If you have kids and boomer parents, do you get less help with kids than they got?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are (late) Boomer parents. We had no help from our parents. They had no help from theirs. My parents did practically raise my niece and nephew when my sister needed the help. We have fully funded our kids education and hope to give hands-on help if/when the time comes.

Now, can we talk about the stereotypical lazy, entitled Millennial who needs constant praise to even get out of bed in the morning?

Ah, yes, thank you for illustrating that even (late) Boomers are still Boomers.

[Anonymous]

Who are the innocent bystanders?

[Anonymous]

Retired grandparents do not owe their children babysitting services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, my boomer parents got more help with kids from their parents, than they gave me.

I don't think age was a reason. I was my maternal grandparents first grandchild-born when my grandma was about 48 and grandpa about 50.

My parents became grandparents when my first child was born--mom was about 51 and Dad about 53.
So my parents were slightly older, but it's not like they were elderly.

Those are all very young ages to become grandparents!!

It's not. People have kids in their 20s, who then have kids in their 20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who are the innocent bystanders?

+1. I’d like to know who the innocent bystanders are too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are (late) Boomer parents. We had no help from our parents. They had no help from theirs. My parents did practically raise my niece and nephew when my sister needed the help. We have fully funded our kids education and hope to give hands-on help if/when the time comes.

Now, can we talk about the stereotypical lazy, entitled Millennial who needs constant praise to even get out of bed in the morning?

Thank you!

Oh, look, another one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Retired grandparents do not owe their children babysitting services.

But they're BOOMERS, dammit!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are the innocent bystanders?

+1. I’d like to know who the innocent bystanders are too.

Other boomers who this same poster bashes time and again on thread after thread.

Also, am I sensing a sock puppet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some poster really has a problem with the "boomer" generation. She throws around the term with such contempt. Like with everything else, however, it's wrong to generalize based solely on one's own, personal experience.

We are boomer grandparents. We live in the DMV and raised our family here, as do all of our now grown children. All of our kids and their spouses work full time, and their children (we have three grandkids from two DDs) have never had nannies, sitters, or childcare providers of any kind in their entire lives. We, the self-centered and awful boomers, have taken assumed responsibility for literally every moment that the grandkids need care and the parents are not there to provide it. We also take in the grandkids when the parents want childless vacations, which they have once or twice a year. And during summer vacations the grandkids spend several weeks with us in our second home in the country and the parents spend weekends. Oh -- we also take the dogs.

Our grankids adore us and our children are grateful as hell. Not only have they saved tens of thousands of dollars in childcare over the years, the care and love that their kids are getting cannot be matched. Our kids and grandkids are probably the luckiest families in the world.

My point? Stop demonizing an entire generation just because your own parents happen to suck. And, while you're at it, stop feeling so damned entitled. Do any of you really think that when you are grandparents you are going to do even a fraction of the things that you complain endlessly that your parents aren't doing for your kids?

I don't think you need to be so defensive about this. I don't see a lot of entitlement or Boomer hate on this thread.

Look again and try to be objective. There’s a lot of both.

I think I see four comments stating that their boomer parents help less even though they could. Two comments seem upset about it, but imo not in an entitled way, just upset about their parents not making an effort. The clear majority of comments state that either their boomer parents don’t help because they are old or live far away, or that their boomer parents got less help than they get from their boomer parents. One person said there is stereotype that boomers are selfish and stereotypes tend to exist for a reason, but the commenter wasnt one of the people resentful of boomer parents.

See, here's the thing. Were the OP asking, and others responding, to the question "do you think your parents, as boomers, have a better and closer relationship to their grandchildren than they had to their own grandparents," it would not be a loaded question. As OP puts it, though, who cares about the grandparent/grandchild relationship -- it's all about grandparents "helping" their gown kids with the grandkids.

There are a lot of parents on this thread -- and on this board more generally -- who are busy as hell, working full time, super stressed out, adding kids to the mix, and then getting upset that their parents, who once upon a time had been there and done that, aren't willing to jump in. Why should they? It was the parents' decision to have kids, and their only legitimate concern should be how can I make sure my kids and their grandparents have a good, close relationship? Because that's what children owe their parents and their kids -- their parents don't owe them childcare, though.

It wasn’t loaded. It only seems loaded to boomer parents because they are sensitive about criticism about boomers. I suspected the complaints I saw must be outliers and I was right. And I didn’t ask about relationship because that’s not what I was curious about, I was curious specifically about help.

Way to generalize about a whole age group -- specifically, boomers. You just outed yourself and destroyed any credibility that you might have had.

Yawn.

