Explain why this is a Boomer thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Define “grandparenting”

What do you expect of them.

+1. I think OP is looking for "free labor" whenever it is needed, not bonding between GPs and GKs.

[Anonymous]

It isn't a boomer thing, it's a personality thing.

I will also say from listening to stories my boomer parents have of their own grandparents, the grandparents didn’t "help out" with childrearing. They loved their grandparents and saw them very regularly but grandma was not babysitting so mom could work (and mom didn't work anyway). Relationships were also clearly much more formal.

[Anonymous]

My parents are young boomers and they really struggle with being super critical. They also take any decisions that make that are different than what they chose as criticism.

For instance, my mom was a SAHM and my father was the breadwinner who never did any childcare or cooking. I have a big job and split household duties 50/50 with my DH. My mom routinely tells me that I'm mistreating my kids because I don't stay home and that they wouldn't have problems if I didn't work. She also thinks I mistreat my DH because he cooks and helps with the kids. I got negative comments from her nearly every time we spoke for 10 years before I finally mostly ended contact.

As another instance, my mom didn't like my DD's name because it was the same as a teacher she didn't like in elementary school. I'd never heard that story and had no idea when we picked the name. My mom refused to use the name for the first three years of my DD's life and only called her "Cookie." It was obnoxious.

As another example, I got a PhD in the hard sciences and worked really hard for it. My father tells everyone it's not impressive because I'm not a "real doctor." He even told it to my Nobel Prize winning PhD advisor on my graduation day when my advisor was trying to tell him about my accomplishments.

I could go on, but it's endless. They like my kids, but are so super critical of me we don't see them much anymore. They never did any childcare and were never asked to do so. I do worry that they'll start being just as critical of my kids as they are of me and I know that would really hurt them. So now we just don't see or talk to them.

[Anonymous]

OP, the fact that you were a latchkey kid probably has a lot to do with your grandparents’ lack of interest in grandparenting. My siblings and I were latchkey kids, and my mom has had almost zero interest in spending time with her grandkids. I’m not talking about babysitting, but spending quality time together, like going to the playground or mall. I think that since she didn’t spend quality time with us, it doesn’t come naturally to her to do it with her grandkids. When my mom became a first-time grandmother in her early 60s, she was in good health and had been enjoying a happy retirement for 10 years already. My brother had asked her to watch his baby once a week, and you’d think he had asked her to go to prison. I had assumed that she would have regrets about missing our childhood and would want to make up for it somehow, if not through childcare, then through getting to know her grandkids by spending time together. I’m sure some grandparents would in her situation, but for her, NOPE!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here - I get the independent thing and how it correlates to only feigning interest in grandchildren. I know my parents really dont give a flying F about my kids. Not because of anything morally wrong, they also feigned interest in me growing up. I always felt like a burden and was to neither to be seen nor heard. No abuse, just didn’t really seem to think I was “enough” and I was a straight A super well behaved kid.

I want to know why this was a parenting style and how/if others are seeing this now in grandparenting? If you were a latch key kid growing up is this something you saw when your parents became grandparents?

I cite the creator because other people seem to experience similar vibe. My parent’s friends are all pretty similar in being grandparents when it’s convenient.

Yes, I had kids late. Infertility is a b-tch

If your grandparents were so great why were you a latch key kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That you had kids late, and now they're very old, and are rigid and inflexible in a way they wouldn't have been, were they in their 50s.

Yes. I’m 40, had my first at 27 when my parents were 57 and 59. They were completely different with my first 3 kids because they were more energetic. My mom was so quick to jump on a plane or drive to pitch in. Laundry, cleaning, babysitting. Now they are old. They want to watch YouTube videos with my 2 and 4 year old, not go to the petting zoo or museums like they did with my older 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That you had kids late, and now they're very old, and are rigid and inflexible in a way they wouldn't have been, were they in their 50s.

Yes. I’m 40, had my first at 27 when my parents were 57 and 59. They were completely different with my first 3 kids because they were more energetic. My mom was so quick to jump on a plane or drive to pitch in. Laundry, cleaning, babysitting. Now they are old. They want to watch YouTube videos with my 2 and 4 year old, not go to the petting zoo or museums like they did with my older 3.

Pp here - and they paid their dues! I’m grateful for the help they did give

[Anonymous]

They are a very selfish generation. I'm a yougner gen x and my mom hasn't had any interest in her grandkids since they were babies. "Oh Larla is in high school now? How nice. I leave for my cruise tomorrow."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That you had kids late, and now they're very old, and are rigid and inflexible in a way they wouldn't have been, were they in their 50s.

Yes. I’m 40, had my first at 27 when my parents were 57 and 59. They were completely different with my first 3 kids because they were more energetic. My mom was so quick to jump on a plane or drive to pitch in. Laundry, cleaning, babysitting. Now they are old. They want to watch YouTube videos with my 2 and 4 year old, not go to the petting zoo or museums like they did with my older 3.

5 kids is a lot and they are not that old.

[Anonymous]

It is strange that you would paint a brush on an entire generation based on your experience with your parents. My boomer parents could not be more interested in my kids. They're very helpful and I've always been around and available.

Everybody's different. Your parents are who they are and my parents are who they are. It's not a generational thing. It's more than likely how they were raised and then they pay it forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are a very selfish generation. I'm a yougner gen x and my mom hasn't had any interest in her grandkids since they were babies. "Oh Larla is in high school now? How nice. I leave for my cruise tomorrow."

You poor blind fool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is strange that you would paint a brush on an entire generation based on your experience with your parents. My boomer parents could not be more interested in my kids. They're very helpful and I've always been around and available.

Everybody's different. Your parents are who they are and my parents are who they are. It's not a generational thing. It's more than likely how they were raised and then they pay it forward.

But in a lot of these cases, today’s grandparents are very different from how their own parents were as grandparents. That’s why OP is asking what’s going on. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with how they were raised.

[Anonymous]

Idk I don’t get this from either set of our boomer parents. Grandchildren are basically their identity. I think both sides were very disappointed when we got married young (24) and then were super worried when we didn’t have kids until our 30s. They got concerned that being a grandparent wouldn’t happen for them. And it didn’t happen to most of their friends. None of our siblings had kids either.

Neither dh nor I were raised latch key though. Our moms both worked lower paid, part time jobs so they would always be home with us.

[Anonymous]

It’s not a Boomer thing. It’s about different values, health and priorities. Don’t get me started on new moms who want grandparents to help, but insist everything be done exactly their way. Forget that.

[Anonymous]

Why are you calling this "Boomer" grandparenting? I think this has to do with your parents and their individual personalities.

I was a latchkey kid, too, mainly because my mom worked full time. But when my sister became a parent my mom retired to provide full time child care while my sister and her husband worked - for both of their kids. She did same for my kids, too, several years later. She just really likes kids, but had a career, too. But her mom (my grandmother) wasn't interested in doing any child care for my sisters and I when we were babies. That was just her, not her generation - my grandmother was born in 1916.

Her own mother, who was born in 1916, had zero interest in watching my sisters and I when we were babies, even for an evening let alone as a full time effort for a decade of her retirement. It wasn't because she learned that from her generation.