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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And barely Gen Exer Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I don’t remember very many kids with grandparents helping out. I remember latch key kids instead. It certainly wasn’t the norm in either of my parent’s extended families.

This. The rules have changed on millennial parents. They’re required to do so much more both in terms of enrichment and in terms of saving. Having older grandparents is just another log on the fire. I’m very thankful to have involved grandparents on both sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we’ve only had anecdotes from some very bitter women , here’s some statistics on what’s actually going on with grandmothers.

According to the u.S. Census Bureau, there are about 11.3 million children under age 5 with working mothers. of those children, about 3.3 million (30 percent) are in the care of their grandparents for some period of time every week. With nearly a third of the children of working mothers being cared for by grandparents,

The Census Bureau also reported that many older children often are cared for by their grandparents before and after school, while their parents are still at work – 12 percent or 4.7 million children between the ages of 5 and 14, are regularly in the care of their grandparents.

(National assoc of childcare). NACCRRA’s survey found that nearly 40 percent of grandparents with grandchildren under age 13, and who live within an hour’s drive from them, are currently providing child care to their grandchildren.

Note the first paragraph references children under 5. The second was children under 13.

U.S. census data shows that 7.1 million American grandparents are living with their grandchildren under 18. Some 2.3 million of those grandparents are responsible for their grandchildren meaning they have custody of their grandchildren.

This should completely shut down the idea that millennials aren’t getting grandparent help. Now, how this plays out by geography and SES level, you’d have to do more research…

It doesnt. How does 30% compare to the percentage of help parents recieved a generation ago? Has there really been no drop in the numbers? And do a significant number of millennials actually feel abandoned because they don't have parents watching their children? Does this amount differ significantly from past generations?

Yeah, no. 30 percent in no way = “abandoned.” And that’s childcare every week! Adding in “15 minutes” here and there would be much higher. Sorry if your parents don’t help out, but you don’t speak for the generation and the data is the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Don't have children expecting your parents to be your free child Care. We took care of our kids and you can do the same.

I think the point of the article and the point many posters are making is that many parents by and large did not take care of their children without assistance from their family but now that they are the grandparents they arent paying it forward.

Many posters here including myself were practically raised by our grandparents during summers but have not received the same type of assistance from our parents.

you need to really take a good look at the lives of boomer women compared to silent gen women. Do you think women in the silent generation worked until they were 65 and helped take care of grandkids? No, they did not. Many were sahm. Did you grandmother work until she was 65? I doubt it. Most women of that generation didn't even work, and if they did, they quit after having kids. Not so with boomer moms. They worked even after having kids. And that is tough, as you know. So, I don't blame these women who after having worked and taken care of kids for most their lives (probably mostly on their own without their husbands help), don't want to continue taking care of little kids after they retire. I sure wouldn't, and I'm genx.



and

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/lfp/women-by-age

This is interesting that even in the depression and during WWII many women didn't work outside the home.

PP here.. to be fair, there weren't many jobs to be had during the depression. But, even so, in the older generation, women just didn't work as much, especially when they had kids. Life was harder; there were no conveniences to make cooking and cleaning easier and faster. Birth control was hard to come by. Poor people had lots of kids. Someone had to stay home to cook and clean, and take care of the kids, and that was usually the mothers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gen X here from an era where kids had lots of independence and responsibility and not tons of extended family help. My widowed mom had our baby sister in Head Start while she worked a shitty job where she was sexually harassed by the boss. My brothers and I were on our own, riding our bikes around the neighborhood getting into mild scuffles with no supervision. We were expected to do some basic chores and be home when mom came roaring up in her station wagon with the baby and would put something like Hamburger Helper together for dinner. She worked until she practically dropped and by then my siblings and I were raising families of our own. We never expected anything but love from her which she's always given. If she wants to read novels in bed till afternoon or take budget trips to Hawaii with her girlfriends, we're all over the idea. She has earned her rest and retirement.

Another Gen Xer here with a similar upbringing and perspective on grandparents role!

Yet another GenX checking in. I want my kids’ time with their grandparents (and vice versa) to be special and fun. Sure our grandparents occasionally babysit but it’s not the overall tenor of the relationship. Our parents deserve rest and our kids deserve some good natured spoiling.

Gen X here with late 70s immigrant parents (so they don't fit into American generational stereotypes). I agree with this. I don't expect anything from my parents. They worked hard to give us a good life. I'm doing the same for my children. I know a lot of millennial parents, since I had my children late in life, and a few of them have local parents who help them a ton, but the vast majority are just like me. I've NEVER heard anyone complain about their "selfish boomer parents". I don't know who all these people who are constantly complaining are, but I don't know any of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we’ve only had anecdotes from some very bitter women , here’s some statistics on what’s actually going on with grandmothers.

According to the u.S. Census Bureau, there are about 11.3 million children under age 5 with working mothers. of those children, about 3.3 million (30 percent) are in the care of their grandparents for some period of time every week. With nearly a third of the children of working mothers being cared for by grandparents,

The Census Bureau also reported that many older children often are cared for by their grandparents before and after school, while their parents are still at work – 12 percent or 4.7 million children between the ages of 5 and 14, are regularly in the care of their grandparents.

(National assoc of childcare). NACCRRA’s survey found that nearly 40 percent of grandparents with grandchildren under age 13, and who live within an hour’s drive from them, are currently providing child care to their grandchildren.

