Anxiety before looking after my grandchildren

Imp glad I found this thread, as I thought I was a terrible grandma for having such feelings of anxiety before my Grandaughters visits, but it seems it is more normal than I thought.

I am a step-granny. My husband has 3 boys from his first marriage and all are now married with kids. All the GCs are adults or teenagers now except for the youngest who is coming up to 5 years old. Even though he is a delightful little boy I always experience a feeling of dread when we are due to babysit. This is despite every occasion in the past being perfectly fine and indeed often enjoyable. I do not consciously worry about him coming to harm or stuff like that. I think it is just that I have never wanted children myself - so maybe I feel like a fraud? Or maybe I resent the time I have to spend doing it? Even though we are both retired and don’t have lots of pressure on our time. I am so very lucky to be part of a family where all the Cs and GCs are genuinely lovely and all get on well together and with their father and me. I also find that I am the one who actually plays with him and talks to him about what he wants to talk about. My husband likes to read to him before bed and watch TV but he is not very active with him which is a shame as he has lots of interests he could engage the lad in. Maybe I resent my husband’s approach rather than the babysitting? Are there any other step-grans out there?

I’m very glad to have found this thread too. I’m 77 and sometimes look after a sensitive nine year old and a very boisterous three year old. I was hyper vigilant when they were babies though not overly worried; but I’m getting more and more anxious as I get older. I lay awake practically all last night worrying about a tricky train journey back to her home involving three trains and a rail replacement bus with the older child who felt faint and bus sick on the outward journey. I went though all the “what’s the worst that can happen” and “it’ll probably be fine” scenarios but it didn’t do the trick. There seemed to be a worry chemical in my brain that wouldn’t drain away! Trying to be rational doesn’t seem to work.

I do think that part of the difficulty is that as long as we carry on as we always have done, our children dont recognise, or choose to acknowledge ,that as we get older, we are still the same sensible intelligent people we have always been, but get tired more quickly, and may have some mobility problems that we didnt have before. We notice these things ourselves and within our own lives we make whatever adjustments that are needed, whether that is having more rests or reluctantly giving up ski ing or skating or whatever. Whilst we may not broadcast these changes to all and sundry, we come round to doing them as we need to.

It seems that it might be time to have a think about how much you are being relied upon, for what length of time etc. Then look at your "normal" day when the grandchildren are not with you, and if you see that you now have a rest every afternoon, or no longer go from shopping onto something else but try and deal with one major job a day, then it is time to talk to your children.

They should see that you are talking about it because you do want to keep being involved in the grandchildrens lives and that you very much enjoy your time with them, but that you dont spend a whole day doing energetic things one after another these days , and that apart from the odd emergency situation where you need to come to the rescue, that being able to help out and spend time looking after them, has to be balanced by some commonsense.

As for your children giving you rules and orders as to what and how the grandchildren should have and do whilst they are with you. Well obviously such things as allergies to foods or clothes need to be stuck to, but as to what you do, so long as you dont spend the day filling them up with sweets and sat in front of tv watching violence, then your place your choice. You could remind your child that they seem to have survived being brought up by you, and you have had the brains and the intelligence to negotiate life for more than 60 or 70 years, so other than necessities, if they do not like the way you spend the day with the grandchildren then they need to find childminders who will go by their rules, as they will be being paid for it. We all want to help our families, but as it happened I was never anywhere near my family when my son was growing up, and made plans with other mothers to help each other out, and worked out my own system.

To me, it really does seem as though these days children think they have the right to take over your life and expect you to leave your own interests and pursuits to suit them. That their wish to follow their own interests or that they want to buy a property which means they both have to work full time and make an assumption that you can come at the drop of a hat and rescue them , when they have not had the forethought to work out possible ways to deal with any situations that arrive. Whilst we want to help our families we also should have that proper granny/grandchild time to enjoy each others company and find out things that we like doing together, not feeling that anxiety and weariness that can occur when we are asked to do too much. The majority of us have managed our own way through life bringing up our children with probably less labour saving gadgets and have done our best. We should not be making life easier for our children, by getting overtired and anxious looking after the grandchildren as a necessary job rather than a pleasure to be enjoyed .