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

It’s that implication that they should, should want to ‘bond’ with them as much as possible and spend every spare moment with them otherwise they’re not good grandparents/ nice people that I find a bit unfair, they wouldn’t be said about any other relative. There is no expectation regarding an uncle, he can just enjoy being an uncle but would hopefully help out if absolutely needed

I agree I think there are expectations on grandparents by some.
To take on a sort of parenting role rather than a grand parenting one.
Some of that will be down to money.
Some of that is people growing up don’t mingle much with older people and so their understanding of how things can be for them is misjudged.
But I agree OP. The old fashioned grandparent role seems to have morphed into a part time parental one.

I would absolutely want to be there for my daughter if she becomes a mother but a lot of parents seem to want help not because they’re ill, widowed etc but just to enhance their lifestyle e.g so they can work extra to afford luxuries, a bigger house etc of so they can go out and have fun but are expecting the grandparents to basically facilitate that. We don’t have holidays etc but DH and I are happy and want our parents to be happy and enjoy their own lives. Yes family members ideally support each other but I think once you get to 18 the relationship between parent and child should switch to being mutually supportive and not an expectation that your parents owe you any more than the help you actually need

My DM returned from NZ with 2 DC under 18 months. She moved in with her DM and then went to work as a full time teacher in 1958. It has happened for a long time.
My DM provided me with key childcare, for example moving DD from private nursery to the school nursery at lunchtime. It didn't involve lunch. I couldn't have managed without her help but I worked part time so didn't rely on her help all week.

Of course there’s an expectation as their aunt that I want a close bond with my nephews. Do you actually just feel bad because you don’t care about being close to your grandchildren and can’t really be bothered with them? You’re perfectly welcome to feel that way but yes people will think it’s a little off that you don’t want a bond with them.

There is often an expectation that adult children will provide care for their elderly parents later in life too.

Absolutely this. I think it’s very odd that as a parent of an adult child you’d watch them struggle without offering help if you could. And why the hell wouldn’t you want to help even if it’s just towards nice things. Are some parents of adult children happy to swan off round the world while their kids can’t afford a holiday? Again that’s very odd to me.

I love my kids to bits and I’ll do anything I can to make their lives easier and more pleasant, because that’s what being a family is. My parents help us with some regular childcare and we all have a wonderful relationship.

It's quite bizarre that you see your own parent as an equal visitor to a friend or an aunt. Surely you are closer to your parents than a meal and a walk after lunch?

My mum was a SAHM, so no massive childcare responsibilities, but I still saw my grandparents who lived an hour and half away weekly and my others at least weekly. They babysat regularly and we would go and stay for the weekend. I was very close to my grandparents growing up and I loved it, I'd find it incredibly odd if my parents didn't want that relationship with my children, and I obviously also will want that relationship with my grandchildren if the time comes.

I think family support each other through different stages of life. My grandparents provided support when we were young, my parents provide support now they are older. Obviously no one is obligated to care for grandchildren or provide care for elderly parents but I do find it a bit strange if grandparents see their own child struggling and don't want to help if they can

Yes we very much are the family of mutual support. My grandparents cared for my great grandad until he was 95 and needed to go into care home. My mum and her sister cared for my grandparents at home until they were on the end of life pathway.

We have always said it was our choice to have children we will be responsible for the childcare. Also, I want our parents to have chance to be grandparents and not additional care givers. A grandparents job is to, within reason, spoil their grandchildren and I wouldn't want that if they had them every day! My parents took my daughter to a museum and play park last week and she they gave her a packet for crisps. They know we are careful with what she has and my dad apologised and said it sounded like a lovely day out and we don't worry about the odd packet of crisps especially in the school holidays! It would be a different conversation if they were primary caregivers and she was having crisps every day of the week.

It's often the small things that make the biggest differences too. My mum is quite particular about clothes and likes things washed and ironed properly. She had managed to talk my dad through how she liked things washed and he was able to hang them out to dry. She wasn't sure whether she would trust him with the iron though! So that was one of the jobs I did for her every week. When my daughter started school I did a yoga class once a week at 6 and after school club finished at 5.45. My partner has a 1h commute and there were a couple of times when unpredictable traffic meant he wasn't going to make it to after school club in time. It was then a bit tight for me to finish work at 5.30, get to school pick up daughter, get home and changed for my class and hand over to my partner when he walked through the door at 5.58. My mum was starting to get back to more normal levels of activity and she asked if she could help out at all so we said if she could do school pick up on this day it would really help. So she did it most weeks, taking her to the park for an hour or so then played with her at home and it allowed me to have that 45 minutes to myself once a week without having to stress about where everyone else was.

My sister has ill health and couldn't drive for a bit, she was so grateful when I asked if she wanted to join me on a trip to Aldi as she had only been able to walk to her nearest coop!

