Reply to I think grandparents are out of touch now because a lot of us waited so long to have kids

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[quote=Anonymous]This occurred to me earlier today. My parents and ILs are not great grandparents, just really bad with our kids and very out of touch with what kids are like in general as well as the prevailing parenting wisdom. But I think it's just that too much time has past since they had kids and they are just too out of it. They don't really remember their own kids' childhoods (but kind of think they do) and so many of their expectations are based either on super outdated ideas or on what their friends/siblings have told them (much of which are just plain false -- lots of grandparents out there are straight up lying about their grandkids, especially on Facebook!).

But we had our kids in our late 30s, plus we are younger children ourselves so our parents were in their 30s when they had us. So now all the grandparents are in their 70, several are experience serious mental decline, plus obviously they are physically less able to help or be involved than they would have been 20 years ago.

This isn't a judgement on having kids late. My DH and I married in our mid-30s, and wanted to buy a home and pay down school debt before having kids. I have zero regrets about any of those choices -- they were the right ones for us and were partially dictated by the way the world works now. We were not raised to get married straight out of high school or college and of course that pushes the timeline back. Plus as a woman, I was just really encouraged to be independent, focus on my career, get an education, etc. Not to have babies at 25. So I didn't.

But part of the consequence is that there is just a bigger gap and I think that has led to lower quality relationships between my parents and my kids, plus a more intense squeeze on my DH and I in terms of raising young kids while also caring for aging parents. Not sure I'd advise my kids to do it differently, but it's something I will keep in mind as they grow up. I think we have to have more realistic expectations of grandparents when they are 75 as opposed to 55. It's a very different experience at that age.[/quote]

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