Our parents would crawl over each other in a bid to babysit the grandkids.  But as we live in Spain, and Virginia before that, and South Carolina before that...   And they remain in Michigan.  Military life can really put a damper on things.

Yeah, I'm old...what of it?
I'd change the sign if I weren't on my phone.

Same grandparents that made their eldest children babysit their siblings for free?

My mom gets sad if she doesn't get to babysit.

Any grandparent who wouldn't jump at the chance to watch the grandkids is probably a bad grandparent.

And EvilEgg has it right. This is just what humans do. It's what we've always done. The POINT of a family is having this sort of support structure.

Dumb article is dumb.

Ugh. Somebody had a deadline to meet.

This is nothing new.  Other than baby-sitters, child care didn't exist 30 years ago.

My daughter is with my mother Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She's with my mother-in-law Tuesday and Thursday. They both would love to have her 5 days a week.

Since we don't have to pay for daycare, we're prepaying for my daughter's college. The grandparents are more than happy to help with that.

Whoever wrote this really picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue.

When my daughters were born my mother flipped the fark out when I said I was putting them in day care. No stranger was going to watch HER grandchildren!

My Father-In-Law has been known to push my Mother-In-Law out of the way in order to see my daughter right after we pull up. They both get a little twitchy if they don't see her for more than a couple of weeks

/Sadly, I will never trust my own parents alone with any of my offspring.
//If my mother and my MIL were both hanging off a cliff, I'd rescue my MIL first and then think real hard on whether I should help my mom or not.

Wow, fark you, article writer. Totally written from the perspective of a freelance, always home mother. "Why should grandparents watch children? Mine don't, I watch mine just fine."

Here in NJ, you're paying on average $2,000 for full time day care a month per kid. Even if my wife went full time again, her entire paycheck would vanish just to have the honor to not raise our son. The only way this works is with the grandmoms switching duties every week. We are just lucky my son has one aunt and uncle and they are not having kids.

And as many have said, it's a natural thing for grandparents to do this and to chomp at the bit to do so. My mother is pretty much clinically insane for my son. I wouldn't be surprised if I asked that she would pay me to let her watch him.

shoegaze99: Any grandparent who wouldn't jump at the chance to watch the grandkids is probably a bad grandparent.

And EvilEgg has it right. This is just what humans do. It's what we've always done. The POINT of a family is having this sort of support structure.

Dumb article is dumb.

Seconded.

PirateFuzzball: My Father-In-Law has been known to push my Mother-In-Law out of the way in order to see my daughter right after we pull up. They both get a little twitchy if they don't see her for more than a couple of weeks

/Sadly, I will never trust my own parents alone with any of my offspring.
//If my mother and my MIL were both hanging off a cliff, I'd rescue my MIL first and then think real hard on whether I should help my mom or not.

Daaaaaaaaaaammmmnn....

My boomer parents dropped me and/or my younger siblings off at Grandma's every day from 1973 to around 1992. Those were some of the best times of my life...

(Every non-school workday, that is.)

As a grandparent who doesn't get to see the grandkids enough, and doesn't get to see one child because he's not 'blood', fark a lucky bastard grandparent who complains. Life is short. You'll get your nap later.

Kids can be inconvenient It happens with your kids, and with their kids. I didn't even think I wanted kids until I met the best girl and became insta-Dad.

But I remember spending time with my paternal grandfather. He made me feel like I was the coolest person in the world, even though I felt like I was disappointing everyone else. My grandkids will get as much of that as possible, for as long as possible.

They are brilliant. They are hilarious. He is handsome, and she is beautiful. I will never stop fighting for their best interests. I will never stop.

shoegaze99: Any grandparent who wouldn't jump at the chance to watch the grandkids is probably a bad grandparent.

And EvilEgg has it right. This is just what humans do. It's what we've always done. The POINT of a family is having this sort of support structure.

Dumb article is dumb.

Austrians, so what would you expect?

FTA : In the past, of course, hands-on grandparent contact was the norm. The generations worked together to raise the kids. Remember Hilary Clinton's famous slogan "it takes a village to raise a child"?


