiple kids with time consuming hobbies etc, but we still manage to spend time together thankfully.

My parents and in laws have all helped out with childcare over the school holidays over the years and I’m very grateful for that . I’m a young grandma and I work virtually full time so I can’t really help out that much in the holidays but I do stuff with them at the weekends and when I work a half day.

It sounds like a lovely reciprocal relationship you have with your dad and considering the awful experience you both have been through with the loss of your brother it is heartwarming to hear. I’m sorry for your loss. We are a family who likes to see and help each other and we have a wonderful local community too. If my parents lived around the corner I can imagine I’d see them at least once a week, maybe more and we have all
helped each other out alot in the past but we don’t have any expectation as in we would start complaining if them, a friend or relative only visited a certain frequency each year. I appreciate my parents enough for the 18 years they spent every day raising me, I don’t need the validation of them constantly having to prove their interest and love to me and my children.

I don’t expect them too, but I do find it contradictory when they sent me off to my grandparents every chance they got. My grandparents raised me more than them also annoys me they complain they don’t see dc and expect me to bring them to theirs so they can see them, see where i’m going with this?

My children's grandparents are actively involved but do a lot less than my grandparents did. I was born in the 80s, with the high interests rates of the early 90s both of my parents had to work and there wasn't such a thing as wraparound care at school.
My mum was a nurse and my dad worked abroad so I was pretty much raised by my grandparents. My maternal grandparents did about 90% of the child care until I was 9 when my elder sister started doing some.

You try finding childcare that is open at 6 am on a Saturday or Sunday! My grandad retired when I was born and him and his father looked after me. I was 3 months old when my mum returned to work and my sister 5 weeks old!

We would be scooped up in our PJ's with a change of clothes in a bag and dropped off at my grandpareBuggynts at 6 am and my mum picked us up at 2 when she finished work. My mum's shift pattern meant she often worked 10 days in a row followed by 4 days off. When my sister went to uni she switched to doing double shifts so was out of the house from 6.30am until 10 pm but only 3 days a week. My dad was working in the UK again by this point so we didn't need as much childcare from my grandparents.

I have many fond memories of my grandparents. They would come over every Saturday and we would spend every Sunday with them. They did Sunday lunch for the expended family but we would go over in the morning to bake cakes and my parents would go home after lunch and pick us up in the evening.

Once in secondary school I used to walk to their house to see them if my mum was working. I had an incredibly close relationship with them.

I am currently getting a lot do support from grandparents as I've been unwell and have an 8 month old but prior to my daughter starting school her grandparents had only done a couple of days childcare. She was in nursery 4 days a week from 1, occasionally grandparents did childcare if I had to work on my nonworking day or if she was ill. For a year I was going over to look after my mum on my nonworking day as she was recovering from a fracture back.
Currently my parents do 2 school pick ups a week. My dad looks after the baby on afternoon so I can spend some time 1 on 1 with my daughter and my mum takes my daughter to her swimming lesson another day after school. They take her for the occasional day out. My in-laws come up and look after all of us for 3-5 days every 4-8 weeks but they are a lot further from us.

I get that this is an issue for some people but what I’m saying is I really don’t believe it’s widespread. Only the most extreme behaviours get hashed out on mumsnet and the rest of us are just getting on with being considerate kind towards our loved ones wherever possible.

i don’t see any sense though in bundling all parents in as one homogenous group. The ones demanding free childcare probably aren’t the ones moving to Australia 🧐

I’m in my sixties and see the opposite. Most of my friends had support from grandparents as children themselves and when they had their own DC.

However, due to state pension age shifting by seven years, and COL crisis, none of my friends look after DGC regularly for work related childcare.

We do the odd babysitting duties but are simply not available to do what previous generations did.

I certainly agree that a two way relationship is what works best for.

Yes, my mum only retired last month and 2 of my children are secondary aged now, so she’s never done any regular child care. Whereas my grandparents didn’t work when I was a child so were around to pick me up from school and look after me until my parents finished work.

I saw my grandparents once a year, my children see their grandparents once a year too. Hasn't stopped my mother bitterly complaining about it.
Plenty of people have had grandparents involved in childcare. My great granny looked after my mum, my granny looked after all her local grandchildren after school, my MiL looks after hers.

That’s interesting, I wonder whether said grandparents are being grumbled about though. I remember when I was a teenager in the 90s and the message to young mothers then seemed to be you absolutely must not have children and put upon your own mother in any way, even for people whose mothers volunteered help they seemed to be looked upon badly, as in ‘your leaving your mother to raise your child 🙄’ if someone’s mother so much as babysat. That seemed harsh to me at the time but now on the other end of the scale always read of parents considering cutting their parents/in laws off just because they ‘only’ visit the grandchildren 3-4 times a year and never offer to babysit. It seems one extreme to the other. Maybe people remember their grandparents being more involved back in the days when families lived closer together and grandparents had more time and money and women had less independence and life outside the home joining with the extended support many parents give their adult children now keeping them in the mindset that their parents are primary their to serve them

Would she not just come to visit more often if she so desperately wanted to see them more it is she not able to?

I think your situation sounds like a lovely example of mutual support and if my daughter was in the same situation I’d absolutely want to provide her with similar support. I work unsocial hours and so it is quite a juggle with my DH job too and my mother would come and help but I do feel it would be unfair to expect it routinely and we’ve made compromises in our career rather than put that upon her. Possibly if she lived locally and it was just the choice of asking her to once or twice a week picking up the kids from the childminders or me losing my career then we’d consider it but only if she was absolutely happy to do so. I really can’t understand those that just expect it

How did you feel about the fact your mum never did any regular childcare? I’m sure you’re not disparaging her for that but a lot on here especially if their mother was retired or part time seem to expect it and talk disparagingly of their parents if they didn’t

I don’t feel any way about it at all really, it was just out of the question as she was at work.

You're using one generation as an example of what is normal but its a modern phenomenon to raise children in a nuclear family. I imagine having your parents just watch you struggle through parenthood without any help is quite hurtful.

If you decide to have children, that is a lifelong commitment that doesn't end when they turn 18. They will still need your help at every stage of life and that includes the children that they may go on to have, they may be adults but you are still a parent. I wonder why people choose to have children if they have no interest in caring for their offspring, even if it is the next generation, they are your family just as much as your own child and they are your legacy. Why should it be acceptable to just wash your hands of it.

My gran looked after us alone frequently growing up. And that was even with my mum being a SAHM. Parents don’t use grandparents they simply ask them for help. If grandparents don’t want to help and be closer to their grandchild they don’t have to.