It's always come from the person able to help, it's a hey, I have time and energy, what can I do right now to make things easier for you? Situation

I have nieces and nephews and of course I’m fond of them and would care for them if anything happened to my siblings and send them birthday gifts etc but it’s not the same as with your own children and would hate to feel the pressure to have an intense bond and parenting obligations with anyone but my own children (whom it just came naturally). I would want to help my daughters of course, especially in the initial intense stages of motherhood but in the midst of 3 young children including a toddler I want to feel that when the hard work of raising children is done I deserve a good rest and do as I wish with my free time. Maybe after 6 months of an empty nest I’ll feel so well rested and broody I’ll be desperate to have the grandkids, who knows 🤣

Your family sound so lovely 🥰 and you sound very respectful of your parents and careful not to be putting too much on them. I would feel very happy and blessed if one day have the sort of relationship your mother has with your DD and also to be able to help my daughter as an adult out like your mum does. I can imagine with a daughter like you she is probably more than happy to help you be able to do a little something for yourself once a week and picking your DD up once a week and taking her to museums etc is probably time both she and your DD treasure

Usually both parents work because it takes two incomes to rent/buy a house and raise children. I think that it is more of a luxury to be able to afford to be a SAHM.

We are raising 3 children and are very aware of the costs of doing so, our mortgage is over £1200 a month in a not too expensive part of the country, we turned down career opportunities that would of meant us living near London/home counties because we knew it’s just not something we could afford. We don’t rely on our parents for childcare. There are families in our village who earn less than we do, very few families in our village have both parents working full time and the minority I know of who do pay for full time nursery care. A few have asked for some temporary help from parents due to their being a short overlap between having to go back to work and their being a nursery place available ( despite putting child’s name down after 1st scan) but have tried to minimise the help needed by asking to use any available annual leave/reduce days etc

I’m confused by the amount of help you’re criticising tbh. I don’t know any grandparents who do more than a day a week of childcare for grandchildren.

I can’t imagine having the time, energy or money to visit someone who lives an hour and a half away weekly!! Of course if my child was genuinely struggling I would want to help them. I’m not referring to parents who come on here and say they feel hurt that a parent never sees there child or wouldn’t come and babysit when e.g they were seriously ill or their other child was ill in hospital and their was no pressing reason they couldn’t and they had no alternatives, I would totally feel the same and cannot ever imagine my parents being like that. What I think is ridiculous is the parents who complain that their parents only visit a few times a year, don’t enthusiastically engage with their children enough, complain their parents have gone to the effort to buy their children nice presents but don’t appreciate any it this because it’s material and what they really want is a magical figure in their child’s life or they complain they don’t offer to babysit to give them a break or help with childcare. Such people are being very unfair in my view as an awful lot of expectation to put on someone who didn’t choose to have the child and very much would suck most of what is wonderful about being a grandparent in that you don’t have that responsibility and can just mainly enjoy the fun bits of parenting

Of course life has changed over the years. Now most women work and any care they can get is appreciated.
Life has also changed for some older people too. They go out more and have more holidays. They are not just sitting at home.

I saw my Grandparents every day as a kid but they lived 3 doors away.. as l grew up l would visit once a week. I'm now 67 and have Grandkids ranging from 11 to 21 and l couldn't go a week without seeing them.. luckily they live near by. We are a close and loving family.. the eldest come and see me on their own .. and we still do things together.. they just call n bring me gifts for no reason than to say they love me.. youngest sleeps over every week...

A day a week is still an awful lot to ask of anyone, especially if caring for a baby or toddler, completely different to taking a well behaved 6 year old to the science museum and lunch for a day in the summer holidays or picking primary school aged children up from school once a week for tea if you live locally and have plenty of time and energy. I do have colleagues who do the one day a week childcare of little ones and really enjoy it and feel happy to be helping but it’s a bit like grandad building an amazing treehouse in the garden, that’s great but in no way should it be the expectation that all grandads would want to do that, whereas you would expect most grandparents to stretch to the occasional game of snakes and ladders if their grandchild was really keen

That sounds lovely, I do hope my children (and any potential grandchildren) live locally as would make it easier to have that kind of relationship. It’s like I have family and friends who live far away and we always lament that we can’t just pop in and see each other like with local friends

Do you know any grandparents who are doing it reluctantly? I suspect most do it because they want to, not because they’re expected to.

It doesn’t have to be onerous, you just have to do what my DH’s parents did - scarper the moment the baby arrives. Difficult to ask someone based hundreds of miles away to help out. Worked a bloody treat for them. I wouldn’t ask them to give us a hand if my life burned down.

Why on earth should they have to remain local, my parents are entitled to live where they like, it’s their life. They’ve done the hard work of raising their children, like I said I can understand people feeling upset if their parents totally won’t acknowledge their grandchildren but one set of my grandparents lived abroad and it was fine, we spoke
on the phone and they sent presents and cards and photos and when they visited (not every year) it was very special for us all. I never got the sense that they didn’t love us and we didn’t mean alot to them.

Nearly all the cases I know of the grandparents seem to be quite happy to do it tbh, even if they’ve had to reduce their working hours or take retirement. It’s more
those on MN who disparage parents who don’t want to do any childcare except for emergencies that I find unfair

But as a PP has pointed out, those posters on MN are not representative of the vast majority of the population. It feels a bit like you’re complaining about a scenario that is actually quite rare in real life, across the population as a whole.

I think this time of grand parents doing lots of child care is going to die out a bit with the next generation.

So many parents both working now, won't be retiring at 60/65. The parents here on MN. They won't have the spare time to look after their grand children when they arrive.