Looking after grandchildren

grandma2002 - so sorry

I was denied all access to some of my grandchildren after my son's first marriage broke up.No fault of mine but it broke my heart.
We eventually got regular contact again, but it was a warning to me to never take your grandchildren for granted, you may never see them again.

I'm the only grandparent for all my grandchildren and love them all very much. They don't live near me so I can't be much help with childcare though I do what I can and will always help in an emergency. I'm mid 70s now and still have to work , I get very tired. I have an adult daughter living with me who needs a lot of support. I do feel a bit inadequate sometimes.

Oh, and PS: My own grandchildren ( 10 and 7 ) live in Japan since birth so I have only seen them physically about 4 times in person. Tho obviously we keep in touch via FaceTime etc. At my age I can’t travel any longer due to health issues, and I’m still running a part time business from home.
My other son at 43 is steadfastly unmarried and living about a 5 hour drive away.

I’m nearly 79 .I married a little later in life in my early 30s …I had 2 sons within 4 years of marrying .
My husbands parents were in their late 80s living far away and my own similar. I had NO grandparent help ever!
My mother and Aunt ( who lived with mum and dad) did come down to help once when I was in hospital having my second child… but after a few days they arrived at the hospital and said “we’re going home…we can’t stand him…” - my then husband had criticised everything they did from my aunts cooking to mum helping with my eldest… !
I divorced him after 8 years of abuse and was on my own with my sons.
I was very lucky to have a great friend who would help when I had to go away to work, but otherwise… NO Grandparents per se! I read all these tales of help with envy!

Buttonjugs

Surprised people look after GC when they’re ill. I am furious if mine come anywhere near me when they’re ill because I will catch it and be very unwell. Last year I caught a cold from one of them and ended up with pneumonia. The Christmas before last my son (autistic adult) didn’t have Christmas because we were sick with Norovirus for two weeks.

As I see four of them nearly everyday, I could catch whatever bugs they are cultivating anytime.

Business’s are not overly sympathetic when a parent wants to stay home to look after a sick child.

I had no family here to help with my children, I know first hand how hard it is to raise a family and work, which is why I do whatever I can.

grandma so sorry for your loss.
We used to drive from mid Essex to south east London one day a week to look after our first granddaughter and the another day to east London to look after granddaughter number 2. We were then in our late sixties/early seventies. The journeys took over an hour each way. This had to stop when Covid struck.
We resumed the child care once the lockdown ended. Since the my DH has died, both daughters have moved back to Essex and I help out with school runs and dog minding when I can, I’m happy to do it, but as I’m now disabled I can’t do as much as I’d like.
Both DDs help me with things I can’t do for myself & drive me to hospital appointments etc.

Crikey, 3 times a week, I’d be exhausted. I look after my 1 year old grandson once a week all day. Don’t get me wrong I love it but it is tiring the older I get, I’m ’only’ 63, work 2 days a week and plan my other 2 days of the week to myself. Plus the weekend spent with DH, occasionally have looked after GS overnight or occasional whole weekend but then there’s 2 of us to look after him.

I looked after my GS from a baby. He is now a teenager. It was the happiest time I have ever known and I would love to do it all again. We are still close and I adore him. Though I say so myself, he is now a decent, thoughtful and polite young man. (Of course I'm totally biased).

I'd love to do it

Surprised people look after GC when they’re ill. I am furious if mine come anywhere near me when they’re ill because I will catch it and be very unwell. Last year I caught a cold from one of them and ended up with pneumonia. The Christmas before last my son (autistic adult) didn’t have Christmas because we were sick with Norovirus for two weeks.

