Grandparents and childcare

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Everyone around me has loads of help with childcare and it makes me wonder if my parents are unusual.

My friends get childcare for free and regular sleepovers. My parents haven't taken ours overnight ever and I had to leave my job as we couldn't afford childcare.

They say they've done their bit and now it's time for them to do what they want.

It's become the norm for grandparents to attend parent and toddler sessions due to the rising cost of childcare.

2 babies would also be a lot for much older people to look after - it’s fair that they do what they want to do.
Comparison is the thief of joy - make the most of your relationship and go back to work as soon as you can if that’s what’s bothering you.
Most of us find our wages are mostly taken by childcare but do it anyway for longer term careers, security or pensions; your life and options are not affected by your parents decision.

I also think a lot of people who don't have twins or multiples think it's much worse than it - hence all the "you've got your hands full" "I'd hate twins" comments I get from total strangers - my parents definitely think it's more stressful than it actually is - and they can hand them back at the end of the day 😂

I hear you OP. We live 100 miles from my parents and 400 miles from PIL - but it's PIL who are much more helpful. They actively plan trips to see us in the holidays when they can look after the kids for a couple of days, we holiday with them because they will watch them for an afternoon or occasionally babysit in the evening. My DPs haven't offered to look after the kids since pre Covid. Even when we go to see them they won't eg take them out to the park for an hour. They never come and stay with us. They constantly criticise my eldest in particular (who is likely ND). So we see a lot less of them. I don't think they have enough self awareness to realise it's because of the way they behave.

Grandparents aside twins is generally considerably harder work than a firstborn neurotypical baby. I think that this alone is making you tired and resentful.

I think it is great that your DP are honest about why they don't look after your DC. It's understandable. I had DT's and when I had GP help I also had to provide a 'granny's help' to help them with the heavy lifting.

It worked out well. My DC built great relationships with their grandparents but they didn't feel stressed or unable to cope. Could you consider something like this just to give yourself a break.

It is becoming more and more normal for grandparents to be honest and say they aren’t helping with childcare. It shouldn’t just be expected for them to take on their grandkids and I’ve witnessed many who have really struggled and it take a toll on their mental and physical health because they felt they had no choice.

I agree with your parents -especially since you have twins. Childcare is expensive because it's hard work and you cannot expect that from people who have retired

also, I was looked after by my grandparents as a child and I genuinely don't think they were right for the job due to their age

OP, I get it entirely. I left my abusive ExH when I was pregnant with #3, and had a 2&3yr old.

My mum is 60, and retired, due to marrying a very wealthy man. They live in a house worth over 7 figures, go on multiple cruises a year, and mum spends her day doing Zumba and salsa classes and meeting her friends for lunch.

I work full time, live in a rented house, and spend over 1K a month in childcare. I am permanently exhausted and broken, and so poor that there have been times I have relied on food banks.

No, my mum has no obligation to help. She did her time raising kids and now wants to enjoy retirement. BUT I cannot fathom not wanting to help my own kids if I could. If she even picked up my kids from school ONE DAY a month and did 3-6pm for me, it would save me £35. That money would make a difference in my life massively. For three hours a month.

And I have wonderful lovely kind easy kids.

So no, she doesn't have to help. But it impacts our relationship because I cannot imagine watching my children struggle and not doing anything I could to help them. So we're just not so close now - she's made her priorities clear and that's fine, that's her loss.

Hi op. Grandparent here to give you a different view.

My situation is that I now have 7 grandchildren by three of my adult dc. Even if I wanted to offer childcare there would be a bit of resentment between them as I couldn't possibly offer the same amount of my time to them all, and there's no way I could look after 7 at once lol!.

Plus I'm bloody knackered. Dh and I are helping his parents as they have become frail. I do feel like I've done my time when it comes to care. I am allowed to put myself and my relationship with my dh first. We want to enjoy our later years doing the things we couldn't before.

We watched dh parents take early retirement to care for sil children full time so she could progress her career. Very lovely of them. So they were taking care of her dc from 6am till 6pm Monday to Friday. They were run ragged!. They had wanted to travel and visit family abroad but couldn't due to being childcare. So anyway years passed and just as the dc became teens and able to look after themselves my poor in-laws health massively declined and those plans to travel disappeared. So in her lifetime my mil helped her dm to care for her siblings from a young age, then married and bought up her family, then straight into basically bringing up her grandchildren, to becoming housebound through ill health. I'm not going to be making the same mistake.

I spend time with my grandchildren. I'll have them over this week and we have a day out planned with all my dc and gc. I'm there for emergencies, I'm available for the odd night babysitting etc but that's it.

@HarraKiri exactly how I feel.

@vidflex thank you. I completely understand.

I think this is where I'm struggling. With the effecting our relationship. Which it is. Priorities are clear and it is what it is.

Agreeing to regularly looking after grandkids is a massive commitment. I wouldn't want to do it. I'd help out in an emergency but not on a regular basis.

I’ll be the fun GP. Days out. Play. Happily babysit in an emergency or odd night out. However, I won’t commit to regular childcare because if I’m honest I don’t want to. I want to travel regularly. Go to the gym. Go on retreats.

My son knows this as I’ve told him. He’s only 18! Don’t want any confusion or expectations of me later down the line. I would offer some financial assistance for childcare if he was struggling.

I think it varies quite a lot by area.

Where I live, having regular grandparent help is unusual. Parents tend to be older, and use childminders/nurseries/nannies/holiday camps. People tend to move here for work so don't live near their families. It's very unusual for grandparents to provide regular childcare. I've met two grandparents at playgroup who do a day a week, amongst the sea of other mums, nannies and childminders. Both older than 70 and finding it hard work. One has recently ducked out of doing the weekly swimming lesson because it is too much. The usual thing is to have grandparents to visit/stay for longer periods, and then either the family spend time together or the grandparents give the parents a bit of a break. But not a regular thing.

