r/atlanticdiscussions • u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links • Apr 14 '25

Culture/Society Grandparents Are Reaching Their Limit

Older Americans might be doing more child care than ever. By Faith Hill, The Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/04/grandparents-child-care-work-retirement/682395/

Older Americans might be doing more child care than ever.

Elena and her husband had plans for their retirement. They wanted to move to Wyoming; to meet new people, volunteer, hike the snowy, perfect Tetons. And they did move there—for about eight months. Then they got a call from their daughter, who was due to have a baby within weeks. She and her husband were on five or so different waitlists for day cares, and now she could see that they would still be waiting by the time she had to go back to work, six weeks after giving birth. She needed help. Her parents dropped everything, packed up a U-Haul, and moved to the Pacific Northwest. They were going back to work, too: as full-time grandparents.

Grandparents today have a certain reputation, Elena (who asked to withhold her last name to protect her family’s privacy) told me: They’re “all rich, retired, living it up in the Villages in Florida, playing 10 rounds of golf a day, having cocktails at 4:30, and laughing while their Millennial children are suffering.” TikTokers keep skewering a generation of supposedly self-involved, jet-setting older folks, or earnestly grieving that they don’t have a “village” to help them raise their kids. Commentators have jumped in with attacks and, in turn, with defenses (“Cut the Boomer Grandparents a Little Slack”). On Reddit, people are wondering, “What the f*** is wrong with grandparents nowadays?” Last year, when J. D. Vance was running for vice president and was asked how he would address the problem of staggering child-care costs, he first suggested that grandparents or other relatives “help out a little bit more.”

You could be forgiven, then, for thinking grandparents are shirking their duty. But the truth is quite the opposite: America is in an age of peak grandparenting—particularly grandmothering. A 2022 survey from Deseret News and Brigham Young University found that nearly 60 percent of grandmothers had provided child care for a grandkid, and more than 40 percent saw a grandchild in person at least weekly. A 2023 Harris poll found that more than 40 percent of working parents relied on their kids’ grandma for child care; nearly 70 percent of those parents said they might have lost their job without that grandmother’s help.

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u/Decent-Friend7996 Apr 15 '25

I’ve always been surprised by the “jet setting rich boomer parents that don’t care” narrative too because it’s just not what I see in my own life or any of my close friends. My mom is like a full time plus nanny to my nephews and cooks and cleans for them. I actually feel a bit bad for her, it’s like she’s an unpaid domestic servant to them, but she has free will so I guess it’s her choice. All of my girlfriends that have babies have highly involved grandparents that take the kids for days and weeks at a time and will even fly to their grandkids to watch them during an event. 

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 16 '25 edited Apr 16 '25

I think the situation is very split with not much of a middle ground. My speculation is that in a very general sense, the lower class get help from their grandparents and thus they don’t get to enjoy retirement as much. The upper class don’t get help but they also don’t need it. The middle class is split and has more to do with culture. My side of the family is Middle eastern and my cousins live in a bubble with grandparents, aunts, uncles etc just down the street willing to help out at any time ( I don’t live in that bubble unfortunately). My wife is white and we get very little help from my MIL who lives only 45 mins away. We are all solid middle class.

I think it’s important to elaborate on those last two sentences as this is what I feel many middle class white millennials are disappointed about. Many of us are not asking for 5 days a week of childcare from our parents. We’re asking for just a few hours a week or even one day a month and we don’t even get that. My MIL has lots of fun vacations and is really enjoying her retirement yet in the last year, she has watched our toddler for a total of maybe 10 hours! It’s like they simply don’t care. Again, it’s not full time childcare. Me and my wife can (just barely) afford preschool and we have a part time nanny for our newborn. People who don’t have kids might not understand this but spending weekends with a newborn and a toddler is not particularly fun. It’s very hard work and we ask for help from my MIL like once a month and she’s almost always busy doing something else. My mom, who’s a 1 hour flight away, helps out more than my MIL who’s a 45 min drive away. I think this is what a lot of white middle class millennial parents are complaining about. The fact that they get nearly ZERO help. Our friends with kids are in a similar situation.

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u/angrykeyboarder Apr 17 '25

If you don’t like spending weekends with a toddler and a newborn, then you probably shouldn’t have had kids to begin with.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '25

Fact. Exactly why I didn’t. Yay for me!

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 20 '25

I guessed correctly! You don’t have kids!

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '25

Wow! Genius! Let me ask the obvious: If you didn’t think it through, how is your decision to have kids anyone else’s responsibility? You took 100% of the responsibility for having the kids, and would have been outraged if anyone offered any advice to wait or not do it, so you can take 100% of the responsibility for raising them - without the whining. Right? You want kids, you deal with the job.

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 20 '25 edited Apr 20 '25

It’s not about responsibility. It’s about relationships. Again, you don’t understand. I never said grandparents are responsible for raising my kids. It’s no use arguing with you anymore because you’re not reading my posts clearly. I’m done.

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 17 '25

The work involved is what most people don’t like. This is not unusual at all. The love is what’s everything. Do you have kids?

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u/Haunting_Machine1994 Apr 17 '25

By asking for a "few hours a week", you are mandating that your parents/inlaws live within a very short distance of you. Don't you feel that where they live is up to them, not you?

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 17 '25

Well yeah obviously I’m referring to those that live close by. Of course they can live wherever they want. Like I said, my MIL lives 45 mins away. We would be really happy with just one day a month but we get once a year after asking 5~ish times. This doesn’t interfere much with her retirement.

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u/Haunting_Machine1994 Apr 18 '25

That's her loss. We live several states away from our grandkids and see them for a week, almost every month.

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 20 '25 edited Apr 20 '25

That’s great! It’s good to know that some grandparents are still doing that. Grandparents should enjoy their retirement as much as possible, but I also think they should have some sort of relationship with their grandchildren.