That's an African saying that she was simply repeating. She wasnt referring to family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. either. Us stupid Westerners already knew the value of those resources. She was talking up the importance of handing your kids over to the central village authority so they could be raised right.

Have a friend whose daughter definately expoits him for childcare (every day). She treats him more like a husband when he refuses to do day care due to scheduling reasons and at times it borders on the creapy.

He does it out of a sense of guilt though, mainly because he spent her entire childhood coked up out of his mind and is trying to now make amends.

I cannot imagine my mother's hurt if I even remotely suggested that I pay her for watching her own granddaughter. She refers to both of us as "her children," seeing no difference in having given life to me than to my daughter.

To suggest pay would have been to put her on the level of a paid servant, not family and would completely disrespect her as the matriarch of our family. I think she would have beat me with a stick and never spoken to me again.

I'm not saying that there are not situations where adult children should offer pay - especially depending on income level. I know for a fact that lower income families may set it up where a grandparent or other family becomes certified in childcare to qualify for funds for keeping a child daily. This makes sense, especially where they are watching multiple grandchildren and money is already tight. And more times than not, this money goes right back into the kids: diapers, extra snacks and basically the cost of running what amounts to a family daycare center.

But I am sure, even there, there are times when what grandma and grandpa do for their "babies" is out of sheer love, pay not required.

Spass_Taschen: Same grandparents that made their eldest children babysit their siblings for free?

Or worse. Their friends would come visiting and drag their young kids along. Guess who got volunteered to watch those kids for free?

I have a hard time believing that more and more boomers are calling it gran-sploitation and have a much easier time believing a journalist made it up just for this article because people love making up stupid words.

Silly writer, when grandparents want revenge they just load them up on sugar and caffeine and send them home.

Heh, both sets of grandparents and one great grandmother were chomping at the bit to take care of me when I was growing up. And then when the parents divorced and my mother decided it would be awkward for me to spend the day with my paternal grandparents my paternal grandmother showed up, told my mother to go off to work, took care of me and cleaned the house.

I was the only granddaughter on one side of the family, and the only grandchild anywhere near on the other. Free childcare is something that grandparents do.

Sadly I wouldn't dare leave any of my kids with my father, it just isn't safe.

/really wish mom were still alive, that would be awesome
//alas, there is none of that

TomD9938 2013-01-06 09:47:19 AM

FTA : In the past, of course, hands-on grandparent contact was the norm. The generations worked together to raise the kids. Remember Hilary Clinton's famous slogan "it takes a village to raise a child"?

That's an African saying that she was simply repeating. She wasnt referring to family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. either. Us stupid Westerners already knew the value of those resources. She was talking up the importance of handing your kids over to the central village authority so they could be raised right.

This is the most god-awful explanation of that saying I have ever heard and not even remotely what it means. It does NOT mean "handing your children over a central village authority to be raised right."

It means that all of our children belong to all of us. We all bear the responsibility for raising the children of our village whether that is your family, your neighborhood or all of America or the entire planet. Regardless of who the child's parents are, it takes the connectedness of an entire village (world) to educate, instill values, love and care into every single child.

Hermione_Granger: TomD9938 2013-01-06 09:47:19 AM

FTA : In the past, of course, hands-on grandparent contact was the norm. The generations worked together to raise the kids. Remember Hilary Clinton's famous slogan "it takes a village to raise a child"?

That's an African saying that she was simply repeating. She wasnt referring to family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. either. Us stupid Westerners already knew the value of those resources. She was talking up the importance of handing your kids over to the central village authority so they could be raised right.

This is the most god-awful explanation of that saying I have ever heard and not even remotely what it means. It does NOT mean "handing your children over a central village authority to be raised right."

It means that all of our children belong to all of us. We all bear the responsibility for raising the children of our village whether that is your family, your neighborhood or all of America or the entire planet. Regardless of who the child's parents are, it takes the connectedness of an entire village (world) to educate, instill values, love and care into every single child.

The author said, in no uncertain terms, that Hillary meant blood-family (grandparents) when she repeated that line.

Hermione_Granger: TomD9938 2013-01-06 09:47:19 AM

FTA : In the past, of course, hands-on grandparent contact was the norm. The generations worked together to raise the kids. Remember Hilary Clinton's famous slogan "it takes a village to raise a child"?