Where my cousins live, there is much less of a culture of moving away for work. People live near their families and tend to have children younger. So grandparents often in their 50s/60s. My aunt dropped a couple of days a week at work to look after my cousin's children, and that wasn't viewed as unusual in their area (it would be here). One thing that annoys me is that usually the care is expected of the grandmother, not the grandfather. Because children are 'wimmin's business', apparently 🙄. So my uncle kept working full-time.

To be honest, I'm always MORe surprised when grandparents take on full-on caring responsibilities. It just wasn't a thing I saw growing up and it was not something I ever expected.

having said that, I think if you're parents are relatively local, it's sad if they don't want to actively work to build a relationship with your children or are resistant to the occasional ad hoc childcare. Our parents don't live locally but when they are around or we're there, it's pretty standard for them to offer to take the kids out for an afternoon (usually to just feed them endless ice creams) or to babysit for an evening so we can go out etc. My Dad was here over the whole summer last year and I'd never ever ask him to take on regular childcare, but it was great that when DH wasn't around and I had to collect both kids at the same time from their activities I could ask him to go collect one or whatever.

You had children you look after them its not down to the GP to do it.
I wont be a baby sitter for my GC.
My mother wasnt a baby sitter for my child She did her job with me and my 3 siblings she dont need to do it all again for her GC and my mum had twins aswell.
She always said you give up your freedom when you have kids you get it back when they move out its called being a parent.

My nan said the same to her you have them you look after them dont come running to me unless its an emergency.

Its your responsibility not others to do your job.
My family are strange but honest.

I never had regular childcare from my grandparents and I didn't expect it from my parents. I think regular childcare from grandparents is a lot to ask for, I agree that by then you've done that stage in your life and it's not unreasonable to want to be free to do other things.

We had very little help. For emergencies yes, but regular childcare , never. Never even a sleepover in 13 years. I worked for nothing for over two years to pay for nursery and that's fine. Childcare is, let's be honest, largely boring. I don't want to be doing the school run in my sixties and seventies either.
I'm a big believer in everyone young and old paying for the help they need and letting families be free to live their own lives.
Those receiving lots of help may not be so smug in years to come, rather they'll so beholden. I've seen it.

I would love to look after my two DGC more, but I work full time and that's the case for a lot of Grandparents. They're not all 80 years old!
My daughter does ask me occasionally but most of the time I offer at a weekend or when I have some free time.
By the time I'm retired I expect I'll be too knackered - but they'll be too old to need childcare by then anyway.

It can’t be nice to see other people families happy to offer childcare when your own parents do not. These days retired grandparents have a lot more opportunities to do leisure activities than their own parents would have - travelling, days out, many women of that generation would not have had a driving licence. My grandmother looked after us until 3 when we began nursery (5 cousins). My mum looks after my son two days and he does nursery the other 3. We also have her over at the weekend or we go out somewhere. I know we’re really lucky but my mum loves it and it has really pulled her through after my dad died last year. She says he’s saved her from falling into a depression. I always tell her if it’s too much we can go to the nursery full time but she doesn’t want to. Although if he did go to nursery full time I would need to give up work, she doesn’t know this. I guess it’s the feeling of not understanding why your parents don’t want to spend more time with your children? Maybe they don’t want to fully commit for the length of time that would be needed but it does seem a shame. Some families are more family oriented than others.

I am astonished at the amount of support some parents have with sleep over’s at Granny’s house.
Our’s are a bit older now and can count on one hand how after they have stayed over. I think the more wiling GP’s, to spend time with their GC’s just generally like being around children
I was a STAHM for a while so didn’t need the earlier childcare but I would of loved them to have a closer relationship- sadly my parents just aren’t that interested and only live a mile away. It has been hard emotionally to come to terms with. One day I may become a GP and I want to have a bond with the next generation but I can understand that being elderly and having to be the go to childcare must be challenging.

I do feel for your OP, it’s really hard without help (I have twins too, plus another). My parents are too old to help but if they did it would never have been anywhere near as much as my grandparents did for us (my parents went on semi regular week/2 week holidays without us) but MIL did one day a week childcare when younger and now collects from school one day a week and has them for 2 hours until I finish work. It’s a massive help and I’m really grateful. We don’t get sleepovers but I think that’s because there’s 3 of them, lots of friends/ family wifh 2 kids get sleepovers, I won’t pretend I’m not jealous!

id be a bit sad in your situation too OP but there’s not much you can do aside from try to move past it

Your parents are right and this is their time now, plus it's very unusual to live so close to grandparents in my experience. A distance of 100 or 200 etc miles usually rules out much childcare!

Eldest I was much younger and grandparents helped a lot. 2nd and 3rd no family nearby and trust me it was easier to use paid childcare

But I am going to offer to help if I can as I do think life is easier if you’ve got some babysitting help

I had triplets spontaneously conceived and my mum never helped out - wouldn't come to a baby group with me, never had them and still doesn't now they're at school. She lives around the corner. She comes round but doesn't interact with the children much and just sits in the kitchen.

She has my nephew of the same age on a weekly basis and has a great bond with him. Takes him for days out, babysits etc

I understand not wanting to have three babies or kids alone, but not wanting to help me with them when they were babies was really upsetting. It was such an extreme situation I thought she'd have stepped up to help. It's irreversibly impacted our relationship and it won't ever recover. I needed my mum.

The other grandparents live over 2 hrs away.

We are mid 60s and dh has 3 gc under 8 living 30 mins away. We don't do childcare at all but support in other ways.