not to want my grandchild to stay for three days......

Looking after, or raising, children is a perfectly respectable JOB. Not being paid to do it does not take away that fact. Wish stay at home parents would stop doing themselves down.

purple you'd have a plethora of opinions and suggestions. I'd be interested in what you decide to do.

You're right. I put my heart and soul into looking after them, and enjoyed every minute of it [even picking them up in the early hours of the morning when they were at the night clubbing stage; in fact I used to love the conversations we used to have in the car on the way back. I remember one night when my son had had a few drinks and, periodically he would look at me and say 'mother, you're driving is very good tonight']. I found that a lot of kids went off to university and didn't know how to handle drinking so I let mine get used to it before they went. My daughter said her friends were amazed at uni how she would get back to hall after a night out and fold her clothes very neatly before crashing out on the bed . Happy days! I'm still 'on call' on Sunday night/Monday morning for a possible airport pick up.

When my DH & I talked about having children we decided that one of us would be a stay at home parent. To be honest there wasn't much discussion about which one, it was always going to be me I loved the years I had at home with them (even if we were relatively poor materially as a result). Never would it have occurred to me to leave them at such a tender age.

I don't know the reasons why the parents in the OP need to go away but I don't think the child's grandparents should be made to feel guilty if they either don't feel up to it or are concerned that the child isn't ready for it. My advice would be to speak to his parents and voice your concerns, perhaps the trip could be put off for a while.

I a like you crimson still taking and collecting,as my lovely returning son does not drive,we have some lively chats on the way home after he has finished his shifts,2 of which finish at 4am,but they are very special times,I used to do this with Kate also,and will in a few years be doing this with Eisha,I have always loved being a mum,and my 3 birth certificates are my proudest achievments,
However will be a working mum/nan from 1st of October

baubles agree with you I was always a stay at home mum,although not very well off financially,I did part time work in the early teens and full time work in the late teens,now we have a role reversal,we don't want to leave E with a "parent" at home so my lovely OH is going to be househusband,and I will be full time breadwinner,how times have changed..

That should read without a "parent "

I could never understand parents who sent their young children away to holiday camps, or put them in holiday club with young playleaders when they were on holiday. I looked forward to our annual holidays as a chance to be with my girls all day. I remember being in one hotel with a creche for young children and there were a couple of toddlers who just screamed for three hours because their parents dumped them on the young nurses.
I never had a night away from my daughters until they were 6 and 7, when they had to stay with my mum (whom they loved) for a week during a house move. At that age, it was a bit of an adventure for them, but I missed them terribly!

I agree Greatnan, I could never have sent my children away to boarding school either, and I hate the fact that my youngest dgd has just started full time nursery (her mum has to work).
I wish I could look after her, but it's too much for me.

My son worked for a company that ran water-sports holidays in the Med in the summer and winter sports in the Alps in the winter, both with plenty of activities for children of all ages. I called it 'Butlins for barristers'. Once, staying in Sardinia as his guest, I overheard a little boy saying to his parents, 'You send me away to school and when we come on holiday I never see you...'. I could have wept for him.

I was on a train once and saw some young boys being sent off to prep school .

Of course, all those who spend the greater part of their childhood at boarding school will say 'It didn't do me any harm'. I have been out with several of them - and it had harmed them!

At the risk of being shot down in flames (steel knickers on again) I would suggest we bring some of this on ourselves by wanting to be hands-on grannies. I think I started or contributed to a post ages ago about the perils of wanting to be "supergrans" - and I don't think our children are necessarily insensitive, but we can also be our own worst enemies by perpetuating the image of wanting to appear young/fit/capable under all circumstances - the extension of the career woman we either were or perhaps secretly longed to be. We none of us want to appear old and past it so it might be hard for DDs and DSs to equate this with our (justified) reluctance to be viewed as being as capable as we were in our 30's. I try not to dwell on DH's health issues with the DDs - I think there is time enough when things get really bad so I try to put a positive slant on it all - so I have only myself to blame if I give the impression I can do more than is in fact possible.
That said - while we love them to bits and would lie down in front of the proverbial bus for our DGC, these are their children as we often know all too often when "granny treats" are frowned upon or contact is denied, and our DC can't have it both ways! The buck as they say, stops with them and we should not feel guilty if we can't always fly to the rescue.(Cf helping financially as mentioned on other posts) "A mother's place is in the wrong" was how it was once put, now it seems "a grandmother's place is in the wrong more often than not!!

What a great post, gracesmum. I am sure you are correct. When my gc were younger, I found it very hard to say that babysitting for three boys under three (my daughters were both single mothers for a time and lived in adjoining houses, so I sat for both of them) was very tiring, especially after I had worked all week running my own conveyancing business.

I agree. I realised my grandchildren were, just that, my daughters children when I suddenly wasn't seeing them any more. Painful as it was it was also liberating in that I was worrying and feeling responsible for them in ways that I shouldn't have been.

I do so agree, gracesmum! When my DD became pregnant, she was very keen to go back to work as soon as possible (finances obviously being tight and her OH working full time as well), and I gaily offered to look after the baby for two days a week, cutting down my own working hours accordingly.

When it was discovered she was expecting twins, I could hardly retract my offer, but even though I was only 55 when they were born I found the strain of having them from 8.30 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. overwhelming. It didn't help that DH hadn't a clue about babies, his first wife having done it all while he was on shift work!

I think it's often a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh being too darn over-optimistic!

Or, as a work colleague said to me yesterday 'well, you're no spring chicken are you'.....[ouch ]...

Such charm, Crimson!
Coming late to this - New York!!! That's not a good plan. A night in a hotel for a trial sleepover should be max for GM and Gs's benefit. A nearby hotel, so that if he is inconsolable at 2am they can get in car/taxi and get over there.

Well said again, gracesmum. I love brave posts.

I am sure you are right, gracesmum. I haven't had the chance to put it to the test. When GD1 was born, I was 51 and working full time, so although she lived close by, I didn't see her except at weekends. As she got older, I was able to have her overnight on occasion and when she moved even closer, she'd pop in on her way home from school and would come and bake in my kitchen at the weekend. The others all live too far away for me ever to have been 'hands on' - more of a 'special occasion' granny and, by the time they turned up, a much older granny.

I too agree with the others who say to start with one night.

Not sure how relevant this is to this thread, but with Son number 1 (now 34!) it was always best if HE left *US " To explain, if we dropped him off at Grandma's , then drove off, he would get into a right state!

However, if Grandma picked him up from our house, put him in the car & drove to her house, he was 1 very happy chap!

I think it may be a sort of case that if he left us, then of course we were going to be exactly where he left us, but if we left him, he couldn't sort of "place us"

This probably sounds completely mad!

Nope. It sounds like good sense.

I think it's affected my relationship with my DD too - before the twins were born she must have thought I was pretty invincible (the two of us having gone through a lot together on our own), and when it became apparent that I was not, she must have felt very disillusioned!

Thanks Bags ! It always made sense to us, (one we'd sussed it) but some people couldn't understand the difference!

Well! Interesting posts..I don't feel so bad about not being 'hands on Granny' anymore! Can I just add - there's a very sound reason why our bodies are programmed to have babies whilst we are young!