I see more grandparents caring for and with their grand kids than the actual parents, what did they do, give them to their parents to support, feed, love etc.............



I think many here deal with this or know someone in this situation judging by how many I see in the USA.

In the UK I know that a lot o families need grandparents to help out with childcare.

When I was single and working full time, I had to be back late on some days, or in early and the childminder didn't cover those hours, so my mum did. I would have been fucked without help from her. I would have lost my house and maybe had to take temporary accomodation out of the area because I would have been unemployed and on benefits.

Also, I suffered bad with my shitty kidney problems and my mum and dad had to look atfer my son during that.

There's lots of reasons. On the other hand. In many cultures this was totally normal and it was what people did a few generations back. If my son ever taps me for babysitting when I'm older, I'd love it.

Also Rick, if you have no choice but to work a 40, 50 hour week or more, who would you rather have looking after your kid. Family or non family?

My uncle and aunt regularly drive across the UK to baby sit their 6 grandkids for my cousins. The both have busy jobs, so do their husbands.

My parents nw live in France I miss them

I was meant to be seeing them next month, by the car died and so there goes our tickets . Then again. My son (14) is going to visit and fly there on his own at easter . My mum has to come and look after me as I have another major surgery coming up in the next few months. She came over to look after me and my lad and Mr Pumpshaft during my last major surgery.

I really miss my folks. going out there for two weeks in August, but I miss them.

LesleyPumpshaft wrote:

Day care is highway robbery six kids would cost over 500 bucks a week or close to it

Rick wrote:
Dome people have no chioce. I don't even mean people who have to keep up aith all the laltest must have items. Just people who want a decent house in a decent area, decent food for their kids, some nice activities, trips to families, a trip abroud. I really don't think these are asking too much. What about the trip abroud? Because it's good for a person to see different stuff. that's why

In some cases it might be because they failed the first time. I don't really see that much of it but I don't know many people. I wish one of the grand parents would baby sit but the only one who would is across the pond.

Yes, when my kids were little, it cost a very fat percentage of my wage to get them looked after - even when they were school age, and I was only paying for an hour before school and a few hours after school.

My mum looked after my sister's daughter for them, but got to the stage where she'd had enough, so we never asked her to look after ours, except on the odd occasion. It's an our's round trip anyway in rush hour traffic.

It's much nicer when the kids are kept in the family rather than passed to some stranger. You can never really trust someone fully when you don't know them really well, and your kids are so precious.

We wouldn't have been able to move to Greece without them! We moved into Mrs oioioi's family house with her parents and as we'd put all our savings into the bar we opened we were also financially dependent for some time. Now we are slowly taking over the financial burden of the house as we get more work but the price the grandparents have to pay for handing over the financial worry is they are on tap baby-sitting.

Greeks generally have a mistrust of the state and therefore rely more on family than the state for their support network. It has it's pros and cons.

I'd like to think that I'll be available if and when my kids need me to babysit or whatever. I'd rather they where with me than anyone else.

Rick wrote:
Both parents working to make ends meet, when in the past just the mans salary was enough.
Sometimes even more than 1 job each.
Then there's the broken homes because marriages fail as much as half the time now.

There's other reasons ofc but you'll probably find the above covers a fair number.

I was brought up by multi generational family members, grandfather, mother, father, aunts, uncles, but mainly a mother at home. She often said to us, that her happiest years were the ones pushing the giant silver cross four wheeler pram, which you could get a weeks shopping underneath of, that mode of transport rallied all three of us and went on to cabby ours too.

Andy touched on something but never entered full flow.

After I started school at the end of the fist week, the teacher told us, that we had all done very well and when we all left school she wanted us all to be like her. I went home ran into the kitchen where three generation of our family were sat for midday tea, and I mentioned what teach had said.. They all looked at each other and looked towards grandfather, who calmly said, when tha goes back Monday, tell teach, here we can and do things differently.

After school there was much conflab, working and thinking ahead, these skills have all but been ignored for the little square window in the room, people stopped talking, ours was the big wide world outside, there were no high fences and people shared their skills so that others might learn, something different.

Long may it return, the sooner the better, you see our children are our future, teach them well, seperate from a system that will always want for our childerick, what we don't.

The current system is awash with information, but lost for true knowledge.

Thank you my family all.