Grandparents and childcare

[springlikeish]

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.

I did lots of childcare with now 19 year old GS. He lives with me now and helps with granddad.

My own experience, which is just that - my own and might not apply to anyone else, is that I have a great relationship with GC I didn't do childcare for but it is different to the ones who spent lots of time with me every week without parents, who would do weekly sleepovers and be here for weeks in school holidays,who called in most nights after school rather than go home to an empty house for a couple of hours. It is more like my relationship with my own children than it is like the relationship with the other GC. I'm not saying it is better or worse, just different.

Yes, it’s perfectly normal for grandparents (often code for grandmother), to not provide regular free childcare and to just want to be grandparents, doing the nice things with some emergency care when needed. It’s normal for your generation and many generations before.

They say they've done their bit and now it's time for them to do what they want. I guess this is at the heart of it, some of us want to do childcare and some of us don't. We are all different at the end of the day.

I do as much as I can for my children/grandchildren because I did not have help when my own children were small. Juggling it all (primary school teacher) eventually made me jaded. I was more than glad to stop working when my first grandchild was born, in order to look after her, so her mum could work.

My parents were too elderly and H's parents both worked full time.

I look after my grandchildren 9 working days out of 10. The day I do have to myself I probably look after grandchildren in part due to my daughters having appointments to attend. I do sleepovers one night a week and have grandchildren around both days of the weekend. I feel privileged to have close relationships with my children and grandchildren. Now the GC are older, I have more time during the day around school drop offs/pick ups. We take GC on holiday with us and babysit evenings when required.

I especially feel huge sympathy for single mothers who have absolutely no one/zero help. It is relentless. I see plenty at the school gates.

Possibly all due to it not being the responsibility of blokes to be solely accountable for their children for at least 3.5 days of the week?

Wonder how many men genuinely worry/loose sleep about child care arrangements?

Of course there will be exceptions ....

My husband helped with childcare only when it suited him. He looks back and thinks/tells others he did 50:50. 🙄

He carried on at weekends as if he was single - hobbies/socialising. There was always an excuse to go out - someone's birthday, someone retiring, someone's cousin's father in law's dog's birthday.

It's happening to my youngest daughter but she can't see it. She'll blink and it'll all be 30 years ago.

H still does what he did best when our children were young - gets the children/GC giddy and then goes out when he gets exasperated.

I'm coming back as a bloke. But by then the tide may have turned.

Huge number of posts on here about women shouldering the mental load/childcare/life admin. We do it to ourselves - most have no choice.

Why do men always have a 'choice'?

I know some women will insist they do everything/every single task 50:50 - I personally don't know any. Good luck to you. Neither I nor my daughters or their friends have ever known a man who solely arranges childcare for work/rest/play.

I also don't expect my children to look after me when I need a bath chair. Makes me laugh when I see posts about 'hope they don't expect to be looked after when they didn't babysit'.

I know exactly how my daughter's feel about me .... and it's by no means all positive 🤣

Stupid to think the only way to have a good relationship with grandchildren, is by providing free childcare. My nan never offered regular childcare, she lived an hour away and we didn’t see her all that often, but she was an amazing nan to us, she’d spoil us, play with us, take us fun places and I absolutely adored her. I have only warm memories of her.

How do your kids relationship with your DM compare to those of your sister? In my family, the children who had grandparent help are much much closer to their grandparents than those where there was no help.

It is somewhat ironic that a thread earlier this week was calling a daughter selfish for not dropping everything to go and stay with her elderly mum to help out for a few days. However, here the consensus from the retired is that it is terrible to ask grandparents to help with childcare or babysitting.

Why the double standards?