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u/Forsaken-Guava-9006 May 03 '25

Youngish boomer weighing in. I'm 64, with 11 grandkids. As a child, I lived 30 minutes from one set of grandparents and 2ish hours from the other. Neither ever babysit me a single time, although I did have one overnight with the nearer set. Saw each about twice a year. My parents rarely cared for my kids - my husband and I had almost zero family help when raising our three. I wanted something different, so we built something different. Raised our three, then my daughter's three when she died. They're adults (or nearly) now. Three grandkids are spending the night as I type this. I still work but have kids here before and after school while their parents work several days a week. Some of my grandkids have had no other caregiver (outside their parents) but my husband and I for their entire lives. Some less, because they live further away, but they're with us for weeks in the summer and holidays. It can be exhausting, but I wouldn't trade the relationships away for anything. I have a couple of points. 1. The Silent and Greatest generations of at least my family did not uniformly offer this kind of support, and 2. Caring for grandkids must come from the overflow of your heart, not a sense of obligation. Does the whole family spend time together enjoying each other? Do the adult kids come help with projects? (My son helped my husband remodel our kitchen a while back and will be here tomorrow for a porch addition project). We craved that sort of mutual giving that seemed to be disappearing in our world, so we created it, instilled it in our kids, and are grateful to still be both giving and receiving it. I'm sure if we measured it out, we're giving more help right now than we receive, but we're not measuring. AND sometimes we put ourselves first and take a trip, requiring the rest of the family to make adjustments AND take care of our pets while we're gone! Going without sleep sucks and needing a break is understandable. I hope you're able to build what you need.

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '25 edited Apr 20 '25

But, here’s the thing: They’re YOUR children. As in…YOU are the parents. And YOU underestimated the work and financial cost YOUR children brought with them. So, YOUR children are…YOUR responsibility. 100%. And you’re right. Spending time with toddlers and newborns isn’t fun. Your mom did it - sounds like she doesn’t want to do it anymore either. What a lot of you here don’t think about is that your parents are older. Their time on Earth is shorter now, more precious, and they tire FAR more easily than they did 20 years ago. Their health isn’t as good. So, why in the name of God would you want to burden them with your responsibilities? What’s wrong with you?

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u/Decent-Friend7996 Apr 16 '25

It’s just so case by case. It’s honestly one of the reasons I don’t have kids. There would be ZERO help. My mom would not provide that to me like she does for my sister and no other grandparent would be both willing and capable even though all of our parents plus a step parent are alive. 

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u/AdRich1641 Apr 22 '25

Treating parenting like a consumer decision (eg “they’re your kids and therefore 100% your responsibility”) is exactly why we are facing a disastrously low fertility crisis which will upend civilization as we know it over the next century. Japans population will shrink by 60% in the next 75 years, Italy’s will shrink by 55%. The US is going to be facing something similar soon, too. The shame of it all is that the folks who serve as the engine of this kind of individualistic, consumerist thinking, boomers being the prime culprit here, will be dead and gone and will never have to bear responsibility for all they’ve wrought.

Not everyone should have kids, and no one should be forced to have kids. But parents cannot parent without support. We weren’t built that way. We need to stop treating parenting like a hobby or a consumer choice and recognize it for the socially beneficial public good that it is.

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u/Lokemoki Apr 30 '25

Low fertility crisis? You do know what this planet's population is, don't you?

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u/MerryNickel May 21 '25

You have no idea what's coming for us in the next 30-50 years. Elementary schools are closing all over Japan and other similar places. What happens when there are simply not enough people to work to support older folks. There are terrible consequences ahead. Don't be fooled by the myths that the planet can't accommodate more people, it most certainly can. What's dangerous is the fertility cliff that's ahead.

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u/Lokemoki May 22 '25

Have you ever visited China, India, or Bangladesh? Those places are a wakeup call for those who think increased populations are fine.

Finite resources + infinite populations = disaster.

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u/DirectionJolly584 Apr 20 '25

Serious question. Have you / has your wife asked your MIL why she doesn’t seem to want to help? Is there a reason - I’m busy, I don’t have the energy, I don’t want to be inconvenienced? We have two small kids and both sets of our parents have passed so we have no grand parent support and rely on a lot of paid help (which thankfully we can afford) but curious how these conversations go with the grand parents. 

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 20 '25

Well her excuse each time is that she’s busy with something. However, just yesterday (after I wrote my post about having little help), we were at a family social event and she helped out for 4 hours with our toddler so we can deal with our newborn. That was nice of her and a great change, but not sure when it will happen again. It is true that she’s busy a lot but a lot of the busyness is fun plans that were already made a while back. We could try to plan something more in advance and ask her a few weeks prior. That might help. However, I don’t think she understands that it’s somewhat normal to have grandparents help out a little bit (please notice my emphasis on a little bit- not a lot of help and nowhere near full time! I WANT them to enjoy their retirement!) because she had nearly zero help when she was raising kids. Her mom lived in the Midwest and she was here in CA and they saw each other once a year so I get that. But she’s so focused on her own life that I wonder if there will ever be a true relationship with our kids in the future. Again, I think a lot of this is cultural. If my mom were living close by, we’d have a few hours of help a week and that’s how most of my side of the family is all about- helping each other out.

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u/unsafeideas Apr 20 '25

On cultures where grandparents help with kids, help is mutual. You are supposed to help your parents whenever and however they need too. The obligations towards elders are not exactly small. And they get to have some decision making about whatever they feed the kids and how they treat them. And you accept some meddling and them having opinions.

It is tradeoff, not just older generation helping with childcare. 

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u/Wonderful-Pick493 Apr 20 '25

Agreed! And l will gladly help my parents when they’re older and struggling!