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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

I don't get help from my Boomer parents, but they didn't get help from their parents either. I was not close with my grandparents and only saw them, at most, once or twice a year.

My parents do help my siblings out a ton, though, so that's more similar to what others on the thread are talking about with Boomers helping more than their grandparents did. We live far away and my siblings live close though, so that's why they get help and we don't. I think my mom would be happy to help more if she could, but I also was the last to have kids and my parents are getting older and I am not sure it's the best idea anymore anyway.

My DH's family is the opposite though. His parents had lots of family help, from their parents and also from older siblings and extended family. They talk a lot about how they never had to hire babysitters or even really worry about after school care or anything like that when my DH and his brother were young.

BUT, they don't help us at all and in fact my FIL made it clear that they did not intend to. Even before we had kids, he'd complain about how some of my DH's high school friends "took advantage" of their parents by asking them for help. In many of those cases it was families we are close to and I know the grandparents in question LOVE spending time with their grandkids and do not view it as a burden or imposition. But I remember once suggesting this gently to my FIL ("I don't know, it seems like she really enjoys staying with them and having those relationships with the grandkids") he snapped at me that it wasn't fair for her to have to spend her retirement that way. I still think he was wrong about most of the people he was talking about, but it also made it very clear that he did not think we should ask for any help from them. So we don't.

So I think it can vary a lot by family, and is not necessarily a generational thing. There are other dynamics between Boomer and Gen X/Millenial kids that I think are more typical. One of them is the way Boomer grandmothers are often very invested in hyper vigilant or helicopter parenting, and have a hard time remembering how lax their own parenting was by comparison. Like my mom will freak out about the idea of one of her grandkids being unattended for any amount of time, but if I remind her that my siblings and I roamed the neighborhood freely from as young as 3 or 4 years old, she has no recollection at all. But it's true! Once my baby brother wandered off during one such free range day and did not reappear for lunch, only to be discovered like 4 blocks away with some college kids who had found him next to the neighborhood convenience store and walked him home. He was 3 or 4, I can't remember. My parents would be arrested for this incident today, and my mom would lead the mob with torches!

[Anonymous]

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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.

What makes you think they should help you? What kind of help?

1) I didn’t say anything about whether or not Boomers should help their kids 2) childcare help is what I was talking about

OK let's pin this down.

Why do you think, specifically, that your parents would help with childcare?

Nevermind anyone else. I'm asking about you, your parents/IL's and your kids.

My mom helps a lot with my siblings’ kids because they are her children and she wants to help them. Same with my MIL. If I was closer I know they would do some for me (but not as much because my siblings struggle more than I do and need more help).

[Anonymous]

My grandparents helped out quite a bit when I was growing up despite living a few hours away. My parents are very helpful now in the same way. They will take my kids extended periods of time. In fact, 2 weeks of Grandma and Grandpa camp begins next week.

My spouse's parents received a ton of help from his grandparents who were all local. It was more the evening and weekend help that you can do when you live so close. As grandparents, their parents don't do anything at all to help us, which is fine. The thing that really hurts my spouse's feelings is that they can't even manage to schedule time to visit here or there or go on vacation together despite years of trying. They find time to go on all kinds of weekend getaways and vacations, but don't have any time for their kid and grandchildren. The inevitable conclusion is they just don't GAF.

[Anonymous]

Zero help and i don’t think i can overstate how regular or meaningful help, and presence, from either set would have positively impacted our experience parenting. If i had known how unhelpful and uninvolved they were going to be, i would have gotten a part-time nanny years ago and never looked back. Instead it was death by a thousand paper cuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Blaming an entire generation on one couple is not helpful.

Where in my post did I blame an entire generation? And it's not one couple - it's my parents and my husband's parents and stepparents. Nowhere did I say that all Boomers were like that. (Although I do admit that, as a Gen Xer, I have many complaints about the Boomers. But that is not what I said.)

I'm assuming you are a Boomer. Do you think it is acceptable to have no relationship whatsoever with your grandkids? To see them once a year for 30 minutes even pre-COVID?

nope, not a boomer.

[Anonymous]

My grandparents would have helped but my parents felt they weren't good parents (and in the case of one grandfather, was a molester of my aunt, his step daughter) so no, my parents did not help more help than I do.

[Anonymous]

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

Another Gen X parent who would love to have you as surrogate grandparents. My mom is doting but has mental health issues and is very limited in what she can do with our DC, really. My ILs don't seem to have any real interest. And DC is their only grandchild, we really assumed they'd be more excited about the role. But they are very distant. I have never quite understood, but we are not the sort to push.

[Anonymous]

I'm a 60 year old boomer and we got help from both my parents and DHs parents with child care - particularly from my mother who often picked the kids up from day care because it was close to her office. I don't have grandchildren yet so don't know how that will work out, but at the moment it would be difficult because I am working full time and my DC most likely to have a child before I retire lives in another country. We'd certainly be willing to travel to help them periodically, but it's not like we can do day care pickup or occasional babysitting. If they move back to the US, which might be in about 10 years, I expect we would be very involved in helping (that's their plan) and hopefully we will be retired by that time.

We do help our kids in other ways - they graduated from college and grad school debt free and with cars, and we pay for vacations and for the international flights to return to the US, along with other expenses.

[Anonymous]

We get more. Way more.
My Dad’s parents did a ton for my cousins who lived on their street, but never came to any of my school events. They did take me overnight occasionally and for a week in the summer - but it was always with a big group of cousins.

My mom’s parents lived in Florida and came up to see us for 4-6 weeks each summer. They did not babysit or spend anytime alone with me.

My mom is making up for her hurt feelings by being the grandma she wishes I had. We see them 1-2x a week, they come to all the games and school events, they take my kids overnight every 4-6 weeks. They would probably do more, but we don’t want to take advantage of them or wear them out.

My in-laws are 4 hours away, but visit 4-6 times a year and talk to my kids weekly.

My kids have good relationships and lots of memories with both sets of their grandparents and that’s worth more to me than free babysitting.

[Anonymous]

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.

[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.

+1. This poster is unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s put it this way, I was finally able to locate some of my baby’s formula in stock about a mile away from my mom’s house a couple of states away from where we live. I bought it and they set it to the side for me. I called my mom who told me that she couldn’t pick it up for about a week because she was packing and then going on a cruise.

My grandparents watched me everyday while both my parents worked.

Wow. That's really sad. That's your baby's health and well-being. I'm sorry that's the situation.

[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.

It also sounds like this is an issue with OPs parents, not their whole generation. Either they are terrible people, or they were terrible parents (to raise such an angry child) or both. Agree that therapy would be a good path so the PP can let go of these feelings, particularly since she is passing them on to her kids, and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s put it this way, I was finally able to locate some of my baby’s formula in stock about a mile away from my mom’s house a couple of states away from where we live. I bought it and they set it to the side for me. I called my mom who told me that she couldn’t pick it up for about a week because she was packing and then going on a cruise.

My grandparents watched me everyday while both my parents worked.

Wow. That's really sad. That's your baby's health and well-being. I'm sorry that's the situation.

Again, though, all that this means is that this particular poster's parents sucked and grandparents didn't. It doesn't mean the entire boomer generation sucks.