madeleine45

I was born in 1945 and somehow friends of my generation seem to have rather drawn the short straw. Still rationing definitley sweets til about 1953 , and many other things. We lived in Yorkshire and walked 3/4mile to school for infants and juniors, and then about half a mile to railway station and a journey to the grammar school, and another half mile at the other end to walk , come hail come shine. As teenagers then , we were expected do our share of jobs, go and get shopping etc , with a very small amount of pocket money. No telling the adults what you would and wouldnt do. Then an adult , married and saving and working hard to get
started with a home. Happy to have second hand furniture until we could save to have what we would like. Then with a family but not living anywhere near relatives , only sorted any childcare with friends and share and share alike. Then later the mortgage went up to 15% and our careful budget was wrecked and we scrimped and saved to keep going. As all parents we did without to bring up the family , and by the time they were teenagers they had far more opportunities than we had had. Then they moved away and we helped where we could to set them up. The grandchildren come along and we are delighted to see them but now it is not the pleasure of them coming to stay for a few days or you taking them out as it fitted in with the family. If we are anywhere near our children we are having to make serious commitments to childcare, whether that is being part of the actual after school care each week, or ferrying them to and fro, or having to cancel our plans to look after a sick child as their parents cant have sudden time off from work etc.
One of my oldest friends and I had plans to see much more of each other when we retired. Due to her son being on a two year course in the south east - which will be beneficial in the long run - She and the other grandmother are taking week and week about travelling down to stay and look after the children, because child care is so expensive there. Of course we want to help our families and do our best but at the age of 79 we have managed a couple of lunchs together meeting in the middle, but havent even been able to have a couple of days b and b , never mind having a week together. We also of course were the Waspi women, where our carefully planned retirement was ruined by the retiring date going up and up and again all your sensible planning came to nothing. I have had some great times and love my family as do all my friends , but now we are seen as the oldies who are getting all the houses or hospital beds etc etc, with no acknowledgment of our hard work and efforts for the community. So watch out for the pink pigs flying overhead. Let me know wont you as that will be the day I will feel well, have the time and money to go out and have a good day with my friend!! If there is reincarnation I am definitely coming back a as a cat!!!

On MN, they are always complaining about "entitled boomers." They should read your post.

I read the article

Grandparents need to learn to say no

The grandmother in the article is resentful the gc is not raised in a way the grandmother approves (no sugar, limited screens, planned activities, etc) instead of the grandma making the plans

The grandma does not understand coordinating vacations or how if she gets late to babysitting, how it impacts the work of the parents

Overall - not a good arrangement

Parents will learn to cope some other ways

Parenthood doesnt always turn out to be what one imagined. Not everyone enjoys looking after their own children when reality hits home. While some parents might have loved every minute, others will have found at least some stages of extremely difficult, and some (who knows how many!) will have just hung on in there longing for those children to grow up and become independent.

I would hazard a guess that those parents who didn't enjoy it are quite reasonably not going to want to play a large part in caring for future grandchildren, and even less so if they are being dictated to about what they must / mustn't do!

Great for those who want to do it, but it is unreasonable to expect that all grandparents should feel the same.

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle, though I do a reasonable amount of care for my younger dc.

I've been doing it for years. Eight Dgc with some of them adults now and some babies and some in the middle. Never resented a minute of it. When DGS got home from uni and came straight round for a visit and turned down a night out with mates on Saturday to have a sleepover at granny's and the little one puts his arms round my neck I know it is a great privilege.

I do not believe the person in the Telegraph story is real; most likely she’s a composite of anecdotes, quite possibly sneaked from Gransnet.
If she’s real, she is an utter drip and should stand up for herself.

We have 2 GC, our son's son who is in Boston US aged nearly 2 and our daughter's daughter who is nearly 1 and lives 25mins drive away. We are in our 70's and fortunately fit and healthy since we have looked after the yougest 2 days a week since she was 3 months old My friends all think I am mad but we make it work due to unbendable rules.
1) I couldn't do it on my own, DH is on hand to do the back up
2) We have her at our house so we can fit the childcare in around our other activities/chores
3) We agree holiday cover well in advance
4) We only step in for additional cover in real extremis
5) We all agree on a routine that is also followed by the nursery she attends for the other 3 weekdays
This role is a priviledge, I am so pleased that GD is getting to know us so well, I never had this close a relationship myself and nor did my children. The only drawback is the rivalry that is exhibited with our DS and DiL who feel they are not getting the same offer. Consequently when they are in the UK we have our GS on his own all week which happens 3 times a year and is rather more exhausting although it is lovely that he knows and trusts us too. We each make time for other activities to keep us healthy in mind and body and long may it be so.