@naunet honestly they just aren't interested that's fine, whereas my sister has asked to have her for a day and night and is taking her out to places and she's having a great time with her auntie. When I mean the GPs aren't interested, they are just not interested, unsure how to facilitate a relationship that they have no motivation for 🙄

I can relate. My parents do fuck all to help, and while I understand that they have 'done their time', my mums own parents had me and my sisters for at least half of every school holiday, all sick days and a few days after school every single week. They also had us for sleepovers all the time, not because it was needed, because they wanted to and I had a brilliant relationship with them as a result.

So it feels really hypocritical that my parents refuse to help 99% of the time, even when I ask months and months in advance.

It was really hard when I was a single parent as I had next to no support, and trying to juggle it with a full time job.

I have a lovely partner now and his family are AMAZING, despite her not being their biological grandchild, they have nurtured and developed a lovely close relationship by spending time with her, and helping me out!

@Barleypilaf
Me and my sister had a similar setup with my parents.
They looked after my sisters kids all the time and not mine. My sister didn't even work, she just needed help.
All the grandchildren are grown up and my kids do not see my parents as much.
This is only because my sisters kids are still draining the life out of my parents and are always at their house.
My parents now provide regular childcare for my sisters grandchild they are in their 70's.
Their mental and physical health is not great tbh and it has created a divide between me and my sister and the grandchildren.
That's not because they didn't look after my children, it's because my sister and her kids constantly dominated their lives and still do.
My kids don't blame my parents. They are there for them if they need anything. They are adult enough to see what is going on.

OP this is perhaps the wrong forum for this. Mumsnet tend to be very much ‘raise the child and as soon as they turn 18 bye bye’. Forget they are parents forever! I’m with you on this. But like I said don’t ask on this forum, I needed help with my second baby as I had a 18 month old too and had a c sec and my mum who doesn’t work and lives close by didn’t want to come round to help!! But apparently I was entitled, so like I said if you actually ask the general population I think it’s a lot more supportive than on here.

Exactly this, well put.

Why the double standards?? Really you think there is no difference between an elderly lady caring for baby twins and a younger woman assisting an elderly person

My paternal grandmother lived in my house from Monday to Friday when my sister and I were growing up and provided child care and light housekeeping for us. Once my parents returned from work at 6pm, she would put up her apron and go to her room or go out of the house and do her own thing. She would return home to her house on Friday night and return late on Sunday night. There was absolutely no free childcare because my parents paid her a wage! They paid employment taxes and my grandmother reported her earnings. She was hired help!

My maternal grandparents had 10 children and a boat load of grandchildren (they had 45). There was no way they were taking care of any of us. They knew that if they did it for one, they had to do it for them all and that would have been overwhelming.

When I had my own children (they're adults now), I always lived far away from my father (mother died when I was a young girl) and my in-laws so if I wanted childcare, I had to pay for it or take the children along. I suppose it was because I didn't have the expectation that I would be provided any help, never mind free care.

I'm a grandmother now and my son has expressed his disappointment in me because I won't take on a day or two every week for care of his children and for free. I work from home and he makes the assumption that I have all the time in the world to look after them. I will take them when there is absolutely no one to help when they're ill but that is as far as it goes. I try to remind him that no one helped us and we didn't have a single night away from them, at least my husband and I together, for his entire childhood. He doesn't see it that way and I'm apparently a horrible mother and grandmother and I will lose out on the "bond" with my grandchildren. I had a wonderful relationship with our grandparents that didn't live with us. There was no bond lost because I didn't spend the night with them once in a while.

Stupid to think the only way to have a good relationship with grandchildren, is by providing free childcare. My nan never offered regular childcare, she lived an hour away and we didn’t see her all that often, but she was an amazing nan to us, she’d spoil us, play with us, take us fun places and I absolutely adored her. I have only warm memories of her

DM was widowed when we were children and shemoved us to London from Devon to live with the GPs so she could find work and her DM stepped up with the childcare. My experience of my nan was the opposite - she didn't like me and had no problem showing it. So providing childcare = good relationship with DGC doesn't necessarily relate.

