3 weeks Ago By Flic Everett
Way back in 1980, St Winifred’s School Choir in the UK had a saccharine hit with There’s No One Quite Like Grandma . Now, they’d do better singing, “There’s just no sign of grandma”, as parents complain that involved, adoring grandparents are becoming increasingly rare. On TikTok recently, a flurry of parents argued that their own mothers and fathers simply aren’t interested in helping out with childcare, while irritated grandparents countered that their absence is often due to having a non-negotiable full-time job.
Others have fallen victim to “no contact” – when adult children cut off their own parents, or have fallen foul of divorce, in which the ex-son or daughter-in-law ends contact with the grandparents. How involved and available grandparents are to their grandchildren is an increasing source of anxiety to many families. Credit: Getty Images A recent study by market research company Savanta found that 15 per cent of grandparents surveyed had been blocked from seeing grandchildren due to a family break-up, and more than 50 had been legally reprimanded for attempting contact, with one grandmother admitting, “I’m broken-hearted .
.. we were always doing exciting things together.
” Penelope Young, co-ordinator of the Worcestershire Grandparents’ Support Group explained: “Although Baby Boomers are doing a great deal to keep families afloat ...
they can have unreasonable demands made of them, including for unlimited childcare. Grandparents are afraid to say no, in case they get cut off.” But it’s not always possible to say yes.
And while some grandparents wait in the wings, desperate for a glimpse of their grandchildren, others simply don’t have time – or refuse to find it. With many older people forced to work up to 70 and beyond to navigate the cost of living, and families scattered kilometres apart by work commitments, the comfortable old routines of grandma baking at home with the toddlers, or offering hours of free childcare after school, are on the wane. There’s also the fact that we’re having babies much later than in the past, so older first-time grandparents may have health and mobility issues – or simply find running around the park after energetic infants impossible.
In the past, the extended family often lived within a stone’s throw of each other, and grandparental childcare was an ad-hoc arrangement. Those grandparents who do step in now save parents fortunes in nursery and childminder fees. Sun Life insurance recently calculated that altogether, grandparents save British parents up to £96 billion ($200 billion) a year in childcare, travel, food and entertainment costs.
Without their help, as expenses spiral, many families would be struggling..