That's an African saying that she was simply repeating. She wasnt referring to family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. either. Us stupid Westerners already knew the value of those resources. She was talking up the importance of handing your kids over to the central village authority so they could be raised right.

This is the most god-awful explanation of that saying I have ever heard and not even remotely what it means. It does NOT mean "handing your children over a central village authority to be raised right."

It means that all of our children belong to all of us. We all bear the responsibility for raising the children of our village whether that is your family, your neighborhood or all of America or the entire planet. Regardless of who the child's parents are, it takes the connectedness of an entire village (world) to educate, instill values, love and care into every single child.

I always felt the phrase was referencing the influence a community has on a child's development. They learn by example, and not just the example of their bloodline. Everyone who doesn't assume some level of responsibility for the young ones of the community dooms themselves to live with the results when those children grow up. It may not be my direct responsibility to prevent your child from running from scissors. But They may choose to emulate how I treat an old coot, possibly when I'm an old coot.

Competing with Obvious tag. I'd thought it was pretty accepted in anthropological circles that grandparents aided humanity's development through such "free childcare." It allowed parents to procreate more, better ensuring our survival, as well as allowing a for a longer adolescence during which we might better learn our increasingly complex adaptive skills...

ReapTheChaos: This is nothing new.  Other than baby-sitters, child care didn't exist 30 years ago.

I honestly can't tell if you're joking.

This article is clearly missing the bigger problem. My kid expects me to watch over him and give him handouts like food and shelter and I get no monetary renumeration. This has been going on for years! Talk about parensploitation.

I guess these Boomers are getting so old that they are forgetting that their own grandparents helped raise them.

weasel-words.jpg

What a crock of shiat.

I think gran-sploitation is perfectly defined by my mother's best friend's daughter. She refuses to move out, because she has a toddler and it's just 'too expensive to get her own place and pay for everything herself.' So she stays living at her parents' home, expecting them to watch the baby whenever she goes to work, and every weekend when she goes out to party.

She doesn't pay rent, and asks for help with baby clothes and nappies and the like, because she (and the grandparents) want the best for the baby. But she somehow finds the money for nails, hair extensions, booze, new clothes, the bar, etc.

That is gran-sploitation to me. It's the difference between wanting to mind your grandchild because you want to spend time with them and to give your kids a break, versus being forced to raise the child, because your own offspring is an utter failure.

Author is obviously trolling.

/my daycare was an actual orphanage with actual orphans and nuns.

I'm a boomer, I have no problem watching my granddaughter when the need arises. I've even used some of my vacation days from work to watch her when neither my son-in-law or daughter could because of their work. Heck, I spend every Thursday from May to August chasing the kid around the bleachers at the softball field while they play softball. I don't think I'm being exploited. That's what families are for!

TomD9938: Hermione_Granger: TomD9938 2013-01-06 09:47:19 AM

FTA : In the past, of course, hands-on grandparent contact was the norm. The generations worked together to raise the kids. Remember Hilary Clinton's famous slogan "it takes a village to raise a child"?

That's an African saying that she was simply repeating. She wasnt referring to family members like grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. either. Us stupid Westerners already knew the value of those resources. She was talking up the importance of handing your kids over to the central village authority so they could be raised right.

This is the most god-awful explanation of that saying I have ever heard and not even remotely what it means. It does NOT mean "handing your children over a central village authority to be raised right."

It means that all of our children belong to all of us. We all bear the responsibility for raising the children of our village whether that is your family, your neighborhood or all of America or the entire planet. Regardless of who the child's parents are, it takes the connectedness of an entire village (world) to educate, instill values, love and care into every single child.

The author said, in no uncertain terms, that Hillary meant blood-family (grandparents) when she repeated that line.

You made it through the whole article ??

Giving the kids to the grandparents for a day/weekend/whatever is good for everyone. Kids can have a fun time away from home, grandparents can enjoy the kids and you and the SO get some break time as well.

Giving the kids to the grandparents for months so you can murder people without the kids getting in the way is probably gran-sploitation though.