Note the first paragraph references children under 5. The second was children under 13.

U.S. census data shows that 7.1 million American grandparents are living with their grandchildren under 18. Some 2.3 million of those grandparents are responsible for their grandchildren meaning they have custody of their grandchildren.

This should completely shut down the idea that millennials aren’t getting grandparent help. Now, how this plays out by geography and SES level, you’d have to do more research…

It doesnt. How does 30% compare to the percentage of help parents recieved a generation ago? Has there really been no drop in the numbers? And do a significant number of millennials actually feel abandoned because they don't have parents watching their children? Does this amount differ significantly from past generations?

Yeah, no. 30 percent in no way = “abandoned.” And that’s childcare every week! Adding in “15 minutes” here and there would be much higher. Sorry if your parents don’t help out, but you don’t speak for the generation and the data is the data.

Did you read the original article? It's terrible journalism. This 30% has nothing to do with one psychiatrist saying there's a rise in her patients claiming their parents have abandoned them with childcare.

[Anonymous]

My parents relied heavily on my grandparents who lived very close to babysit us for free, attend family vacations with us and paper half and cook meals for us routinely..... However, they do none of that with their own grandchildren.... My mom still works and says she is too busy and my dad is retired but has no interest in helping with anything other than meeting us for a quick meal occasionally.

[Anonymous]

What's up w/ gen x responding her, it's totally not about them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of millennials refuse to do the math. When I was small, my grandma was in her 50s. People complaining about lack of help when “my parents’ parents helped them”: how old are your parents? My guess is, substantially older than their parents were when you were born.

It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just a societal change. Complaining won’t help.

my grandma was 31 when my mom was born, my mom ws 31 when she had me, I was 35.
I dont think times have changed THAT much.
50s as a grandma means they both had kids in early 20s which is pretty young even for the 1980s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's up w/ gen x responding her, it's totally not about them

Some Gen X had Boomer parents and some Gen X may have Millennial kids. The can relate to both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents relied heavily on my grandparents who lived very close to babysit us for free, attend family vacations with us and paper half and cook meals for us routinely..... However, they do none of that with their own grandchildren.... My mom still works and says she is too busy and my dad is retired but has no interest in helping with anything other than meeting us for a quick meal occasionally.

your mom is working, so yea, she can't really babysit.

And that generation of fathers don't do much childcare. So, your mom did all the childcare/houschores/cooking herself.

Your grandmother most likely didn't work, and your grandfather most likely didn't do any childcare, either. So, your grandmother was more available to help with her own grandkids.

Why do you millennials have a hard time putting things into perspective?

-signed gen xer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's up w/ gen x responding her, it's totally not about them

A lot of us are responding because we have boomer parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like a lot of millennials refuse to do the math. When I was small, my grandma was in her 50s. People complaining about lack of help when “my parents’ parents helped them”: how old are your parents? My guess is, substantially older than their parents were when you were born.

It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just a societal change. Complaining won’t help.

my grandma was 31 when my mom was born, my mom ws 31 when she had me, I was 35.
I dont think times have changed THAT much.
50s as a grandma means they both had kids in early 20s which is pretty young even for the 1980s.

dp.. your anecdata does not equate to statistical data as a whole.

Generally, the past two generations ago, women had children in their early 20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we need to distinguish here between full time childcare (what almost none of us are saying) and offering up the occasional date night or sleepover to the grandchildren you claim to love and be interested in.

When we asked my inlaws to watch our kids for the company holiday party, we'd drop them off about 5pm and their main question would always be "what time are you coming to get them in the morning?" It was clearly a favor to us and nothing more. We stopped asking.

This seems like a reasonable question to me. Maybe it was just a favor to you. Why not let them? A babysitter is doing it only for money. Is that better?

The meaning was clear in the tone. And I didn't say we don't "let" them. I said we stopped asking. Want to guess how often they offer on their own?

Why should they offer on their own? Maybe they think you have things handled, or don't want to be intrusive. Or maybe they are self-absorbed (yet willing) and just need to be asked. Do you communicate this way in your marriage? JFC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's up w/ gen x responding her, it's totally not about them

Older Gen X and younger Boomers are brothers and sisters. It’s ridiculous to have that cut off as if something miraculous happened in 1965 that changed everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents relied heavily on my grandparents who lived very close to babysit us for free, attend family vacations with us and paper half and cook meals for us routinely..... However, they do none of that with their own grandchildren.... My mom still works and says she is too busy and my dad is retired but has no interest in helping with anything other than meeting us for a quick meal occasionally.

your mom is working, so yea, she can't really babysit.

And that generation of fathers don't do much childcare. So, your mom did all the childcare/houschores/cooking herself.

Your grandmother most likely didn't work, and your grandfather most likely didn't do any childcare, either. So, your grandmother was more available to help with her own grandkids.

Why do you millennials have a hard time putting things into perspective?

-signed gen xer.

You are replying to my post and I didn't mean to make it sound like I want my parents to babysit my children. Just that they are not interested in any type of help. My grandma worked part time outside of the home and my grandpa farmed. Be honest, I spent more time with him than with my grandma. They would cook our meals four to five times a week and for sure on the weekends. I haven't asked my parents to help out but they have been very vocal in telling my sisters and I that they have no interest in babysitting their grandchildren or having routine meals together.