Should grandparents help out?

Nixer

Of course it should be up to the grandparents how much if any help they give however it can stick in the craw if the grandparents received a lot of help from their parents or in laws when they had youngsters and yet refuse any help to their children.

Also I can understand not wanting to be a regular childminder (especially unpaid) but to refuse help in an emergency as a one off when you could help is !!!!!!.

Equally as a parent you should not expect your kids to help you when you are old and need their help. Well not if you've done sod all to help them once they've turned 18 anyway.

We don't have kids but my partner's parents told us that they were unwilling to help in any way shape or form with any future grandchildren, in fact they made it sound as if we weren't to bring them round. This did annoy me as my partner's grandparents on both sides minded him at least 1 day a week each so that his mum could work part time and his dad full time. His mum is also hyper critical of some mothers that she knows - she seems to think that having three under 5 who you have no help with is just as easy as having one child that you get help with 2 days a week.

Partner's parents moved from round the corner to across the Solent a few years back. Now that his father has died his mother seems to expect rather a lot of support from us but the travel makes it difficult and if we did have kids it would be impossible.

I vowed never to leave a child of mine alone with my mother as she was violent and abusive to me when I was small.

So yeah I am a bit envious of people who do have family that they can call on in an emergency - this is one reason (but not the only one) that I don't have kids because although I can afford paid childcare we've no one who could help us if the child was ill. People who have a regular arrangement with grandparents are really really lucky.

pigpen

Nixer wrote: »

I vowed never to leave a child of mine alone with my mother as she was violent and abusive to me when I was small.

One of the things my mother found incredibly difficult was her father was very violent and abusive to my gran and the 6 children, then once the grandchildren came along he was lovely and absolutely doted on all of us.. My mother couldn't forgive him for the way he treated them and being nice to us upset her more.. she wanted to know why he could be nice to us when he had been so horrible to them. Whereas her older sister could forgive him for being such a nasty git to them because he was nice to her children.

Mojisola

Nixer wrote: »

Of course it should be up to the grandparents how much if any help they give however it can stick in the craw if the grandparents received a lot of help from their parents or in laws when they had youngsters and yet refuse any help to their children.

Also I can understand not wanting to be a regular childminder (especially unpaid) but to refuse help in an emergency as a one off when you could help is !!!!!!.

Equally as a parent you should not expect your kids to help you when you are old and need their help. Well not if you've done sod all to help them once they've turned 18 anyway.

We don't have kids but my partner's parents told us that they were unwilling to help in any way shape or form with any future grandchildren, in fact they made it sound as if we weren't to bring them round. This did annoy me as my partner's grandparents on both sides minded him at least 1 day a week each so that his mum could work part time and his dad full time. His mum is also hyper critical of some mothers that she knows - she seems to think that having three under 5 who you have no help with is just as easy as having one child that you get help with 2 days a week.

Partner's parents moved from round the corner to across the Solent a few years back. Now that his father has died his mother seems to expect rather a lot of support from us but the travel makes it difficult and if we did have kids it would be impossible.

I vowed never to leave a child of mine alone with my mother as she was violent and abusive to me when I was small.

So yeah I am a bit envious of people who do have family that they can call on in an emergency - this is one reason (but not the only one) that I don't have kids because although I can afford paid childcare we've no one who could help us if the child was ill. People who have a regular arrangement with grandparents are really really lucky.

That's very hypocritical of her - not wanting to help with the younger generation but expecting you to help with the older ones!

BitterAndTwisted

People are strange and people sometimes have very short memories. That's a sad fact of life. But to have one's own flesh and blood on the phone begging for a little bit of help with three young children and then refusing is unforgiveably callous and cruel. I wouldn't treat a stranger in the street like that!

FATBALLZ

Yes they should, if they can. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when grandparents refuse their moral obligations to help their family out, but I guess typifies the 'me me me' attitude of that generation. When you have children you are agreeing to a lifelong obligation to help then out if reasonably possible, not just raise them to 16 and then wash your hands of them. If there's one thing we can learn from 'multiculturalism' its that certain other cultures put the British to shame when it comes to sticking together as families.

I believe the issues of extortionate childcare costs (our household income is over £70k and we can still only really afford one child in childcare), ludicrous housing costs etc make it all the more difficult for households where one or both of the parents has a job and increases the moral case for grandparents helping out.

I don't believe by any stretch of the imagination that grandparents should give up all their free time to devote to grandkids, however for example my parents look after my child one day (that is, abour 7 hours while we're in the office) a week, the rest of the week we pay a nursery to do that job. Other than that though we don't get much help from the grandparents, unfortunately they don't live locally and I feel it's a bit of a shame and makes parenting that bit harder. I know if I become a grandparent I'd want to help out if I could.

CFC

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Yes they should, if they can. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when grandparents refuse their moral obligations to help their family out, but I guess typifies the 'me me me' attitude of that generation. When you have children you are agreeing to a lifelong obligation to help then out if reasonably possible, not just raise them to 16 and then wash your hands of them. If there's one thing we can learn from 'multiculturalism' its that certain other cultures put the British to shame when it comes to sticking together as families.