It does seem common with people I know. We have had my mother's help (and another family member) for the past 11 months. They do 1.5 days each, so not a huge burden for them. It wasn't something I would ever have asked for, but it was offered. I do pay a bit of money (seems only fair as my siblings didn't get help - as my mum was working still when they had theirs). It's also not supposed to be longterm. We thought we'd just see how it was like this for a year or 2.
I would definitely do the same if/when my children have children.

Oh my gosh the replies here!
I am lucky with my parents they looked after my 1st child 3 days a week from 9 months so I could go back to work she was in her 60s.

Fast forward 9 years and here I am with a baby I didn't think I'd have! It is mega hard work and I can feel the difference in me in that 9 year gap. I'm currently a SAHM as the childcare costs are not worth it. My mom now nearly 70 has said she couldn't do what she did for my first now and I don't blame her it's too much. She will however look after the baby for a few hours if needed and has had her overnight so me and partner could have a weekend away. I feel extremely lucky.

After reading these responses I'm shocked I thought grandparents happily looked after their GC. I must appreciate mine more for what she does for us

It's not the only way, but the bond and relationship will be different. I work full time, as does DH. That means when weekend comes around we want family time, need to do the food shop, clean, usual admin. Add in as kids grow children's parties, Saturday morning sports etc. Maybe making time to visit a set of grandparents for the morning on a weekend, with three sets of grandparents and a weekend to ourselves - thats a month. Then we have 3 sets of grandparents moaning they miss the baby because they only see once a month but don't want to provide any childcare for 🤷‍♀️. It's their right not to want to but that decision comes with consequences. And one of those is seeing baby only 12 times a year rather than 52 if they watched even once a week.

It's not their responsibility, but honestly, I do think quite badly of grandparents who never help their adult children even when they could. I'd find it hard to stand by and watch my adult children struggle when I had the capacity to help them.

I don't get any help with child care, I'm a lone parent and I'm working full time.
But I have to agree with your parents. I don't mean to be harsh and I'm not trying to offend - some are happy to help, some aren't and some can't.
My DF has some health issues,he can't help. My DM and her partner work full time. The annoying thing for me is they offer to help but don't deliver. Just had to accept it, nothing I can do.
But all around me, parents of friends will take their grandchildren every other weekend.
I remember having sleep overs with my grandparents every week.
The playgroups have grandparents sessions, I see more grandparents than parents on the school run most days.
It does sting, not going to lie, but we have to do what we can.
Have you looked at childminders if you want to go to work in future? I was shocked at the cost difference between those and nursery.

I really don’t understand this expectation. Grandparents are entitled to live their own lives.

I realise that nobody can control whether you have twins, triplets or more however it's a possibility to consider and plan for how you'd handle it.

It's not easy when you have no family help, my parents feel the same as yours however we talked about this beforehand and so were fully aware.

I don't think it's fair to expect them to provide free childcare on a regular basis, I want my parents to relax and enjoy their retirement. They've worked really hard and deserve to have zero responsibilities after so many years raising their own family, this is their time to enjoy as they please. They shouldn't be tied to school runs or holiday care, that's before factoring in health.

Some grandparents can't help, and I certainly wouldn't expect regular babysitting from a grandparent, but I do judge those who choose to do nothing for the grandkids.

@fluffiphlox They are free to choose their own lives, yes, but that comes with consequences. Kids benefit from having multiple supportive adults in their lives, who are there for them in a real sense, not just "disney" visits. Not taking at least a minor role in helping with grandkids denies the grandkids that.

@LameBorzoi I am of grandparental age but don’t have children. I see my contemporaries run ragged by their own sons’ and daughters’ expectations of them, some travelling hundreds of miles a week to provide childcare, often to multiple grandchildren. It’s the expectation, entitlement and lack of recompense for even just the fuel that I find quite shocking. Of course they like to see the children and be part of their lives - but it’s often to the detriment of their own social lives, holidays etc. (I speak as someone who spent a lot of time with her grandparents but they were local).