Millennials feel 'abandoned' by parents not available to help raise grandkids: 'Too busy'

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do get a bit annoyed at my boomer parents, who are always on vacation, while I have small children at home, a demanding career, and cannot get enough sleep.

That’s weird. Why would you be annoyed by that? They’re your kids.

They live a life of leisure while I work nonstop. It gets annoying when they want to see the grandkids but cannot watch them for 15 minutes so I can get work done.

Working non stop is likely your choice to fund your lifestyle. Assuming you are making more than minimum wage and not living in a studio apartment in an unsafe area.
They’ve had their years of work. You can live a life of leisure when you retire.

Wrong. Work nonstop to support kids.

Chose to have kids.

Sure but the actions of my parents have consequences. We cannot stand to be around them since they cannot lift a finger. This is a trend for boomer grandparents.

Why did you have kids and what did you really expect?

We are happy with the kids. We are not happy with the grandparents.

What did you expect them to do?

Provide at least 1% of the help their parents provided to them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I do get a bit annoyed at my boomer parents, who are always on vacation, while I have small children at home, a demanding career, and cannot get enough sleep.

That’s weird. Why would you be annoyed by that? They’re your kids.

They live a life of leisure while I work nonstop. It gets annoying when they want to see the grandkids but cannot watch them for 15 minutes so I can get work done.

Working non stop is likely your choice to fund your lifestyle. Assuming you are making more than minimum wage and not living in a studio apartment in an unsafe area.
They’ve had their years of work. You can live a life of leisure when you retire.

Wrong. Work nonstop to support kids.

Chose to have kids.

Sure but the actions of my parents have consequences. We cannot stand to be around them since they cannot lift a finger. This is a trend for boomer grandparents.

Why did you have kids and what did you really expect?

How is this a relevant question? She’s pissed off at her parents and that’s her choice and right. If they don’t help her, she won’t help them either, simple as that.

[Anonymous]

This just so does not resonate for me. All the boomer grandparents I know would loose to spend more time with their grandkids. My neighbor has offered to watch her granddaughter as many days as possible but the mom thinks it’s better for the child to have consistency in childcare (which is fine). I know lots of millennials who want to limit the grandparents time or really control how/when etc. My sister who is a boomer flies to her kids houses all the time to help out if one parent is traveling or they want to take a kid free vacation.
I do wonder if people are making it really hard for their parents to care for the kids by putting a ton of restrictions on it. My grandmother watched me almost daily. Did she do it the way my mom would have wanted? Probably not. I are a LOT of pudding and she let me watch some questionable TV. But it was fine. You have to be a little flexible and not treat your parents like employees. I definitely see some millennials who would rather pay someone they can micromanage than let their parents have some leeway. My approach is to set out some basic safety standards (careers, sleeping on back, etc.). But otherwise let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do grandparents owe their children and grandchildren anything? Yes, it would be great if they could help out but some of your are downright entitled. You think your parents still owe you their time and effort? How messed up is that?

Why do we owe you Social security or medicare?

The average boomer never paid enough into those systems, which is why they're going broke.

Social security started 90 years ago. Boomers have paid in all their working lives.

Not sure what gives you this idea they are “going broke.” That’s not factually accurate. There are actuarial issues but not political ones. They will be there when you retire

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why do grandparents owe their children and grandchildren anything? Yes, it would be great if they could help out but some of your are downright entitled. You think your parents still owe you their time and effort? How messed up is that?

Why do we owe you Social security or medicare?

The average boomer never paid enough into those systems, which is why they're going broke.

That’s not how it works.

For decades Boomers vehementy opposed paying more taxes to shore up SS or medicare. Instead they always pushed for expanding yet abother benefit for themselves. So they're getting way more out of those systems than they ever paid in. Now Millennials are left holding the bag with all this national debt while Boomers basically have the gov pay for their viagra and pleasure cruises.

Precisely. Most selfish generation in history.

Look at who’s demanding child care…. The navel-gazing Millennials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s clear that the whole notion that families should move to different edges of the country and fend for themselves doesn’t work. This isn’t really evident until you have kids . . . I moved from DC to a smaller town where people tend to have local family (and where I have family). It’s better to have grandma than a babysitter, but it’s also nice to be close enough to help when grandma has medical issues. No amount of hiring/outsourcing can replace the ease/comfort of family.

Totally agree with you. Where I grew up wasn't really a small town but the educational opportunities were either gigantic monolith state schools where years in you most likely wouldn't get into the major of your choice or school so small no one even in state has ever heard of them. I also didn't get into the one really good school somewhat nearby.

[Anonymous]

I’m a Millennial and my parents did get some help from their parents/my grandparents but it did come with conditions, of course. I couldn’t do overnights at my maternal grandparents because their health wasn’t good enough. Couldn’t go to the other set of grandparents during the day some days because grandma was working and grandpa wouldn’t have watched me alone. But they or my great aunt were usually able to step in if I was too sick for school or day care.

