commitment

My daughter, on her career break has found it very difficult within her circle of friends being the one not working [albeit part time] and can't wait to get back to work; it's as if, having worked so hard for so many years she doesn't know how not to. But, having done a lot of child care over the past 8 years I had said that, if she returned to work I would no longer do so, and that is what is going to happen. Am I feeling guilty? You bet I am. But, as I said, the childcare seems to have changed the dynamics of my relationship with them, and I seem to be someone that is only included in things in my role of 'childminder', and I can't seem to reverse that now. I also feel that, with the children, I have just become the old lady who nags them [not a lot though] when they're dawdling on the way to school etc not someone that they enjoy being with.

Yes Tegan I do agree about the downside of being the childminder of DGS. We have had a lot of responsibility for the care of DGSs 1&2 over 8 years which has caused us to have to be the disciplinarians. Our relationship with other DGCs in England is completely different we see them 3 or 4 times a year and can concentrate on playing with them. I do so hate having to nag about getting homework done! Also DD expects me to encourage the children to eat a healthy diet and not have too many tooth crumbling treats. The other GPs see them once a week for a few hours with their dad and are able to spoil them rotten. Other granny has a sweet cupboard open at all times for unlimited gorging. Needless to say this makes her very popular!

On the other hand, we get most of the cuddles

My view entirely Hilda - there is no incentive or support for young parents who wish to be stay-at-home parents for a period of their children's lives. The blanket assumption that more child care is a Good Thing is I think quite fundamentally wrong. When parties were fighting to offer the most free child care in the run-up to the election, I found it most exasperating, because no-one addressed the reasons why this is needed, which is that couples cannot afford a home unless they both work. That is where the research and support should be aimed. Not at skewing patterns of child care to sort a broken economic system.

I think there has also been a change in the mentality of some parents. Having been through Uni etc. and obtaining a good position, they are reluctant to give up their jobs (and the money that goes with them). I'm sure this is the case with our daughter, she was missing her job while she was off, keeping in touch all the time.

Oh I would defend any parents' right to have a job or career - I just despair that there is this perception that all parents MUST work....and pay someone else to look after their children.

When my daughter informed her car insurance company that she was taking a break to do some full-time parenting (and voluntary work at the school) she was informed that as she was 'Unemployed' her premium would go up!!!!

So in our society being a responsible full-time parent is deemed a higher insurance risk!....That's what I despair at - society somehow demoting parenting.

I agree with your assessment of the situation Mishap

I think that when young parents have worked so hard to get good jobs, it can be very difficult to get back in the workplace if they take time off. That and the horrendous cost of mortgages frequently gives them little choice, which is of course, then compounded by the cost of childcare.
If GPs are happy to give help then that's great, but I can well understand those who are finding it difficult for whatever reason.

A DF spent two years driving 200 miles on a Sunday night to her DD, childminding to Friday morning and coming home again. She has a disabled husband who couldn't give any assistance and who resented it big time.

I don't know how she did it, and eventually it affected her health. Her DD was most put out when she said that's it.

As a youngish grandparent (54 now), I actually had to give up a part-time job to look after DGC 1 when DiL's maternity leave came to an end. I still have a small amount of income via some self-employed work that I squeeze in around looking after DGS and younger DGD, but this is extremely limited by the erratic childcare arrangements (DS looks after them on his days off but has to work different shifts every week).

DH is retired and only has a tiny private pension on top of his state pension. This means that our income, currently topped up by pension credits, is limited, with no prospect of my increasing it as long as I am caring for the DGCs.

What's more, if I were to commit to the childcare until both DGCs were, say, 14, (assuming that circumstances allowed this, which is very unlikely) I would then still not have reached the official projected retirement age and would somehow or other need to find a full time job to support myself and DH (who by then would be in his 80s).
This prospect terrifies me!

Oh, and there are also my elderly parents to consider too. My dad was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer at Christmas, so they are definitely going to need more and more of our help in the very near future. They live a 2.5 hour drive away. I don't have a clue how I'm going to juggle everything when things get worse!

I'm probably going to get shot down now. Mamacaz Why should you juggle everything ? You have enough on your plate. Your Daughter had a second child knowing that she would have child care problems and it seems it is down to you to disrupt your life ! I'm sorry but I am still of the opinion that if you have children it is down to you to work out how they will be looked after . I also think that peoples expectations are so much higher these days and that they don't want to go without anything. Yes , I am aware that there are some that are really struggling.

We are always willing to help out our family in emergencies and love to have the DGC with us. We take them on holidays, have sleepovers and days out but, on our terms .