@grandma2002

Very sorry to hear of your loss, and as you say good to have your loving GCs with you at this time.
Thoughts with you all 🌺🙏🏾🙏🏾

Oh Grandma , that is devastating news , sending you strength. 💐💐

We live 5 minutes drive from DGD and see a lot of her. We live 5 hours from DGS and only see him 2 or 3 times a years. It would never have occurred to me to lay down “ground rules” for looking after them, it has been a privilege. DGD treats our home as her own (and respects it in the same way) and I love that. We have never been taken advantage of in any way by our AC and have never refused unless their request was impossible. I wish, more than anything, that we could be more involved with DGS.

I have had my GC one day a week for many years and have ' voiced' my opinion on this at various times on GN. , although I appreciate not everyone agrees with me . I hear so often from GPs " their children their rules " within reason yes I agree but for the majority of time in my house it is ' My house my rules ". Of course I take notice and comply - but not all the time. If my DDs began being too prescriptive about the care of their children I would not be happy. If they want their children to have freshly cooked meals - no beans on toast or fish fingers then I would suggest they looked after their own offspring!! I have boundaries for their safety and mine , I know what I can deal with and what I can't. My DDs trust me implicitly and I appreciate that. They are just grateful for what . do - and so they should be !!! . The GC love coming , lots of glueing and sticking , large garden to get muddy in and cakes to bake - I do my best. IMO parents have no right to lay down lots of rules - if GPs are able to provide loving care then parents should appreciate that. If I had to follow a list of rules about What they can and can't do , what they can eat or not eat it would take away the pleasure of having them . Within reason if they are entrusted to me I need to know my DDs have faith in me to make decisions that are in the children's best interest. Parents need to know they are not entitled to free childcare from their own parents. We are doing them a great favour - it is not the other way round !!!

We have looked after our gcs from the word go and loved every minute of it. I am now reaping the benefit of those loving years, developing close ties. Last week my husband died violently and we are all in this nightmare together. One son has come down from way up north because my other son and family had commitments they couldn't avoid. The GCs are devastated. I was able to spend two nights sleeping in my GDs bed and now home my 2nd GD will visit and "baby sit" me as I did for her. So looking after GCs is an investment for the future, not that we thought of this at the time but enjoyed all contact with them. It can't be easy for every GP but enjoy it where you can.

I think if you are older grandparents with very young GCs, I am late sixties my OH mid seventies, and we have grandchildren - 3 of them - who are babies, the oldest is 2 and a half, it can be totally exhausting. On top of that we both have health problems.
So though we love to babysit it does takes us a while to recover afterwards. Thankfully our grown family do realise this so don’t ask us to babysit a lot, but even so we have had to give up a lot of our daily social life and volunteering in order to help with the children.
I imagine it gets easier when they start school.

Over the past few years I've been taking my granddaughter and now also my grandson to school most days and have loved having them here. I get up at 6.30 so I'm ready at 7.00 to take them in and give them breakfast first.
Now my daughter has told me that she's booked them in to breakfast club and, though I'm looking forward to getting up later, I do feel that my efforts over the past few years have been a bit unappreciated! I'll still see them though and am trying to see the best of the situation,

I never resented our time with the GC but because we are 30 miles away it was not as much as some of you. The most difficult year was when GS was 3 and GD was 1 and mum was the main breadwinner, so we took our caravan to a field near them and did it from there for about six months 3 days a week. It was very hard work. Younger DD is 180 miles away and trying for a baby. She has no family close by so we are thinking of taking our van again for a couple of weeks at a time. But we are 12 years older now and have various physical limitations - so it might not happen.