The main problem now seems to be that fewer people live near their families. As the jobs consolidated in the big urban centers, we all left our Midwestern/Southern small town home towns for a few big cities. I wish we lived closer to both sets of grandparents but it’s not the reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This just so does not resonate for me. All the boomer grandparents I know would loose to spend more time with their grandkids. My neighbor has offered to watch her granddaughter as many days as possible but the mom thinks it’s better for the child to have consistency in childcare (which is fine). I know lots of millennials who want to limit the grandparents time or really control how/when etc. My sister who is a boomer flies to her kids houses all the time to help out if one parent is traveling or they want to take a kid free vacation.
I do wonder if people are making it really hard for their parents to care for the kids by putting a ton of restrictions on it. My grandmother watched me almost daily. Did she do it the way my mom would have wanted? Probably not. I are a LOT of pudding and she let me watch some questionable TV. But it was fine. You have to be a little flexible and not treat your parents like employees. I definitely see some millennials who would rather pay someone they can micromanage than let their parents have some leeway. My approach is to set out some basic safety standards (careers, sleeping on back, etc.). But otherwise let it go.

This has been my experience as well. I’m GenX but have lots of friends who fall into the Boomer bracket. All of them will drop everything to spend time with their grandkids. But it’s definitely different than when we were kids. As PP mentioned, our grandparents didn’t have nearly the rules and micromanagement from our parents as grandparents do now. Also, as another PP mentioned, many friends are also balancing taking care of their elderly parents so they have to balance that with the grandkids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do get a bit annoyed at my boomer parents, who are always on vacation, while I have small children at home, a demanding career, and cannot get enough sleep.

That’s weird. Why would you be annoyed by that? They’re your kids.

They live a life of leisure while I work nonstop. It gets annoying when they want to see the grandkids but cannot watch them for 15 minutes so I can get work done.

Working non stop is likely your choice to fund your lifestyle. Assuming you are making more than minimum wage and not living in a studio apartment in an unsafe area.
They’ve had their years of work. You can live a life of leisure when you retire.

Wrong. Work nonstop to support kids.

Chose to have kids.

Sure but the actions of my parents have consequences. We cannot stand to be around them since they cannot lift a finger. This is a trend for boomer grandparents.

Why did you have kids and what did you really expect?

How is this a relevant question? She’s pissed off at her parents and that’s her choice and right. If they don’t help her, she won’t help them either, simple as that.

No. She has decided all boomer parents are the worst. She can hate on her parents, but she can't speak for everyone. My parents are boomers and this doesn't describe them. They also didn't get much or any help from their parents. I don't see this great trend, of fact, PP supposed does.

[Anonymous]

Millennial here, so tired of people feeling entitled to their parents time and money. I earned my own money, I pay my own way, I don't expect anything from anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m gen x but my grandparents were very involved with my life. My boomer mom never even calls my kids. It’s very sad.

Same here.

Your grandmother was involved because she probably did not have as many choices in life as your boomer mom.

I'm a gen-x mom whose silent gen mom could not do much to help me because I lived hundreds of miles from them, and that was ok. She did help my sisters with childcare because she didn't have anything else to do, and they paid her as she had no other source of income.

So many entitled millennials.

[Anonymous]

Gen X here, Silent Generation parents who are lovely, but too old and too far away to do any “work” - nor would I ask them, because they raised me to be independent.

Without a dog in the fight, but the overall trend seems to be a strong correlation between selfish grandparents and entitled adult children who are angry grandma and grandpa can’t skip a golf vacation so they can go on vacation. Hmmm. It’s almost like selfish people raised selfish people. Stop the presses and write a passive aggressive think-piece on that.

I’ve got plenty of GenX/Millennial friends who have helpful parents, but none of them rely on their parents for regular childcare. And they step up when their elderly parents need help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do grandparents owe their children and grandchildren anything? Yes, it would be great if they could help out but some of your are downright entitled. You think your parents still owe you their time and effort? How messed up is that?

Have you seen the threads on here with people saying what was the point of having kids if they weren't going to provide them with grandkids? My boomer parents certainly guilted me about giving them grandchildren. Now that I have, the lack of support is a bit of a piss off.

+1000! I think my mom bugged for grandkids for years just to boast pictures to friends. She is completely uninterested in them, it’s crushing and difficult to make peace with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boomers are too busy and galavanting around on vacations to help their kids and grand kids, sad. Another example of boomer selfishness on top of the wealth taking and focusing younger generations to find their lifestyles, sad.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/millennials-feel-abandoned-parents-available-help-raise-grandkids-busy.amp

I think millennials need to stop having sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Millennial and my parents did get some help from their parents/my grandparents but it did come with conditions, of course. I couldn’t do overnights at my maternal grandparents because their health wasn’t good enough. Couldn’t go to the other set of grandparents during the day some days because grandma was working and grandpa wouldn’t have watched me alone. But they or my great aunt were usually able to step in if I was too sick for school or day care.

The main problem now seems to be that fewer people live near their families. As the jobs consolidated in the big urban centers, we all left our Midwestern/Southern small town home towns for a few big cities. I wish we lived closer to both sets of grandparents but it’s not the reality.

Same here. We just couldn't have the same jobs in our hometowns. That's a choice, but we worked hard to get into our careers. I'm lucky because my boomer parents actually do help out a lot when they are able to visit us.