I think we are getting away from the heading of this thread which is "commitment".I have explained upthread just why I took on this. It is as much a sacrifice as a commitment and no-one should take it on without long and serious thought as to exactly what it means and just how long it goes on for. In our case we were lucky, my H was retired and was just as keen as me to take it on, and the bond he has with DG was as stong as mine. Sadly his Alzheimer's is changing that as it is with all his relationships. If people feel an obligation this is wrong and it will fester and resentment will grow to a point that things will be unfortunate for all the family. Go into it willingly with no illusions or not at all.

I think most people do go into it wilingly and with no illusions but, when circumstances change [which they always will] it often results in resentment. I really don't know what my relationship with my DD is any more other than the fact that, now that I'm not childminding I don't seem to have any sort of role within the family at all.

Ginny: I certainly won't shoot you down for saying that. I would have said the same thing myself until I found myself in this situation, and don't disagree with you at all.
However, having started this, it's very difficult to end the commitment knowing how much DS and DiL will struggle financially, even though I never said that I would do it forever.

Annsixty: I don't think that we have really gone away from commitment, have we? The situation I described is all part of that commitment, and describes some of the potential (perhaps unforseen) consequences of it from a grandparents' point of view. That was my intention, anyway, though I must admit that my posts do tend to get a little long-winded sometimes.

I am going to make a very controversial point here but it is my view that by helping to look after our grandchildren, to whatever extent our health and circumstances permit, we are setting an example to our grown up children of how families work in the long term. We are all getting older, and will at some point be dependent on our children to either care for us or at least make sure we are cared for properly in our very old age. Although the childcare I provide is given freely, with no expectations, I would hope that it has been one factor in helping my children (who were also looked after by grandparents) form the view that families look after one another from cradle to grave, as I did

Having said all that, grown up children have to understand that we are getting older, and we may simply reach a point (as my mother did) when we are not up to doing it any longer. They should be able to accept that with a good grace when the time comes, and if they can't then they haven't learnt by example

I have several friends and acquaintances who have taken on this role willingly at first. They are now realising how restricting it is on their lives . They are retired but really still working. When other friends and I are talking about places we have been and clubs and societies we enjoy they are saying ' oh, we can't do that because of the children'. A number of them also find that like* Tegan* their contact with DGC is seen as a job ( albeit an unpaid one in most cases) and they miss out on just enjoying their DGC.

I've been the squeezed middle, with elderly parents needing daily support, grandchildren needing care/escort to school etc, teenage children still in school and a full time job. I look back in wonder that I somehow got through without the wheel coming off. In my case the care of grandchildren wasn't due to parents working sadly.

I agree with night owl about the way families look out for each other and share the care of children but this shouldn't be at the expense of the health and well being of family members. Like others here, I know a number of grandparents whose own health has been ground down by the demands of caring for grandchildren whilst their parents work. I feel for Tegan and think ginny is right, grandparents, ideally, need to be exactly that, grandparents rather than substitute parents. My parents were fantastic stand ins when neither of us could take time off work when the children were ill but I wouldn't have dreamed of asking them to be full time carers.

night owl - I think you make good points which I don't disagree with. I also sympathise with MamaCaz's posts, some of which resonates with me, my husband also older than me, raised one family before we got together, was a young father first time around, father again with ours mid and late 40s and then became a very strong presence, still is, in first set of gc who live fairly near, when his son their father died. He tells me he sometimes feels that he has been bringing up children for the whole of his adult life in between running a business. I absolutely defend his stance on "we should be free to do our own thing now" that's not to say he doesn't want to see our gc often, but absolutely rules anything out "set in stone" We have our gd for a whole day at week-ends, I sometimes feel knackered afterwards. The other grandparents do much more than us, but they are younger and I have no intention of trying to match them. We lead fairly full lives, my husband plays golf 3 times a week and do a lot together going up to London for exhibitions visiting NT places and we do go away quite a lot I suppose. I think my husband gets annoyed with the presumption that our son and partner presume that we are sitting around with nothing better to do, plus it's our "duty attitude" to be there when required. I think if I had more energy I would do more with the children, posted about this subject on hypothyroidism thread. Children can't always understand that we have been their age, but they have yet to reach our age and tiredness can sometimes take over. I can see from a lot of what has been said here, that the unforeseen happens with grandparents and child care and the grandparents worry about what will happen when they can't continue to child mind. I imagine that it's doubly difficult if there are also aged parents that need time and care. Ours are now dead but we both needed to spend time with our respective parents when they were alive a few years ago.

We are lucky to have just 2 days a week caring for DGS2, who is an absolute joy, and we have built up a great relationship with him. Perhaps the "seen as the one who tells him off" scenario applies with older children (DGS2 is only 23 months old), but we haven't had that yet. We are as grateful for the chance to be such a close part of his life as my DD2 and SIL are to us for helping out. Saying that, we are never taken for granted and always feel appreciated, and we can "take time off" when we want to. I would always give a couple of months notice though - two weeks is very inconsiderate, IMHO, unless it were a genuine emergency. And because of our schedule, we can always fit in long weekends on our free days.

