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

[Anonymous]

My maternal grandparents were dead before any of us were born and paternal grandparents were in their 70's when the oldest grandkid was born and lived 2000 miles away, so no my parents didn't get help. My parents both died before my kids were born so no help their either. Interestingly enough, both my parents spent significant time with THEIR grandparents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Looks like a lot of people who get less help only get less because of practical reasons. Do you think that if your parents were closer and physically able you would get more help?

I think my MIL and mom definitely would, my dad and stepmom not so much. I'm thinking the idea that Boomers refuse to help out as much is not completely accurate and has more to do with how much they want to help than a generational thing.

I think the distance is an excuse for some. My parents live 5-10 minutes away and zero help even during an emergency. They are physically able to help and my mom will help her boyfriend's kids and grandkids, go to their events and activities (out of town) but never once have gone to my kids and will just ask for a video.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From their parents. I have seen on social media people complain that they went to their grandparents’ houses on a regular basis so their parents could have dates or just a break from kids, but their Boomer parents will hardly help them at all.

This is strictly curiosity; my Boomer parents and in-laws rarely help me but I live far away, and my mom never got help from her mom. But I wonder if this is common or just a subset of people complaining.

Both my parents and in-laws got zero help from their parents. I, on the other hand, get a ton of help from both my parents and in-laws. I think they both realized how hard it was to do it all on their own, so they don't want me to suffer the same fate.

[Anonymous]

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?

This is basically true. Some of our parents suck. The problem is when they get older, like my dad and need help, they are demanding we drop everything to help them when they never helped us once. Help is mutual. I wish we had grandparents like you but we don't. Now that we worked it out sadly we don't need or care and our kids ultimately miss out. We've never been childless as sitters are expensive so its sadly cheaper to take the kids with us everywhere (which is fine as we prefer it/enjoy them). My grandparents were like you. I just feel sad our kids don't get the same love we got, especially when my parents pushed us into having kids when we did promising help.

[Anonymous]

My grandparents weren't babysitting for date nights or anything like that, although my grandmothers sometimes came over to watch if one of us kids was home sick from school and my mom had to go to work. That said, I probably spent more time with my grandparents, because we all lived much closer. But it mostly wasn't in the form of help, it was just spending time as a family. I see a lot of people complain that their parents don't help them out, but they also don't spend a lot of time with their parents, and often complain about family holidays and the like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get more help from my parents than my parents did from theirs.

Same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From their parents. I have seen on social media people complain that they went to their grandparents’ houses on a regular basis so their parents could have dates or just a break from kids, but their Boomer parents will hardly help them at all.

This is strictly curiosity; my Boomer parents and in-laws rarely help me but I live far away, and my mom never got help from her mom. But I wonder if this is common or just a subset of people complaining.

this is correct for me. my grandparent basically raised us during the summer, we spent all holidays, they would drive down 12 hours to take us for weeks at a time while my parents struggled/did courses/divorced/etc. my other grandmother spent almost a year with us after they got divorced helping my mom.

my DHs mom had her MIL come and help for 6 months after his birth.

we have no help whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved further away so yes, we got less help when the kids were little. Also, with people having kids later, the boomers are older - my parents are in their 70s and just not as young. I think the memories I had with my grandparents were when they were in their 50s and 60s......

Same here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents got a lot of help. First, we were in state funded daycare 5 days a week. My sister and I were also sent to our grandparents' farm for 2 months every summer. My grandparents were younger than my parents would be as grandparents, but they worked two jobs. Back then, the kids could be left home alone and we kept ourselves busy on their little farm.
We were also left home alone a lot with a neighbor making sure there's no fire, and a few times some high school girls watching us.
Watching kids was easy back in the 80's. Nobody really watched us.

+1. I was left at home with a younger sibling a lot when we were kids, starting at age 8. There was no fear that someone would call CPS on you if your kids were left at home or were out wandering by themselves.

[Anonymous]

I have less help, but it's because my parents are much older when I had kids and due to health issues watching two young extremely energetic kids for longer periods of time is too much for them. They would love to help out more if they were physically able.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get more help from my parents than my parents did from theirs.

This x1,000,000. We're beating ours off with sticks -- joking, people, joking, we want all the "help" they'll give. My parents never had any help from their parents.

Our Boomer parents are in our house practically every day. When my mom walks in through the family door, her first stop is the laundry room where she'll put in a load of laundry, fold clothes that are in the dryer, and she'll haul the folded clothes up to kids' bedrooms. And she does it with a smile the whole time. Who on earth would complain about that!?!

Having parents who love being in our house is just about the best blessing as a family that we could have ever been given!

[Anonymous]

I definitely get more help from my parents (and ILs) than they did from their parents but my paternal grandmother died when I was 7 so it's not a fair comparison. Had she lived, she would have been very involved in our lives. My mothers parents were much older and had some health issues so she was helping them more than they could help her. They were very loving and we spent lots of time with them but didn't necessarily take childcare responsibilities off of my mother.

On the flip side, my mom was a SAHM so she didn't depend on the childcare as much as I do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From their parents. I have seen on social media people complain that they went to their grandparents’ houses on a regular basis so their parents could have dates or just a break from kids, but their Boomer parents will hardly help them at all.

This is strictly curiosity; my Boomer parents and in-laws rarely help me but I live far away, and my mom never got help from her mom. But I wonder if this is common or just a subset of people complaining.

My family skipped the boomer generation.

My parents had me and my sister in the mid sixties. They had no help from my mother’s parents because they were dead (They died when my mother was 9 and 14). They had no help from my Dad’s parents because they lived in Detroit and my parents were in Iowa. When I was one year old and my sister was three weeks old, they moved to Montana. They had no help.

When I had my children, my parents came for a week in the second week to help out. They did this with both of my children. DH’s parents came for about a week in the third week of my first. They did not come for the second. My mom felt strongly that the first week or so should be with the parents and their children solely so they could develop the bonds of family.

If I ever become a grandparent (does not look likely at this point), I will provide help to the extent that I have been asked. I do not want to superimpose myself.

On a side note, my mother’s grandmother was a “wise woman” who worked with the county doctor and was basically a combination nurse/midwife, doula, and lactation consultant. She would visit the pregnant woman prior to birth and make sure they had the things she needed, she would be present at the birth or deliver the baby if the doctor was not there and she would frequently stay for a week to make sure things went smoothly-or at least check in. I think we need modern versions of her. This was in rural Iowa in the later 1800’s and through to the Depression.

[Anonymous]

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).

[Anonymous]

My parents got no help at all from their parents: one set had passed away when I was a baby, the other set was well into their 70s when I was born. Their parents had no help either, for a combination of reasons involving being immigrants and women dying in childbirth.

My spouse and I got no help from our parents because we lived far away from both sets. We now help out with our very young grandchild, but we don’t provide total childcare. We both still have other responsibilities and our child and spouse make good salaries. (And we did provide for a college education for our child, so no loans to pay back.)