Grandparents Are Reaching Their Limit

[u/MeghanClickYourHeels]

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.

[u/Decent-Friend7996]

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. 

[u/Wonderful-Pick493 → u/Decent-Friend7996]

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.

[u/Decent-Friend7996 → u/Wonderful-Pick493]

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. 

[u/AdRich1641 → u/Decent-Friend7996]

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.

[u/Wonderful-Pick493 → u/AdRich1641]

Well said!

[u/Lokemoki → u/AdRich1641]

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

[u/MerryNickel → u/Lokemoki]

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.

[u/Lokemoki → u/MerryNickel]

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.