Parents have to stop criticising the grandparents giving them free childcare

Your parents don’t owe you free childcare, and nor do your partner’s parents.

If you’re a member of any online parenting groups, you’ll be all too familiar with the posts that begin like this one. 

“My parents (or parents-in-law) give me free childcare. It makes me furious when they…” 

The thing the commenter doesn’t want their parents to do varies.

Sometimes it’s “give my kids a strawberry milkshake”. Sometimes it’s “play with the kids next door who I don’t like”. Sometimes it’s “watch TV”, or “skip a nap”, or “have a contact nap”, or “have two naps”. (Naps are fertile ground for inter-generational disputes, apparently). Sometimes it’s “buy a piece of crap plastic toy every time they go to the supermarket”.  

These aren’t safety issues. These are, simply, parental preferences. Image: Supplied.

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I would never intervene

The specifics of the complaints vary, but the substance is the same.

These aren’t safety issues. There’s nothing life-threatening going on. These are, simply, parental preferences. 

And it’s not just strangers on the internet facing this predicament.

A whole lot of my real-life friends have found themselves facing the same issue.

How can they tell their kids’ grandparents that they want something done differently?  

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I don’t doubt that a slightly off-kilter day of sleeps or the ingestion of more sugar than usual can throw off a family’s schedule. I’ve been there and done that when it comes to grandparents who, with the absolute best intentions, let my kids do things they absolutely wouldn’t be allowed to do at home. 

But as long as everyone is safe and happy, I would never intervene. 

Your parents don’t owe you free childcare, and nor do your partner’s parents.

I’m sure all grandparents love spending time with their grandchildren, but many opt for the (eminently reasonable) option to do that without obligation, rather than as part of a weekly childcare plan. 

Having grandparents who offer childcare shouldn’t be taken for granted. It is a sacrifice, either of paid work or of retirement relaxation. And, despite how much your kids’ grandparents love them - and I am sure that it is a lot - it is hard work. 

Grandparents are not childcare workers.

This is not, in fact, their job. And to make demands on them which treats them like it is turns what is fundamentally a favour into something uglier - an expectation. An obligation. 

If you have grandparents offering free childcare, it should be accepted for what it is - a gift. 

None of my business

Personally, I have the most beautiful memories of my own grandparent’s house as a place where the usual rules of home didn’t apply.

When we slept over at my grandparents’ house, my brother and I were allowed to stay up past our bedtime, and dinner was always followed by dessert.

In the long run, it did us no harm, but it provided the foundation of the beautiful, trusting relationship I have with both my grandmother and grandfather to this day. 

My grandparents have never acted like my parents, because, crucially, they aren’t my parents.

Their job wasn’t, and isn’t, to raise my brother and me - it was to adore us and indulge us in all the ways they wouldn’t have done with their own kids.

If you have grandparents offering free childcare, it should be accepted for what it is - a gift. Image: Supplied

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When we were with them, we were always safe, and we were always happy, and we felt incredibly lucky to have a special place we could go that sat outside the usual expectations of eating our vegetables. 

When it comes to the grandparents of my own kids, I take the same approach my parents took.

I trust them implicitly - they have many, many more years of parenting under their belts than me, after all - and I know they’ll keep my boys safe.

What happens beyond that is, honestly, none of my business. 

And when I get a photo on a Wednesday of my toddlers with their nana, sipping milkshakes and playing in the shopping centre fire engine ride I never let them go on? I don’t think about the way I would be parenting them if I were there instead. 

I just feel lucky. 

Originally published as Parents have to stop criticising the grandparents giving them free childcare