I believe the issues of extortionate childcare costs (our household income is over £70k and we can still only really afford one child in childcare), ludicrous housing costs etc make it all the more difficult for households where one or both of the parents has a job and increases the moral case for grandparents helping out.

I don't believe by any stretch of the imagination that grandparents should give up all their free time to devote to grandkids, however for example my parents look after my child one day (that is, abour 7 hours while we're in the office) a week, the rest of the week we pay a nursery to do that job. Other than that though we don't get much help from the grandparents, unfortunately they don't live locally and I feel it's a bit of a shame and makes parenting that bit harder. I know if I become a grandparent I'd want to help out if I could.

I'm sure that feeling that your parents have a 'moral obligation' to help two people who are grown up enough to earn £70k between them and have a child eases the pain of you having to feel gratitude for their selfless help. Thank heavens that you can keep a nice standard of living by avoiding paying someone to do that childcare job one day a week!

Of course I notice you have expressed zero gratitude in your post...but a moral obligation means it's your right and so not their generousity, so no need to feel grateful after all! I think the other grandparents should think they've had a lucky escape not living locally. Ah yes, as you said, the 'me me me' generation, how selfish to live further away, eh, thus making parenting a bit harder? You don't think perhaps your generation might be the me me me generation rather than your parent's generation by any chance?....

onlyroz

pigpen wrote: »

One of the things my mother found incredibly difficult was her father was very violent and abusive to my gran and the 6 children, then once the grandchildren came along he was lovely and absolutely doted on all of us.. My mother couldn't forgive him for the way he treated them and being nice to us upset her more.. she wanted to know why he could be nice to us when he had been so horrible to them. Whereas her older sister could forgive him for being such a nasty git to them because he was nice to her children.

This rings a bell. By all accounts, hubby's dad wasn't much of a dad (not abusive, or anything - he just didn't have that much time for him - not the bed-time-story sort of dad, or the help-me-with-my homework sort of dad, or the hand-holding sort of dad) - but he's an extremely doting grandfather, and is extremely affectionate with our kids when we go round.

onlyroz

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Yes they should, if they can. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when grandparents refuse their moral obligations to help their family out,

Where is the moral obligation of a grandparent to provide free child-care and interest-free loans?

mumps

Having read this thread I feel so happy to have grown up in a family where my grandparents loved spending time with us kids, where my parents and their siblings took it for granted that they looked after their parents when they needed it, that this followed on to the next generation. I wish my parents were still with us, my mother lived with us for ten years after she was widowed. I have looked after my sisters kids when needed and spend loads of time with my grandchildren. I do it for love but if I look back I do feel I have an obligation to repay the care I had and the care my children had. The baton has passed to me, I feel sure that my children will carry on in the same way, I hope so anyway, my DD has already told me she intends to have a house with a granny flat so I can live with her when I am widowed, I haven't told hubbie her plans for his future. Her main aim seems to be that she wants to be the one to have me, I think she intends to fight her brothers if she has to. It feels good to be wanted but who knows if her future husband will share her views. Mind you as she hasn't met him yet we will have to wait and see. It takes all sorts I suppose and I hope everyone is happy. I feel sorry for the OP and don't understand her mother but then again she probably doesn't understand me.

FATBALLZ

CFC wrote: »

I'm sure that feeling that your parents have a 'moral obligation' to help two people who are grown up enough to earn £70k between them and have a child eases the pain of you having to feel gratitude for their selfless help. Thank heavens that you can keep a nice standard of living by avoiding paying someone to do that childcare job one day a week!

Of course I notice you have expressed zero gratitude in your post...but a moral obligation means it's your right and so not their generousity, so no need to feel grateful after all! I think the other grandparents should think they've had a lucky escape not living locally. Ah yes, as you said, the 'me me me' generation, how selfish to live further away, eh, thus making parenting a bit harder? You don't think perhaps your generation might be the me me me generation rather than your parent's generation by any chance?....

Blah blah blah.

Of course I am grateful, I even pay my parents travel costs to get here, I only mentioned my own situation as a reasonable level of help that grandparents could offer, somewhere between the '5 days a week free childcare' and 'not my problem' extremes certain people seem to lie on.

The reason we actually have my parents look after my child once a week (should say most weeks, not every) is that we didn't want them in nursery 5 days a week, we can afford the extra day but feel 4 days in nursery is more than enough considering they aren't even 2 yet. Both myself and may partner have previously tried to go down to 4 days a week at work however our employers have refused. I did not put any pressure on my parents, I just offered them the choice and they said yes, I believe that they have a moral obligation to help given that they can however I don't believe it would be right to demand help either.

I'm not really thinking of myself anyway, as my situation isn't representative of most people my age with children, because most of them earn a lot less than we do. I struggle to understand how a lot of people can afford childcare and saving for a deposit with kids. I suspect most have to make a choice between one or the other. People like these should be getting help from the grandparents.