Reading some of the posts on this thread, I feel that we are very fortunate indeed. Hats off to anyone who has committed to so much childcare that they can't enjoy their own retirement. I don't think I could do it. Or to those managing on their own, or who have commitments to care for their own partners and/or parents as well.

I agree with a lot of these comments but to refer to the OP, which was commitment. I do think that if you commit to child minding then you should stick to it unless illness or other serious change of circumstances.
DD has now got childcare covered by her partner taking time off for the next week but he is a very demanding person and will take every opportunity to remind her of what he has done and will be critical for the next few days as he really didn't want to be off work at that particular time

ethelbags1 I can see two sides here. We look after our DGC 2-3 days every week including an overnight. We have done since they were only weeks old and they are now 9,7 and 5. Before they went to school they attended nursery for the other three days (my DS and DDiL received tax credits to help pay for this as neither of them have a good wage).

My DiL's parents are very lucky and have 10+ holidays every year. They wouldn't worry about whether they should look after the DGC they enjoy their life and do what they want when they want.

I on the other hand very rarely have a holiday and when we do have a few days away we normally have the DGC in tow anyway.

Who is right?

I cannot blame the other GP's for having lots of holidays. they are very lucky and I am a tiny bit jealous if the truth were told. At the end of the day I chose to look after the DGC. I wasn't hoodwinked into it. On the other hand because DS and DDiL rely on me heavily for childcare I think it would only be fair and polite to give them as much notice as possible if we were unable to do so for whatever reason.

Excellent post nightowl and my thoughts exactly. Families should help each other. One of the reasons I am so close to my own dear grandma is that I remember how she looked after us when we were children. It is now payback time and I am happy to do it. even if she does drive me nuts sometimes

My husband is of the opinion that people who have never taken on commitment in their lives can become rather odd and self centered in their old age. He has several golfing friends who have never had children and he finds their lives, which appear to revolve completely around themselves somewhat lacking. One of these friends not only doesn't have children, has also never married, in spite of having quite a number of "lady" friends. My husband loves his golf but has always had a great sense of "family" and is only a 5 day member at his club. Unattached friend was trying to persuade him to become 7 day member, said he missed a lot by not coming up the club at week-ends. Husband tells me that he tried explaining to friend, "I have a wife, 3 children, a widowed d-i-law and 5 grandchildren which I like to see at week-ends, (not all at once) if I played golf seven days a week there wouldn't be any time left to spend with the family". Apparently the friend's brow furrowed as if he was speaking in a strange forked tongue as none of this resonated with him at all. Life, at it's best, is all about balance, which sadly can't always be achieved.

ethelt my first reaction to your post was that DGd's dad shouldn't be grumbling as he is equally responsible, whether he likes it or not.
If I read your post correctly, it's his parents who are off on holiday.

BUT then I had to remind myself that my own DD was in a very similar position with her now ex-partner.
If left with the children for a (very short) time he'd mutter about babysitting for her!
Now they're apart and the children are older he's actually better at parenting - has them 2 nights most weeks, takes them swimming.
Still don't like his sexist and self-centred attitudes but DD feels she has little choice.

From a selfish point of view I'm needed a little less but it's difficult to get GC duties on a regular, predictable basis as he always chooses times/days to suit himself.
I always consult with DD and other GP's before booking a holiday and work round them.
A holiday for me is a 5 day break not a long spell away.
This summer I'm having 2 breaks of 5 days each - one with the DGC's!!
Now your DD has settled this problem I hope your recovery stays on course and you'll be back to enjoying your quality time with DGD before too long.

I am going to get flamed here but i had two children purely by choice courtesy of the Pill. They were planned and we understood that they would have to be looked after by us no one else as my DM had an ageing and demanding family and MIL had a very difficult teenage son. They both looked on time with my children as a break and they were treated like honoured guests. Money was very very tight and The Paupers cookbook never closed. Why is it suddenly so possible to have children without any forward planning?

No criticism from me Stansgran, but just to put the other side - things don't always go according to plan however much you try. DGS was not planned but has turned out to be the best accident ever to happen to our family (both sides). I'm not sure what DD and SIL would have done without help from us and other family members in their particular circumstances. And now, five years later, DD and SIL, aged 29 and 34 respectively, have out of the blue become live in carers with a very uncertain future as well as both working full time. I would hate to think they can never have a home of their own, or another child just because they are not, strictly speaking, in a position to be completely independent. Will I do whatever I can to take some of the burden off their shoulders? You bet, until I'm on my knees and unable to do it any longer.