[Anonymous]

I get zero help, none, from my parents or my inlaws. My mother is very difficult, and my father does whatever she says so they pay all their attention to my sister's kids (who are younger than mine). They take the kids so she can go on vacation with friends, drive their carpool, go to all their games, take them on vacation, etc.

My MIL was great with my kids but she passed away unexpectedly when they were young. My FIL does nothing, no calls, no cards, no interest whatsoever in his only grandchildren. It's incredible. My DH tells me that my FIL's parents took him and his siblings for TWO entire months during every summer, for every single school break, took them on vacation, and paid for his graduate school.

My kids have zero interest in their grandparents and I hate that. But I have tried and tried and tried but my parents and my FIL seem to just not like us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We get zero help from our Boomer parents. Zero. They basically do not know their grandkids at all. This was largely their choice, although at this point my daughters are so angry that they don't want to see or talk to their grandparents at all. COVID is not the reason - it was the same pre-COVID.

Our Boomer parents got much, much, much more help from their WWII generation parents.

I'm angry and have posted about our situation here before, only to be screamed at by Boomers that I'm being ageist and have no right to expect help with my kids. But it is hurtful that our parents DGAF about our kids (or really about us).

I think your anger and the fact that it seems to be growing is more the reason than anything else. I see your posts and I am immediately struck by how unpleasant a person you seem to be. Maybe you need to look inside you first before you start casting blame at others? Therapy can help with that.

I see your post and am immediately struck by what a smug, sanctimonious boob you are. Therapy can help with that.

(not the quoted PP)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a younger boomer, in my 60s. I Ioved my parents and miss them, but- zero help despite living fairly close by. And this is from both sides, in laws were way worse! We really could have used a little interactive help. You know, we were the ones breaking all those glass ceilings, with pretty bad daycare, no maternity leave, towing that line so we weren't passed over for promotions-
and we were exhausted 24/7. Not saying you guys aren't doing a lot, too, but it was pretty raw in the 70s and 80s.

I wished our folks would have spent any amount of time- after school, weekends, anything, but those boundary lines were drawn in dark ink, even if not fully verbalized. They did buy the kids gifts for birthdays, we had family time, and we were treated to a week at Disneyworld- family time was close, but never really ever alone with the kids, and we had pretty quiet kids. They were low key in needs, no real behavior problems. I can see if we had a high maintenance kids, but these kids were pretty easy, plus with our parents they were extra polite.

Now, here we are, ready to do all and everything. Sick duty, babysitting, going to school events, we would even pay for lessons, camps, and college. Ironically, we will have no grandchildren.

Anyone looking for a grandparent here? We are going to waste

Oh my heart! OP here and I really do want to be an involved grandparent to my grandkids. But I only have two kids and I suspect DD won’t have any (she said she doesn’t want any and I won’t be surprised if she changes her mind). DS wants to have a million kids so hopefully I’ll get to help with them. I’ll have to try not to be one of those obnoxious MILs who asks to see them a lot, but I figure if I’m really and truly helping ease a burden and not being annoying I stand a chance.

Yeah, you'll be great! I am wistful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are the innocent bystanders?

+1. I’d like to know who the innocent bystanders are too.

Other boomers who this same poster bashes time and again on thread after thread.

Also, am I sensing a sock puppet?

+1 It definitely is a troll who is sock puppeting. The immaturity is the big tell. Look at some of the responses. Seems like some kid who needs more parental supervision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We get zero help from our Boomer parents. Zero. They basically do not know their grandkids at all. This was largely their choice, although at this point my daughters are so angry that they don't want to see or talk to their grandparents at all. COVID is not the reason - it was the same pre-COVID.

Our Boomer parents got much, much, much more help from their WWII generation parents.

I'm angry and have posted about our situation here before, only to be screamed at by Boomers that I'm being ageist and have no right to expect help with my kids. But it is hurtful that our parents DGAF about our kids (or really about us).

I think your anger and the fact that it seems to be growing is more the reason than anything else. I see your posts and I am immediately struck by how unpleasant a person you seem to be. Maybe you need to look inside you first before you start casting blame at others? Therapy can help with that.

I see your post and am immediately struck by what a smug, sanctimonious boob you are. Therapy can help with that.

(not the quoted PP)

LOL, sweetie. Coming from you that's quite a compliment. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Zero help from either set of grandparents here. My ILs were too old, and my parents were too young!

DH was a later in life baby for ILs- they were in their early 70s with health issues when our kids were born. They would’ve otherwise loved to help, but just weren’t capable of caring for little ones anymore.

My family is a bit different…my mom had me very young, dad mostly out of the picture. My mom and stepdad married late and had my (much) younger sisters. They were still very busy working and parenting teens when I had my kids.

Neither my parents or my ILs had much help from their own parents either, but that was more unusual at the time!