Child care can't be placed on backs of grandparents

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Sarah Green Carmichael / Bloomberg Opinion

Grandparents don’t get a lot of air time in the conversation about America’s child-care crisis. Yet some 42 percent of parents rely on their own parents to help care for children, a figure that is eerily close to the 40 percent of families that say they don’t have the child care they need.

Nana is often the first call when the regular day-care plan falls through, according to a recent survey by Harris. Grandparents, especially grandmothers, are the invisible glue holding our creaking child-care infrastructure together. Without them, the cracks would be even more apparent.

Human societies have long been organized around prime-age adults bearing children and doing the bulk of the labor while elders help watch over the youngest generation. And multigenerational family support is a beautiful thing. But it would be far better if grandparents were able to provide this degree of help because they truly wanted to, not because life would fall apart without them.

And with people living longer, many of today’s grandparents are still working. “Everyone has this image of Grandma with an apron and a rolling pin,” says Madonna Harrington Meyer, a sociologist at Syracuse University. “But Grandma has a laptop and a job.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-child-care-cant-be-placed-on-backs-of-grandparents/

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. I made ONE thing very clear to my children when they had children...

IT IS NOT MY JOB TO RAISE or LOOK AFTER THEM!

Child-care was their responsibility. I was fortunate to have child care options when I was going to college when my children were younger. Once they got into school, I went back to work part-time. These days, my 3 granddaughters are adults and pre-teens and are pretty much able to take care of themselves.

I made it clear to my adult children that my senior years were not going to be spent taking care of their kids. Both of my children and their spouses make good money. But I realize that many adult children do not have many options and rely on parents way too much.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. Many times

Grandparents are employed full time and live in a different city or state.

[Croney]

2. I was very lucky, I took care of one, then two, then three grandchildren

for 15 years starting in 2005. I'd retired early and was casting about for something to do, when my youngest daughter started having her children.

Now they're teens and don't need Nana in the same ways, so I'm casting about for something new to do. Volunteering looks good. And more Zumba.

[BeckyDem]

4. It is a crisis.

My cousin's daughter is a licensed social worker for a public school in Westchester NY.

Her husband works full time too as a maintenance worker for a hospital.

My cousin and her husband watch their daughters baby 2 weekdays every week, the fathers parents watch the baby the other 3 days.

After their mortgage payments/living expenses, which is a condo, not a house, they cannot afford childcare.

Their salaries are not terrible, it's the cost of childcare, they're significant.